The drive is a nightmare.
Rain hammers the windshield. The wipers can barely keep up, smearing everything into streaks of gray and black.
I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles go white. Not because I'm tense, because I'm shaking so badly I need something to hold onto or I'll lose control completely.
Every few minutes I have to pull over.
The dry heaves hit without warning. My body convulses. Nothing comes up. It’s just my stomach trying to turn itself inside out while I gasp and spit bile onto the shoulder of the road.
Then I get back on the highway and keep driving.
The shakes are constant now. My hands on the wheel. My legs. My whole body vibrating with sickness.
The urge to sleep is overwhelming.
I blast the AC even though I'm freezing. Slap my face hard enough to leave marks. Roll down the window and let the rain hit me.
Anything to stay awake.
A memory comes through the fog.
Vee in the kitchen at three in the morning, flour dusted across her cheek. She'd been crying. I could tell by the redness around her eyes even though she'd wiped the tears away.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing. Just needed to bake."
I pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it. Watched her work. She didn't talk and I didn't push.
Twenty minutes later she said, "I'm scared I'm going to mess this up."
"The cookies?"
"The pack."
"You're not going to mess it up."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do. You know how I know?"
She looked at me. Waiting.
"Because you care enough to be scared. People who mess things up? They don't give a shit. They just barrel through and break stuff and don't look back. But you? You're standing in our kitchen at three in the morning making cookies because you're worried about getting it right. That's not someone who messes things up."
She smiled, small but real.
"Eat a cookie, Drake."
I ate three.
The memory fractures as another wave of nausea hits. I barely get the car stopped before I'm hanging out the door, retching onto the asphalt.
Rain soaks my shirt. My hair. Runs down my face and mixes with the sweat.
I force myself back into the car.
Another memory comes. This one worse.
