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Ethan
The guy who owned this car must have been shorter than he looked. The whole creaky wreck rattles and squeaks as I adjust everything—seat, mirrors, steering wheel—and wish Victor had at least chosen something made in this decade. I pull away from the curb and into a roundabout, picking up speed.
The seat behind my back already feels wet, and there’s water dripping off Victor’s hair onto his nose. “Can we swing by the hotel to get a change of clothes?”
“No.”
“But—”
I manage to slam on the breaks before he gets the door open and one foot on the ground. He’s breathing hard, like he scared even himself. He glares at me, pale eyes cloudy. “Either you’re on my side or you’re not.” His chin tips up.
“Fine. Get your fucking feet inside.” I’ll figure out what to do later, after he’s asleep.
Thankful for the quiet night roads, I follow signs that seem to take us out of the city. I’ll never find the way back without help.
He tilts his seat back and slumps down, eyes lidded. Every once in a while, his throat convulses as he swallows. His damp tank top has twisted around, exposing all of one thick pec and dusky nipple, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
As the city thins out, I catch more and more glimpses of cypress trees and pale hillsides. Something touches my knee, startling me. He’s watching me, eyes anxious. “Stay by the sea,” he whispers.
“How am I supposed to do that when I have no idea where I’m going?”
Sitting up, he reaches across me, all his movements tentative, like he’s waiting to be hurt. He rolls down my window. “Just listen to it.” The rain has stopped, and the breeze in my hair feels warm.
“Ok.” I can’t hear anything, but I need him to relax.
After a few minutes, his eyes start to drift shut and flutter open again. At last he rolls onto his side with his back to me and stops moving.
I think the sea is to my left, so I keep taking random left turns until I’m on a road where the waves can be heard clearly, with little petrol stations and closed fruit stands whipping past.
Our petrol looks full, thank God. I don’t have enough euros for a tank. I don’t have a shirt or a toothbrush or the charger for my cell. I don’t even have the assurance that I’m doing the right thing. I’m lost in more ways than just streets I don’t recognize and towns whose names I can’t pronounce.
I decide to drive until I know what to do, until any of this makes sense. An hour later, I realize I’m way further from Naples than I intended to go. I slow down, looking for any sign of a hotel, a town, anything. Aside from boarded-up shops and the occasional crumbling beach house, I haven’t seen anything for miles.
Making an abrupt decision, I turn into a narrow lane that winds between huge vineyards until I spot a gravel pull-off almost buried in a thick hedge. Branches scrape the roof as I park and listen to the engine tick, trying to catch my breath. The air smells sweet, and I’ve never been anywhere so quiet.
With a groan, Victor rolls onto his back and stares out the windscreen. The moonlight makes his eyes bright but doesn’t give them any life. He looks like a ghost, barely held to the earth at all.
I clear my throat. “Let’s sleep for a few hours, sober up.” Reaching over him, I snoop through the glovebox. Underneath an atlas, which I take to examine in the morning, I find two oat bars in foil wrappers. “Score.”
Setting one of the bars by his elbow, I open the other and take a big bite. “It’s like wet, expanding sawdust.” I’m starving, so I finish the rest even though it makes me gag.
Ignoring me, he wriggles deeper into his seat and closes his eyes.
I toss and turn, trying and failing to get comfortable. I can’t tell if Victor’s asleep or not, but after staring at him through half-closed eyes, studying the tint of his skin in the moonlight, I take off my jacket and drape it across his bare shoulders.
I roll up my window, reach across to do the same to his, lock the doors, and close my eyes. I thought it would be hard to sleep, but I already feel so lost in a strange dream that moving deeper is an easy matter after all.
Sometime before morning, I jolt awake, convinced that the Italian equivalent of a redneck axe murderer is tearing our car to pieces. The suspension sways crazily to the sound of cracking, snapping plastic.
Something is suffocating next to me, the gulping of someone who needs to scream but can’t get any air. Victor kicks the door again, as hard as he can; in the moonlight I see some part of the body panel shatter and send pieces bouncing off the ceiling.
I grab his shoulder without thinking and he just about decapitates me with his elbow. He scrambles away, pressing his back to the door, gasping.
“You need to breathe,” I say stupidly, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Can’t—” It’s the only word he can force out, and for all that he brags about drowning, in the flash of his eyes in the darkness I can see that he’s terrified to find no air in his lungs.
I grope blindly for understanding. “Did you have a bad dream? It’s not real.”
