Now we’re back down to creeping along at a snail’s pace and the GPS updates, saying it’ll take us an hour to get there at this speed. Hopefully it won’t be that long. I’m not sure I can last any longer in this car with my aunt and this dog.
I don’t even know what to do with them. I don’t know if the hotel will allow dogs, or if there’s room for my aunt, or if this whole thing will blow up in my face. But De Sota is pretty far north from the hurricane so maybe there’s more rooms available and my parents can just pay for her to get her own room.
“I need to make a phone call,” I say. “You can dial the number for me and hand me the phone that way it’ll be safe.”
Aunt Donna laughs. “Honey that’s not safe. Talking on the phone and driving is never safe!”
“It’s literally the same thing as me talking to you now!”
She shakes her head. “No it isn’t. You have to concentrate more on the phone than in real life. You just focus on what you’re doing and your phone calls can wait.”
“No, they can’t,” I say a little snippier than I’d like. “I need to make a call to see if there’s even room for you and your stupid dog at this hotel that my friends are paying for.”
Her eyes widen. I can tell my comment hurt her feelings, but good. Maybe I wanted them to hurt her. She’s being a complete burden on me and Ethan’s family and I need to warn them that she’s coming before we get there.
Her shoulders straighten. “You don’t have to make any calls on my behalf. Roscoe and I will sleep in the parking lot. We just needed to get further away from the storm, so that’s all you have to do. Certainly don’t go out of you way on my account.”
Dammit. Now I feel bad. If it were my parents who had the hotel room, then it wouldn’t matter because she’s family. But my parents are gone and they’ve left me with the responsibility of figuring out what to do.
“I’m sorry I was rude,” I say, staring at the road again. “I just really need to make a call. You can even put it on speakerphone if you want. Hell, you can do the talking. But we need to call Mrs. Poe.”
“No we don’t. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
This time I do roll my eyes.
Ethan’s name flashes across my phone, alerting me that I have a new text from him. I look at the phone, and then at Aunt Donna. “Don’t even think about it,” she says.
I don’t think. I just act. I swerve the car over to the right and slam on my brakes, jerking us to a halt on the side of the road. Roscoe flies forward and licks my face, leaving a fog of his nasty dog breath in the air.
“Happy?” I say, putting the car in park. I even go so far as to turn off the engine and take out the keys just to make a point.
And then I grab my phone and look at Ethan’s text message.
There are so many things I want to say. But nothing will make this better until I’m finally with him. Ethan will help me figure out what to do. He can tell his parents about the two unexpected guests I have in my car and he’ll figure out a plan. It’ll all be okay once I get to him. So I don’t write out all the words I’m thinking of. I just tell him one thing. The only thing that matters.
Soon.
While I’m at it, I might as well read all of my other messages. I go to April’s name and see what she’s been freaking out about. It’s not like her to send a million messages at once. I can only remember her doing that when we had the tornado lockdown in school last year.
April:holy shit, are you okay?
April:Like, seriously. Talk to me.
April:Ella! Please tell me you didn’t see it and drop dead and that you’re a ghost now.
Confused, I type back: see what?
Images of my whole town being demolished, wiped away with the storm, float through my mind. I mean, she must be talking about something I would have seen on the news, right? But then she replies just a few seconds later and I realize she’s not talking about the hurricane at all.
April:Kennedy’s snap? Uh oh, El. Did you not know?
What the hell does Kennedy’s Snapchat have to do with anything? Now that we’ve graduated, we don’t even see her anymore. And I certainly don’t follow her online. Maybe my house got demolished and she somehow took a picture of it and posted it online?
No, that doesn’t make sense… Kennedy would have evacuated too.
I pull up Snapchat and find her profile, which is pretty easy to do because she uses the same username she’s had her whole life. I click on her story and watch as a bunch of lame evacuation photos play on my screen. Boring.
And then, suddenly, it’s not so boring anymore.
A picture of Ethan,myEthan, is on Kennedy’s Snap story. He looks like he’s asleep, and Kennedy is laying against his chest, her eyes staring right at the camera and her lips making a pouty face. The caption reads:poor Ethan is passed out!
My blood runs cold. The next picture is of Kennedy snuggled under a white comforter in what looks like a hotel bed. Behind her, you can see Ethan, clear as day. It’s the back of his head, but I’d recognize it anywhere.
I watch the picture again and again. I go back to the pictures before that and realize that the selfies she posted earlier were taken inside of Ethan’s truck. My throat feels like it’s going to close up.
My aunt watches me, but she doesn’t say anything. I am so confused I can’t think straight. How is Kennedy with Ethan? We left at the same time and she wasn’t with him. She wasn’t even in the picture at all. I just don’t get it. I play the Snap story one more time, even though my hands are shaking and my heart is pounding. My vision blurs, and I blink back tears. But my eyes don’t stay watery for long. Pretty soon I only feel one thing.
Anger.
