Page 11 of In Somnis

Creepy.

I didn’t notice them earlier, and the hair on my arms rises. This is exactly how women get kidnapped, isn’t it? Middle of nowhere, too many eyes, too much dark.

Scruffy walks beside me, not close enough to touch, but close enough to sense him. He never set off my creep radar tonight, not really, but my pulse is still beating faster the longer we walk.

He comes to a stop a few feet from my Beetle and jerks his chin toward it. I hesitate for only a breath before unlocking it, and then he opens the door for me. When I’m settled inside, he taps on the window and points at the lock. The click echoes loudly in my ears when I press it down. Scruffy nods, looking satisfied, then heads off toward the row of trucks.

I guess I was right. He is a trucker.

I keep watching him, returning the favor of making sure he makes it to his truck safely. His shadow stretches and shrinks under the floodlights, but eventually, the dark swallows him.

Resting my forehead against the steering wheel, I breathe out a long breath.

By pure dumb luck, I stumbled into something close to safety.

A stranger who decided to look out for me instead of… not.

A landlord who hides keys under rocks for strangers.

Maybe that’s not luck. Maybe Oregonians are just nice?

I straighten and curl my hands around the wheel.

Time to find out.

For the first half hour, it’s black road and headlights, nothing but asphalt humming under my tires, but the exhaustion closes in with every mile, and my eyelids drag again.

Nope, not going to happen.

I roll the window down, letting the night air slap my face, and it helps for a second, then not at all. So I crank up the music, and “Unwritten” by Natasha Beddingfield comes on, Tessa’s and my song. Our anthem.

Point taken, universe.

I’m on the right path, even if I can’t see it.

The first chords hit, and I’m already yelling along in my more-than-bad singing voice. In my head, I can see us in our early twenties, in a too-small dorm, jumping on our crappy couch, screaming the words at the top of our lungs until the RA banged on the door and threatened to write us up. We’d just laughed harder, turned it down for all of thirty seconds, then cranked it right back up.

I’m crying before I finish the first chorus. That’s the other thing nobody tells you about grief. It doesn’t wait for right moments. It finds the gaps—the songs, smells, and dumb things. You’re fine, and then you’re not, and then you’re screaming Natasha Bedingfield inside a car on US Hwy 26 in Oregon at nine o’clock at night with mascara somewhere near your chin.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, Tessa.”

That’s when the rain starts. It’s a sprinkle at first, then it turns harder, a relentless drumming against the windshield. The wipers squeal across the glass, useless against the blur, and every mile feels twice as long. I keep the windows cracked anyway, raindrops occasionally splatting my face, mixing with tears until I can’t tell which is which. All of it’s too much—the dark, the rain, the exhaustion, the grief clawing at me, but I keep going and keep scream-singing the chorus.

Finally, my navigation chimes and tells me that I’ve reached my destination.

I turn the music down, roll the windows up, and let silence fall. The parking lot yawns ahead, slick with rain.

I’ve made it.

But I’m running on fumes—gas tank, body, soul—as I park in front of the apartment building and drag myself out of the car. My suitcase waits on the passenger seat until I tug at the zipper to pull it out, and it gives up on me completely. Everything spills out. Clothes, toiletries, my life in fabric and bottles and half-folded mess, strewn across the wet pavement under the yellow glow of a streetlight.

Shit.

I crouch, gathering what I can into shaky arms, raindrops and grief, along with four days of being brave pressing down all at once. My thumb slips on the wet pavement, and I hiss when the nail catches and snaps.

Staring at the broken edge, I sigh before sweeping clothes against my chest that feels as though it might crack open, too, and spill out along the suitcase.

Only a little bit longer, Lenny. Just a little longer.