I reminded myself how reckless I had been getting into his car knowing little more than his first name. It hadn’t felt like a choice at the time, but it seemed less logical now as he pulled into the gas station lot and turned the key, cutting off the engine— and “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” on the radio.
His jacket was off, revealing an off-white T-shirt much like the one I was wearing. He must have taken it off while I was sleeping.
After unbuckling his seatbelt, he turned his attention to me, and I shrank slightly under his gaze. I shifted my eyes to the windshield, studying the parked cars along the side of the gas station. A semi-truck sat in the diesel section, its driver filling the tank.
“Do you want to come in?” He asked.
As if I was some child who needed coddling and guidance in public places.
I unbuckled my seatbelt to answer. It would be nice to stretch my legs and see where we were. But Erich didn’t move to get out of the car.
He was waiting—clearly about to lay down some kind of ground rules.
“I meant it about the hair,” he said. “You’ll get a lot of questions from people in there about those bruises, and it’s not going to look good for either of us.”
I hesitated before taking the baseball cap by the bill and plucking it off, sending waves of black hair across my shoulders. I waited for his confirmation, then set the hat back on my head.
With the same devilish half-smile he had shown before I got in the car, he opened the driver’s side door and stepped out onto the pavement. I took a second to watch, mostly to prepare myself for what I was up against if things turned sideways. I could see his back as he stretched his arms over his head, rocking on his feet. After more than five hours of driving, the movement caused his shoulders to flex, showing corded muscles through the white T-shirt he wore.
I knew then and there I was doomed if he decided to snap my neck after his show of humanity back in Belham.
I slowly opened the car door, relieved to find it wasn’t some kind of trap where I’d be locked inside with no handle. I set one foot on the pavement, embracing the feeling of stable ground beneath me, then followed with the other and stepped out of the car.
I forgot I wasn’t wearing shoes until a sharp rock pressed through my sock, piercing the ball of my foot.
Erich had already passed me while I was processing the sharp pain, heading toward the gas station. A few steps ahead, he held the door open after the bell jingled, then paused when he noticed I wasn’t following.
With his one hand on the door and his miffed gaze aimed at me, I stared down to signal I was hostage to the socks on my feet. I couldn’t go inside a store like that.
He let the door swing shut and walked back toward the car, going to the trunk instead of to me. He opened it casually.
A second later, a pair of sneakers landed at my feet, and my would-be getaway driver turned and headed back toward the entrance.
“Thanks,” I muttered, bending down to slip them on. They were worn, close to their end of life, and far too big—but they were something.
He didn’t hold the door open for me this time. My mother would have been silently horrified—a gentleman always gets the door—but I guessed I’d used up that courtesy already.
So, feeling like a clown in Erich’s massive shoes, I opened the door myself and stepped inside, careful not to let my feet slip out.
I had never been inside a gas station before. As strange as that sounded, I’d never had a reason to be. I didn’t know how to drive, and I doubted my parents had ever planned to teach me. There had never been a need—not with the chauffeur at Silent River Plantation filling the limousine during the day.
I was amazed by how much there was. A full section of snacks, a wall of coolers stocked with drinks, a table with coffee and donuts. It was almost beautiful. It could have brought tears to my eyes if I hadn’t been so shell-shocked.
If I tried to speak, my voice would have cracked under the weight of it all, so I stayed quiet, taking everything in until Erich grounded me again.
“Grab whatever you need.”
The amusement in his tone contrasted with the puzzled look he had given me moments before—probably from the awe on my face, like a child seeing a Christmas tree for the first time. I was too overwhelmed to feel embarrassed.
After agonizing over a choice between a Reese’s peanut butter cup and cherry Twizzlers, I ended up grabbing both, along with a bottle of water. Erich waited at the register with a coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and a bottle of Motrin, silently urging me to hurry.
As the attendant rang everything up, my eyes drifted to the newspaper rack beside the counter, searching for any clue about where we were. It was yesterday’s paper, but beneathThe Marshall County TribunereadLewisburg, Tennessee.
A single night of driving had taken us across state lines.
I was far from home.
I couldn’t decide if that made me relieved—or terrified.
