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Travis had thought: Be a hero. Take the keys, get her home safe. She won't care you're not a jock. She won't care if your face is all red and bumpy.
She'll know who you are on the inside . . . she'll love you.
But Caitlin had jumped into the driver's seat, her friends in the back. Being all, "Girlfriend, girlfriend . . ." Travis hadn't let it go. He'd climbed right into the car beside her and tried to talk her out of driving.
Hero . . .
But Caitlin had sped off, plummeting down the driveway and onto Highway 1, ignoring his pleas to let him drive.
"Like, please, Caitlin, pull over!"
But she hadn't even heard him.
"Caitlin, come on! Please!"
And then . . .
The car flying off the road. The sound of metal on stone, the screams--Sounds louder than anything Travis had ever heard.
And still I had to be the goddamn hero.
"Caitlin, listen to me. Can you hear me? Tell them I was driving the car. I haven't had anything to drink. I'll tell them I lost control. It won't be a big deal. If they think you were driving, you'll go to jail."
"Trish, Van? . . . Why aren't they saying anything?"
"Do you hear me, Cait? Get into the passenger seat. Now! The cops'll be here any minute. I was driving! You hear me?"
"Oh, shit, shit, shit."
"Caitlin!"
"Yes, yes. You were driving. . . . Oh, Travis. Thank you!"
As she threw her arms around him, he felt a sensation like none other he'd ever experienced.
She loves me, we'll be together!
But it didn't last.
Afterward, they'd talked some, they'd gone for coffee at Starbucks, lunch at Subway. But soon the times together grew awkward. Caitlin would fall silent and start looking away from him.
Eventually she stopped returning his calls.
Caitlin became even more distant than she'd been before his good deed.
And then look what happened. Everybody on the Peninsula--no, everybody in the world--started hating him.
H8 to break it to you but [the driver] is a total fr33k and a luser . . .
But even then Travis couldn't give up hope. The night Tammy Foster got attacked, Monday, he'd been thinking about Caitlin and couldn't sleep, so he went to her house. To see if she was all right, though mostly thinking, in his fantasy, maybe she'd be hanging out in the backyard or on her front porch. She'd see him and say, "Oh, Travis, I'm sorry I've been so distant. I'm just getting over Trish and Van. But I do love you!"
But the house had been dark. He'd bicycled back home at 2:00 a.m.
The next day the police had shown up and asked him where he'd been that night. He'd instinctively lied and said he was at the Game Shed. Which of course they'd found out he hadn't been. And now they'd definitely think he was the one behind the attack on Tammy.
Everybody hating me . . .
Travis now recalled waking up here after he'd been Tasered. The big man standing over him. Who was he? One of the fathers of the girls killed in the accident?
