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“Right.” He ran his fingers into his hair and interlaced his hands behind his head, bending forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He didn’t look like a python. He looked as defeated as she felt. All the anger drained out of her, leaving her shaky and nauseated. She didn’t want to fight with Tom. Clearly, he didn’t want to fight with her either.
She collapsed beside him, and they sat there in the shade, neither of them saying a word. Her heart was beating too fast, her palms sweating, her nerves unpleasantly jacked up. If only she could rewind her life to the first of June. She’d stay home this time. No adventure was worth feeling this wretched.
Her eyes drifted up to trace the shapes of the branches overhead. It really was an impressive tree. Maybe Tom was right. Maybe it would rally.
They had a thousand miles to go.
“Geiger?” she asked.
“Yeah?” He didn’t raise his head.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” She meant it. She was sorry she’d yelled at him, sorry she’d told him she loved him. Sorry to have made everything between them that much harder.
“Me too, Marshall.” He sounded far away.
“Thanks for telling me,” she added.
“No problem.” He took his hands off his head and bridged his knees with his forearms, resting his cheek against his skin. “If I’d known you were going to go so easy on me, I’d have told you a month ago.” His mouth curved into a sad smile that didn’t come anywhere near his eyes.
She smiled back. It felt a little strange on her face, but better than the alternative. “It’s probably for the best that I didn’t become a guidance counselor like my mom suggested, huh?”
“Probably for the best.”
They looked at each other, neither of them quite sure how to pick up the pieces. “Can we still do this?” she asked. “Can we still ride together?”
“We have to,” Tom said. “I don’t have any water.”
“I meant all the way to Virginia.”
“I know what you meant.”
Taking in the stern lines of his face, his vulnerable posture, she remembered what it had felt like that first night they spent together in his tent at Yellowstone when she’d recognized that Tom didn’t have any more control over what was happening between them than she did. Something elemental drew the two of them together even as Tom’s past and her own reservations yanked them apart. He didn’t want to leave her. She didn’t want to leave him. They were stuck with each other, companions who couldn’t work out how
to be more and couldn’t stand to be less.
They had no choice but to keep riding.
Lexie stood up and offered him her hand, and he took it and let her haul him to his feet, nearly toppling her in the process. They ended up in an awkward embrace, both of them holding tight for a long moment before she reluctantly let go.
It was good practice, letting go. Maybe by the time they got to the Atlantic, she’d be a pro.
18
Berea, Kentucky, to Hindman, Kentucky. 3,510 miles traveled.
She’d moved out. Tom kept telling himself she hadn’t really Moved Out, because they hadn’t been living together. Sharing a tent wasn’t the same thing as living together. You couldn’t move out of a structure that was taken apart and put back together again on a daily basis. You could only choose not to sleep in it anymore.
But it was no use. Lexie had moved out, and it was worse than when Haylie had left him. Much worse.
It wasn’t the most pleasant way to find out you were in love, but he supposed it was what he deserved.
In the bright midday light, Lexie’s ponytail gleamed like a copper penny. He watched her crest the hill in front of him and drop out of sight down the other side. He’d been chasing her halfheartedly all morning, but she liked to ride a ways ahead of him these days. Though he’d prefer to be where he could keep an eye on her, she’d made it clear what she thought of his protective impulses.
They’d crossed into Kentucky the day of their fight, finally meeting up with the Appalachians. Kentucky was steep forested ridges, deep valleys with creeks running through them, trailer homes, too many barking dogs. It was green, humid mountain air and dense fog in the morning that kept them from getting an early start and turned spiderwebs on barbed wire fences into dew-drenched works of art. It was long, steep climbs up roads blasted out of rock hillsides and descents around hairpin curves where you had to apply the brakes judiciously to keep from flying right off the edge.
It was Lexie sleeping in her own tent.
After the Big Tree, they’d ridden almost until dusk, neither of them wanting to have to stop and face the other. When they finally settled into bed that night, he’d plucked up the courage to gather her close and kiss her, hoping she’d let him take it further. Knowing his body was the only thing he had to give her. And he’d craved her, needed the assurance she would respond to him as she always did, the oblivion he found when he was deep inside her. She’d met him kiss for kiss, caress for caress. For as long as it lasted, everything had been right between them. But afterward, when she’d looked up at him with flushed cheeks—so damn beautiful it hurt—her eyes had filled with tears. “I can’t do this,” she’d said. And then she’d pulled on her clothes, packed up her things, and left.
