Page 63

WELCOME TO NEVADA passes us, big on a blue sign. The landscape is foreign under a star-heavy sky. I lean my head back against the headrest, the seat cool against my neck.

“If we get caught… I’ll never get to do anything ever again.” It sounds childish, but it weighs heavily on me. “I have my whole life ahead of me; I’m still so young. I’ll never have the chance to get married or have kids—I’ll never even get to make the decision if I want to get married or have kids. There are so many choices I’ll never get to make.”

Preston speaks so quickly and quietly that I almost don’t hear him. “Marry me. That’s a decision you can make.”

He’s so calm and sure—firm in what he’s saying. I turn to him, eyebrows furrowed at his green illuminated face reflecting the dashboard lights.

“I want you to know that I mean this when I say it: You’re actually crazy.”

“Definitely,” he laughs. “But I love you, Wynnie. I’d marry you right now—tonight if you’d let me. Some shitty chapel, you in a dingy-ass dollar store outfit and plastic flowers. Kind of romantic if you ask me.”

I blink at him, unable to speak as my brain rattles through his words, trying to make sense of them.

“We’d get caught. Did you forget that we’re actively on the run? That the woman on the radio didn’t just talk about us? Stopping somewhere where we’d have to closely interact with people is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Not if we’re fast. We just tell them to say the words and not bullshit around. If someone spots us, we run… or we get caught, but either way…” He pauses to glance over at me, recklessness glinting. “We’ll be married.”

“I’m not getting caught,” I mumble. It isn’t for him; it’s for me, as if repeating it enough times will make it true.

He takes my hand, pulling it close to his lips, feathering a few small kisses to the skin as his focus moves back to me. “Marry me.”

There it is again, said so easily, as if it’s the most obvious answer. His look is intense, but not demanding or forceful; it’s unsettling in a way that I don’t expect. Love? Or something in the shape of it.

I tell myself that I hate him; I speak it out loud often, so it’ll be true. This is the same man who pulled me from a life I didn’t know how to escape. I feared him, then hated him, and then reluctantly let him in. My heart and my brain are in a constant battle over him.

The rational part of my brain is screaming. We’d known each other for a little while, but only as acquaintances, never more than that. Exchanges with a counter between us, the ice cream shop, and a handful of phone calls. But then again, hadn’t all those small interactions meant something?

I can’t tell if this is romantic or completely unhinged.

I let out a shaky exhale. “You’re serious?”

“As a bullet.”

Some stupid part of me wants to say yes, not because I’m completely in love, but because at this moment, it’s the only thing that seems to make sense. My only opportunity. We’re hurling into a future that ends in freedom or handcuffs; maybe a marriage with him is the only certainty I can grab onto. It’s surely desperation trying to disguise itself as something more.

Am I so terrified of losing control that I’ll latch onto the first choice offered to me? And what about Preston? Is this his way of trying to bind me to him before everything goes sideways? The questions swirl in my head, making me dizzy and hungry for air.

“I–I don’t know if I can say yes to that. Not because I don’t care about you; I guess I have to at least a little because I haven’t killed you or called the police… I just don’t know if I can trust this yet. We’re running, that changes everything. I need to know that there are some feelings, and my marrying you isn’t just a trauma response or—”

“I get it,” he cuts me off. “But the offer still stands. Now or fifty years from now.”

I don’t know why, but that softens something in me; it’s not just an offer to help me check something off my bucket list. He’s made up his mind and is willing to wait for me to make up mine.

He allows me to pull my hand away when I shift in my seat, and they rest in the same spot Preston often places his hand while he’s driving. My stomach flips when I think about the warm press of his fingers.

Looking at him, really looking, I remember all the times he’s been so sweet to me. Behind every bad thing he’s done, there’s a good intention hiding behind it. I’d buried it all deep inside because I was so angry, but it’s so obviously adoration. Perhaps my need for revenge had been the same thing: love corrupted by pain.

All of it crashes into me at once. It’s not the clarity I expected—not a light bulb moment or a poetic rush of love and certainty. It’s messy and very complicated, but it feels so human.

“I’m not saying no,” I quickly interject before I can stop myself. “I need to think about it a little bit more. If we do this, I’m tied to you forever… I need to be sure it’s for the right reasons.”

“That’s fair. More than fair.”

His expression is unreadable from the place I sit, but I’m positive he isn’t hurt. I know it isn’t rejection he feels; it’s respect for me.

“I’m not going anywhere, though. Even if we don’t get married, or if for whatever reason we have to split up to survive, I’ll find you, and I’ll be with you again.”

I look at the clock, just past midnight. I’m tired, Preston is certainly tired, and maybe that’s why we’re speaking so much marriage nonsense. Or the exhaustion has stripped away all our pretenses, leaving only the truth.