“Thank you,” Finn says tightly. I hope he’ll leave it at that, but he presses, “Why was last night a onetime thing?”
Taking a long pull from my too-sweet coffee, I say, “It’s not a big deal. Just two people getting something out of their system, right?”
His eyes don’t leave my face. “And am I out of your system now?” His voice thrums through me, and I have to look away. I make the mistake of looking out the window at the hood of the Singer, and the memory of this morning comes flooding back to me. I can still smell Finn on my skin. I feel myself blushing.No.I don’t know that I’ll ever get Finn out of my system.
“Yes,” I lie.
Something vanishes from his eyes. Something like hope. “All right then.”
THE CAR CRUNCHES OUTof the gravel parking lot, and Finn maneuvers us back to the highway. He doesn’t tap along to the beat of any oldies now. Instead, he switches the station to Bloomberg Radio, and I learn more about the bauxite commodity market than I ever wanted to. I take the time to reply to a few work emails and text an update to Nikki. We’re almost past Flagstaff before I think to look up flights from Albuquerque for Sybil.
“If we can get her on one of these five p.m. flights back to LA, I think she can make it to most of the rehearsal dinner.” Our window to catch up to Sybil is tightening, but we might still have a shot at getting her back in time for tonight’s event.
Something flickers across Finn’s face, but he just nods. “Let me top off our tank before we get too far past Flagstaff.” Those are the most words he’s said to me in a row since we left the diner.
Finn handles gas while I run inside to get snacks. We’re getting to the end of our time together, and I don’t want to end it on such a sour note. I grab all the snacks I remember Finn packing for debate trips. One time, sitting on the bus, he turned to me very seriously, and said, “The secret to a perfect snack is the combination of salty and sweet. You need your sweet snacks.” He held up a half-eaten package of chocolate cupcakes. “And you need your salty.” He pulled a Slim Jimfrom his backpack and twisted it in half, handing part of it to me. “It’s all about balance, Emma.”
As I drop a handful of Slim Jims into my basket, I wonder if it’s even worth the effort. It’s really not fair that Finn is so pissy right now. Isn’t this what he wanted? No strings. After paying, I head back toward the Singer. Unwrapping a Snickers bar, I take a few bites as I cross the parking lot. Finn is still parked beside the gas pump, but he seems to have finished filling the tank. He’s on the phone, his back to me, but I can still hear him, and my ears perk up when I realize who he’s talking to.
“Sybil, I know you. I know you sometimes just need to take things to the end of the road. To see how far they’ll go. But remember what I told you that night—you deserve someone who will love all of you. Okay?”
Relief floods through me that Finn has been able to nail down Sybil. He ends the phone call and turns around. I smile at him. “What did she say? Can she meet us at the airport?”
But as soon as he sees me, Finn freezes.
20
FRIDAY AFTERNOON
(One day before the wedding)
“IDIDN’T MEAN FORyou to overhear that.” Finn’s tone is clipped.
“Okay…” I look at him quizzically.
“It’s just, I didn’t want to get your hopes up. She didn’t pick up. I was leaving her a voicemail.”
“Oh. Too bad.” I stand there like a moron, holding the plastic bag of gas station treats. The sun is high in the sky now, and the heat beats down between us. Finn squints at me, but he doesn’t say anything. At a loss for what else to say, I venture, “So… should we get back on the road?”
“We should.” Finn lets out a deep breath and returns to the driver’s side. I slip into the passenger seat, feeling like a character in a horror film who doesn’t know there’s a psychowith a knife behind her. Like there’s some big obvious reason why Finn is so edgy about my overhearing his call with Sybil, but I’m just too blind to see it. He fires up the Singer and pulls out of the parking lot, leaning a little heavier on the gas than he usually does. I reach out to steady myself on the center console.
“That voicemail sounded pretty intense,” I toss out, hoping Finn will elaborate.
“I’m just worried about her,” Finn replies, his eyes trained on the road. “I don’t like the idea of her getting back with Liam.”
I wait for him to say more, but he slips back into silence. “What did you mean?” I ask. “On your voicemail to Sybil when you said, ‘Remember what I told you that night’?”
“It was nothing.” Finn reaches out to turn on the radio, the international signal forI don’t want to talk about this anymore, but I’m not letting go that easy. I’m getting the distinct impression that Finn knows more than he’s telling me about where Sybil is, about why she might have run in the first place.
“If it’s nothing, why not just tell me? Was it something that you guys talked about on Wednesday night at the tequila bar? Because if you said something that set her off, then I think I deserve to—”
“I was talking about prom night,” Finn says through gritted teeth.
Prom night?Why would Finn bring up prom night? I rack my brain trying to come up with a reason for why, nearly a decade on, they’d still be talking about prom—especially since Finn wasn’t even at the dance. I think back to that night. I remember standing on the dance floor, Sybil evasively telling me that she borrowed Finn’s car to come to the dance.I remember storming to Finn’s house, telling him I wasn’t a consolation prize… Then I remember another night, years later, on our rooftop when Finn revealed he’d been at the hospital the day of prom—not at the mall like Sybil had said. He told me Sybil had been there too. When I asked her about it, she brushed me off—I was just picking up a prescription for my grandpa. I had accepted this explanation at the time, too wrapped up in Finn and everything that had happened on the rooftop to give it much thought. But now, there’s a squirming in my gut. I can’t shake the feeling that something major happened between Sybil and Finn that night that they’re not telling me about. Something that Sybil has been carrying around with her for eleven years. Something that might explain why she bolted from her happily ever after.
I take a deep breath, trying to stave off a wave of anxiety and agitation. I’m operating on barely three hours of sleep, and I can feel myself growing snappish. “Finn, please. You have to tell me what happened with Sybil at the hospital.”
Finn looks over at me, starts to open his mouth, then closes it. Finally, he sighs and says, “It’s not my story to—”
