“What’s wrong?” I ask, turning back.
“Where did you find that beat-up piece of junk?” Jasper asks Omar.
“Your people gave it to me,” he replies.
Jasper fishes in his pocket and, to my abject shock, pulls out his car key.
“Here.” He shoves the little black key thingy at me. “Take mine.”
“Jasp, it’s fine, you don’t have to—” Before I can finish, he’s grabbed my hand and plopped the key onto my palm, wrapping my fingers around it so I have no choice but to accept. “But you love your car. What if something happens?”
“You’ll make better time this way. And you won’t be stuck at the side of the road when that heap breaks down.”
“You’re sure?” I ask, knowing Jasper wouldn’t give up his car easily.
“Just ...” He glances over my shoulder at Omar. “Don’t let him drive.”
Our mode of transportation sorted, Omar and I drop our stuff in the trunk, and he waits at the open passenger-side door, leaning on the roof.
“I’ll take good care of him,” he says to Jasper—who nods reluctantly—before getting into the car.
I say my last goodbyes to my folks, trying not to be the absolute mess that is my dad, then turn to Jasper.
“Let me know where you are at all times, okay, Bonehead?” he says, pressing his forehead to mine.
“I will. And you can speak to me whenever you want.”
“I love you,” he says, and I say it back.
“More than the moon.”
I don’t want to let him go. There’s an unshakable feeling as if I’m leaving him behind, abandoning him at the most testing moment in his life. But we both know I have to go. And suddenly, the time has come.
I kiss him fiercely one last time, stepping away and letting our joined hands hang in the air between us as long as possible, until finally my fingers slip through his.
“Ready for an adventure?” Omar asks, already settled in the passenger seat.
“Let’s go,” I say, and have to force myself to look at the road and not at the expression on Jasper’s face as I pull away.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
The road slips under us as we cruise west. Omar is leaning one arm on the open window, his head resting on the back of his seat. Driving Jasper’s car feels like piloting a spaceship. The steering is so responsive that one small jerk sideways would have us careening off this highway, but the ground feels smooth, and the engine is barely audible.
“Sick ride,” Omar said about an hour ago, once we’d turned the corner heading away from my parents’ house, and away from Jasper.
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” I said in return, then fell quiet, focusing on driving.
I think Omar got the picture because he hasn’t said much of anything since. For a while he closed his eyes and I wondered if he’d drifted off, if he was as sleep-deprived and stressed as I felt.
Driving in silence, I’m able to think back to the last time I headed out on the road like this, only then Jasper was in the driver’s seat. We barely knew each other, had just discovered we were mates, and Jasper had me fairly convinced he wanted nothing to do with me. But still I remember sitting in the passenger seat, watching his hand as it rested on the gearshift, thinking how close it was to my knee.
His other hand he’d kept wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. I know now he was scared for my safety, that his biggest fear was losing me in the same way he lost his mother. There was even that moment when we’d swerved off the road, driven off by a car heading in the oppositedirection and refusing to turn. In that moment I saw how scared Jasper was.
It was only the start of our journey together, his toward healing the wounds left by his mother’s death, and mine toward understanding what motivated him and kept him from opening up to me. And of course, our journey toward realizing that we’re better off together. Stronger. Happier. My stomach drops as I start to fear that I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Should I have left Jasper right at this moment when he needs me more than ever?
Am I doing the right thing driving off and leaving him behind?
