“Get in,” Logan snaps impatiently from the passenger seat. The driver is a lanky guy, maybe a few years younger than me, wearing a wide, worn cowboy hat. He eyes me curiously.
My brain is still coming back online, so I stand there for a moment, not computing.
“You need assistance getting in this fucking truck?” Logan asks in an annoyed tone.
I shake my head. When I’m feeling better, I’ll yell right back at him. It’s what we do. But right now, the normalcy of him being an asshole is actually the only thing that helps keep me stable.
I climb into the backseat of the truck, breathing in the scent of motor oil and hay.
“Where are we going?” I ask. Out the window, I watch as we pass a farmhouse, then another long dirt drive. We turn right into a valley cut between mountainous hills, then there’s nothing ahead but more fields.
Logan says, “There’s a small motel in town. We’re going to regroup while I figure out how to get us out of here.”
“Oh. Okay.”
At that, Logan turns in his seat, assessing me with his brows furrowed.
“What?”
His eyes narrow further. “You’re not arguing with me.”
I shrug. “It’s a good plan.”
He waits a beat, then turns back in his seat. The drive into town turns out to be forty-five minutes.
“Where are we?” I eventually ask. The frayed nerves from the crash have finally started to quiet.
“Winnie,” Tanner, our driver, answers, glancing back at me in the rearview. I must look confused, because he adds, “West Virginia.”
“Oh.”
Logan turns in his seat again, but after another narrow-eyed perusal, he faces forward. Finally, we pull up to a squat building with a covered-wagon wheel out front, the spokes flat piecesof wood painted with the words The Appalachian Abode. Four rooms, maybe, plus the main office.
“We’re not that close to the AT, but we still get some tourists,” Tanner explains.
He parks the truck and kills the engine. Tanner hops out first, eager to get us sorted, but the office door is locked. He cups his hands against the glass and peers inside. “No worries. Maybelle’s just gone for lunch.” He straightens up and points down the road. “Diner’s right down there. Better’n Cracker Barrel, good eatin’ if you’re hungry. She’ll be back soon, or I can bring you down there to meet her.”
I trail out of the truck last, my backpack dragging by my fingertips.
Logan agrees while I interject, “No, I don’t want to interrupt her lunch. We can wait.” Logan shoots me an irritated look, but Tanner just smiles, then we say our goodbyes.
I take a seat on a small, weathered bench outside the office. Logan reluctantly joins me. The silence between us isn’t like the charged, tension-filled one on the plane—it’s more like the silence you share with a stranger in an elevator, both of you staring at the doors. We don’t really know each other. But he’s already decided he does, based on whatever Pearl has told him. I shouldn’t be surprised.
I keep turning over what he said on the plane. None of it was true, and I should have defended myself. But the part that hurt the most wasn’t what Logan said about me—it’s the reminder that my sister still hates me that much. Of course, she talks about me like that. I knew she had. I just forget sometimes until something reminds me. Dad believing her is one thing. But Logan doesn’t even know me.
“They better have two rooms,” I mutter after a moment of silence.
“We’re not staying here,” he grumbles, tapping furiously into his phone. “It’s barely noon. I just need to get us a ride, or, worse case scenario, a rental car delivered. The drive to the nearest airport is only—”
“You cannot be serious right now.”
He stops typing but doesn’t look up. “What’s the problem?”
“I am not getting on another plane.”
“What happened was a fluke,” he sighs, as if I’m being unreasonable.
“Logan, you might be an unfeeling robot, but there is no way in hell I am getting on another plane. I will drive to Georgia. I’ll hitchhike. I’ll ride a goddamn horse. Do I know how to ride a horse? No. But I will learn, and I will chafe my thighs raw, and I will eat beans from a can and camp my way to this wedding before I ever set foot on an airplane again.”
