nineteen
If I werecapable of blushing, I think I would.
Scout stops short in front of the old Lexus I wrangled up from one of the Griffin Motors shops. A loaner from one of my brothers.
“This is your car?”
I clear my throat, thinking she might refuse to get in. Or make fun of it. Something. With a shrug, I open her door. “For today.”
She nods and slips inside without a word.
I’d been expecting a bigger fight to get her away from her parents. An argument about not wanting to go through with these things. But I have a feeling she understands the consequences ofnotfollowing the POT’s rules, just the same as all of us.
Neither of us wants to die.
Deep inside, the part I’m desperately trying to ignore, has a tiny hope. A whisper. Maybe she’s doing this because she sees somethingin meand wants this to happen becauseof whoIam. And that it has nothing to do with orders and rules and rituals.
If I let that feeling blossom, then I would have to face the fact that maybe I’m doing thisfor her.
But I hardly know the girl.
I reach for the dash and flip through some radio stations. “What kind of music do you like?”
Her brow furrows. “Not country.”
I shrug and flip to the next station. “Rock?”
“Sure.”
“But you have some favorite music or bands, right?”
“I guess.”
I leave it on the classic rock station and pull out of her driveway as the axel grinds loudly. She grips the door handle.
“What’s that?”
“The axle torque nuts are probably too tight. It’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure? Because that sounds like we’ll die.”
I snort a laugh. “We’re not dying because of torque nuts.”
“Really? Because if you do that to a human, you could get adhesions and they could explode.”
My eyes grow wide as I stare straight ahead. I really have no idea what she’s talking about. “Well, a car’s not a human body.”
Beneath a breath, she mutters, “Pretty close.”
It’s silent for a long while. I have a million questions rolling through my head I want to ask her, but every time I start to, I worry she’ll shut me down.
“My dad loves this song,” she finally says, breaking the quiet air. It’s almost as if she says it to herself.
I nod to the beat of “When the Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin.
“It’s one of my favorites, too.” Because I’ve felt like that my entire life. One more raindrop, and the flood is coming.
I feel it in this car. Like, if one small thing happens? We’re fucked.
