But he didn't feel like he was in shock. He felt eerily calm. Clear-headed, even. Like the part of his brain that was supposed to be screaming had simply checked out.
He needed to get up, pack his things and drive back to town.
He didn't move.
Instead he took another look around himself.
The canopy was gone—blown halfway across the desert by now, probably. His rig was fucked. The lines had snapped clean, which didn't make sense, because he'd checked them this morning. He always checked them.Never be stupid about your rig.
Tyler's voice in his head.
Dustin closed his eyes.
Had he been stupid? Had he missed something? He'd been distracted lately—the duck thing had rattled him more than he wanted to admit, and then there was that weird guy at the bar…
You were supposed to die today.
Dustin opened his eyes.
Had clipboard guy been right?
No. That was insane. That guy had been some overeager fan with a strange sense of humor. People said weird shit to him all the time. It didn't mean anything.
It couldn't mean anything.
He got to his feet. His legs held. His body worked. Everything was fine.
Everything was fine.
The drive back to town took forty minutes.
Dustin didn't remember most of it. He kept his hands at ten and two, kept his eyes on the road, kept the radio off because he couldn't handle noise right now. The desert scrolled past in shades of brown and gold and he thought about nothing.
That was a lie. He thought about Tyler.
He thought about the last time they'd jumped together. How Tyler had laughed on the way up, how he'd been talking about some girl he'd met, how he'd saidrace you to the bottomright before he stepped off the edge.
The town was small. One main street, a gas station, two motels, and a coffee shop that Dustin steered toward. Once he’d reached it, he pulled into a parking spot and sat in his truck for a minute.
He didn't want to go back to his motel room. The silence there would be unbearable. At least a coffee shop had background noise. People talking, mingling, working on their laptops. Proof that the world was still functioning normally even if Dustin's wasn't.
He got out of the truck.
The coffee shop was mostly empty. There was a couple chatting quietly over coffee, a young man reading a newspaper in the corner, and a boredteenager behind the counter. Dustin ordered a latte because it was the first thing his mouth decided to say.
He took his latte and leaned against the counter, not ready to sit down. Sitting down felt too permanent. Like if he stopped moving, he'd have to think about what happened, and he wasn't ready for that.
“Excuse me.”
Dustin ignored the plea, the first time.
“Excuse me. Sir?”
The voice was familiar. Annoyingly familiar.
Dustin turned his head.
Clipboard guy.
