“Only because I didn’t want to go to Target and get some more. If I hadn’t been working, I wouldn’t havecared.”
“Uh-huh.” I didn’t want to get into the fact that he didn’t seem to care about much at all these days. “We’re not stopping in Wisconsin, by the way. Joe booked us a hotel inMinneapolis.”
“Joe? I thought Jed planned theroute?”
“He helped, then Joe got all excited about Minneapolis. Said there was a club wehadtogoto.”
Pete stared at me with mock horror that likely had a healthy dose of realness. “You letJoechoose a club and a hotel for us to go to? What the hell would you have done if I hadn’t stopped being an asshole at the lastminute?”
“Slept in the van. I put a mattress in the back in case I couldn’t find any more hotels on the way, and you know what, Pete? I’d have been fine ’cause I’m not a fuckingchild.”
Pete said nothing. Just stared at me some more, apparently incredulous, and so I turned my attention back to the road. His hand on my thigh startled me a few secondslater.
“Sorry.” His warm fingers burned. “I’m just getting a little freaked out that you really might’ve been out here on your own. I’m so sorry, Ash. What’s wrongwithme?”
“You’re nothappy.”
“Iknow.”
* * *
Halfway to Minneapoliswe stopped for gas, and Pete hassled me out of the driver seat. “What? Were you going to drive for seven hoursstraight?”
“No.” I slid across to make room for him. “I was going to stop and take some pictures forDanni.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “Right. Whodoesthat?”
“She does. So I figured I’d do it for her this time seeing as I was going to be bymyself.”
Pete’s only response was a grunt as the van’s engine rumbled to life, but as he eased out of the gas station and back into the traffic, guilt clouded his gaze again. “You shouldn’t have been contemplating going anywhere onyourown.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to come without that last minute scheduling snafu, and we both know it, so maybe I should’ve contemplated it all along.” I took a deep breath. It was time to be real. “I was kinda devastated when I figured that you really weren’tcoming.”
“Ash—”
“I know, I know. You hadtowork.”
“Fuckwork.”
“How? Your job is who you are as much asmineis.”
“Not if it’s all I am. Ash, I haven’t taken more than a week off since I started at the hospital, even whenMaggiedied.”
“You didn’t want to. Ellen would’ve given you a month off if you’d just fuckingaskedher.”
It came out sharper than I’d intended. Pete set his jaw and stuck his hand in the bag of Twizzlers I’d stashed down the side of the driver seat. “When was the last time you didn’t draw for more than a week? And where do you turn when shitgetsreal?”
“I don’t draw to punish myself. You work yourself into the ground because you’ve been doing it your whole life and you don’t knowanythingelse.”
“You’ve answered your own question there,” Pete saiddryly.
“I didn’t ask youanything.”
“Touché.”
Pete fell silent for a while, and I gazed out of the window at the flat landscape. To an outside observer, our dead-end conversations would’ve served no purpose, but I knew Pete better than I knew myself, and my faith in him grew stronger with every mile we leftbehind.
* * *
