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Please don’t be flat. Please don’t be flat.
He flings his door open and stuffs himself back inside the car as quickly as possible. In the rush, his elbow accidentally jabs my side. “Shoot, sorry. Are you okay?” He sounds like he really cares.
“No broken ribs. Promise. How’d everything look?”
He points out his window. “This tire up here is toast. I’m surprised we made it as far as we did. We were scraping metal at the end.”
“Are you serious?”
He knows my question is rhetorical.
For a second, we sit in silence, individually processing what this means.
We’re still two hours from Rome, on the outskirts of Sperlonga, without phones, and now we have a flat tire.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. Then as reality really sinks in, I say it again, with emphasis. “OH MY GOD! Noah! What are we going to do?”
“Listen, it could be worse. We’re not totally in the middle of nowhere. I saw some shops back about a mile. I’ll go and see if I can find a mechanic who can tow us and fix the tire.”
Already, I’m unbuckling my seatbelt. “I’ll come with you.”
“Absolutely not. Walking along the highway in rain like this is pure lunacy, but I don’t see any other way around it. You’re staying here. Lock the doors and sit tight. I’ll be back. Okay?”
“Wait. Wear this.”
I hand him my pink baseball hat from my bag.
He’s thoroughly confused.
“Just…so you’re more visible.”
He laughs. “Thanks, but it won’t fit on my head.”
Right. I dig around in my bag, but I have nothing else to give him. I wish I had a neon vest. Glow sticks. Something.
He’s about to open his door and leave when I reach out and grip his bicep, panicked. “Don’t do anything stupid! Walk as far away from the road as you can!”
He turns back to look at me, his eyes narrowed with good humor. “Careful or I’ll start to think you might actually care about me.”
Right before he’s gone for good, I lean over. “Don’t you dare die out there, Noah Peterson!”
Then his car door slams and I’m absolutely, utterly alone. I don’t even have my crossword book to distract me.
I turn around and find Noah walking along the road. I watch him for as long as I can, and when he drifts out of view, my lower lip starts to wobble.
No.
Keep it together.
Noah is doing the brave, hard work. I’m just patiently waiting. I can be good at this. First, I count the cars that pass, and when I get to a hundred, I change course and start reciting Edgar Allan Poe poems that live in my head rent-free. When that gets boring, I decide to look in every compartment in the car, nosing around. There’s not much to work with. Some napkins. A tin of mints that have gone bad. Official-looking Italian documents in the glovebox. Nothing salacious, unfortunately.
Noah has a bag on the floorboard, and though I’m tempted to, I don’t rifle through it—on principle. I’m better than that. But, would you believe it? My pen gets caught on the edge of his bag, and I can’t just leave it like that. Clumsy ol’ me, when I reach down to get it, the pen sort of tugs open the whole bag so I can see clear inside.
Dead cell phone. Soggy hat. Wet book.
I tilt it a little to the side so I can read the title, expecting it to be that economics book he had on the plane.
Night by Elie Wiesel. A favorite book of mine to discuss in class. Judging by the little bookmark between the pages, he’s almost done. Wait… I lean over and squint so I can make out the tiny computer type visible on the scrap of paper he’s using to mark his place.
Ms. Cohen’s Eighth Grade English Class - Required Summer Reading List
Before I can help myself, I reach down for the book and carefully flip it open, extracting the wet paper.
He’s marked through most of the books on my list, tracking his progress. He’s left little notes in the margins. Liked the ending. Reminds me of The Catcher in the Rye. Favorite so far.
Dumbstruck, I replace the paper and tuck the book back into his bag, right where I found it.
Then I sit back in my seat and stare out the front window, utterly speechless.
My hands are shaking.
The gesture strikes me straight through my heart. Books are my love language. Picking up a story and getting lost in a fictional world—to me, there’s nothing better. The fact that he’s taken the time to read these books might as well be a bouquet of red roses, a mixtape left on my front doorstep, a silent speech delivered on white poster boards at Christmas time.
Thunder grows louder overhead, and I turn back over my shoulder and strain my eyes, trying to find Noah in the downpour. Without a clock in the car, I have no idea how long he’s been gone. I can’t even track the sun because of the rain, but let’s get real, it’s not like I could MacGyver a homemade sundial anyway.
