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“The car’s coming in forty-five minutes!” Michael’s dad calls up.
Under no circumstances can I go.
Michael’s wardrobe consists mostly of T-shirts for heavy metal bands. I throw one on, as well as jeans.
“You’re just asking Homeland Security to give you a full cavity search,” one of my sisters says as I pass her in the hall.
I am still trying to figure out what to do.
Michael doesn’t have his license, and I don’t think it would help for me to steal one of his parents’ cars. His older sister’s wedding isn’t until Friday, so at least I’m not jeopardizing his attendance there. But who am I kidding? Even if the wedding were this evening, I wouldn’t get on that plane.
I know I am going to get Michael in a huge amount of trouble. I apologize to him profusely as I write my note and leave it on the kitchen table.
I can’t go today. I am so sorry. I will be back later tonight. Go without me. I’ll get there somehow by Thursday.
While everyone else is upstairs, I walk out the back door.
I could call a cab, but I’m afraid his parents will call the local cab companies to see if they’ve picked up any metalhead teens lately. I am at least two hours away from Rhiannon. I take the nearest bus I can find, and ask the driver the best way to get to her town. He laughs and says, “By car.” I tell him that’s not an option, and in return he tells me I’ll probably have to head to Baltimore and then back out again.
It takes about seven hours.
School isn’t out yet when I get there, having walked about a mile from the center of town. Again, nobody stops me, even though I’m a big, hairy, sweaty guy in a Metallica T-shirt storming up the steps.
I try to remember Rhiannon’s schedule from when I was inside her head, and have a vague recollection that this period is gym. I check the gymnasium and find it empty. The natural next stop is the fields, which are behind the school. When I walk out, I find a softball game in action. Rhiannon is at third base.
She sees me out of the corner of her eye. I wave. It’s unclear whether she recognizes me as me or not. I feel too out in the open, too much in the line of the gym teacher’s sight. So I retreat back to the school, by the door. Just another slacker, taking a smokeless smoke break.
Rhiannon walks over to one of the teachers and says something. The teacher looks sympathetic, and puts another student on third base. Rhiannon starts heading toward the school. I step back inside, and wait for her in the empty gym.
“Hey,” I say once she steps inside.
“Where the hell were you?” she replies.
I’ve never seen her this angry before. It’s the kind of anger that comes when you feel betrayed by not just a single person, but the universe.
“I was locked in my room,” I tell her. “It was awful. There wasn’t even a computer.”
“I waited for you,” she tells me. “I got up. Made the bed. Had some breakfast. And then I waited. The reception on my phone went on and off, so I figured that had to be it. I started reading old issues of Field & Stream, because that’s the only reading material up there. Then I heard footsteps. I was so excited. When I heard someone at the door, I ran to it.
“Well, it wasn’t you. It was this eighty-year-old guy. And he had this dead deer with him. I don’t know who was more surprised. I just screamed when I saw him. And he nearly had a heart attack. I wasn’t naked, but I was close. I was so ashamed of myself. He wasn’t even sweet about it. He said I was trespassing. I told him Artie was my uncle, but he wasn’t believing me. I think the only thing that saved me was that Artie and I have the same last name. I was there in my underwear, showing this guy my ID. There was blood on his hands. And he said there were other guys coming. He’d just assumed my car was one of theirs.
“The problem was—I still thought you were coming. So I couldn’t leave. I put on my clothes, and had to sit there as they came and gutted that poor deer. I waited there after they left. I waited there until dark. The cabin smelled like blood, A. But I stayed there. And you never came.”
I tell her about Dana. Then I tell her about Michael, and running out of his house.
It’s something. But it’s not enough.
“How are we supposed to do this?” she asks me. “How?”
I want there to be an answer. I want to have an answer.
“Come here,” I say. And I hold her close, because that’s the only answer I have.
We stand like that for a minute, each not knowing what comes next. When the door to the gym opens, we pull away from each other. But we’re too late. I figure it’s one of the gym teachers, or another girl from class. But it’s not even that door. It’s the door from the school side, and it’s Justin who’s walked through.
“What the hell?” he says. “What. The. Hell?”
Rhiannon tries to explain. “Justin—” she begins. But he cuts her off.
