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I tell her as soon as possible, sending her hurrying off for a quick shower. The tiny wobble when she stands hits me right in the gut. All this travel, this stress, cannot be helping her recuperation.
Thirty minutes later we’re on the road with my assurance that we’ll stop at the first drive-thru we find. Within the hour I should have food and coffee in her stomach, at which time I will verify that medications find their way to her full stomach.
The sun crested the horizon within the last few minutes, and I set my sunglasses on my nose. Annalise clutches the pillow that I brought along and that she thanked me for profusely. I’m hoping she’ll sleep, but she’s restless, practically in constant motion, readjusting and punching the limp pillow, trying to get it just so. Twenty minutes later she has given up and is squinting into the sun and digging in my center console.
“Here ya go.” I find the extra sunglasses wedged under the armrest and watch her put them on. She’s adorable behind the mirrored lenses. There’s nothing about this woman that doesn’t make me want to grab on and hold tight. Oh, the joy it would be to have her as mine—in the most innocent of ways, promise. The other goes without saying, of course, but I can say it’s taken a backseat to my longing to hold her and make everything right in her world. To make her world mine for a long time.
Maybe forever.
Oh brother.
I am so not the guy for that, a million reasons why.
Fine time I pick to get interested in forever. Clearly, my rational self is getting worked over by my sleep-deprived brain.
“Uh, Marco…” Sunglasses scooted to the tip of her nose, she delivers a pointed look across the cab. I follow her laser stare to the dashboard, andoops.I let up on the gas and set the cruise.
Soon, the flat desert will turn to flat prairie, and ultimately to sweeping farmland. My stomach hurts. This could be the last time I see my home state for some time to come. Far worse, I don’t know when—or if—I’ll ever see Annalise after today. Not gonna lie, I’ve grown accustomed to her presence.
After our drive-thru run, she nibbles at her food.
“Better eat enough to take your meds.”
“You’re worse than my mother.”
“Glad to be of service.”
She digs through her purse and a few minutes later is chasing a handful of pills and multicolored capsules with the bottled water she ordered at the window. “How far is it to Lubbock?”
“About three hours. We should be there by ten-thirty.”
Arms folded, gaze distant, she nods. I can guess what she’s thinking, but I’m not wading in if I don’t have to.
The steady drone of tire on asphalt is lulling my sleepless self into a dangerous, trancelike state. After getting Tripp’s lead, as well as a healthy sense of my impending demise from Harvey, sleep was off the table. I spent the wee hours plotting and planning.
Praying.
I queue up my playlist, hoping music will drown out the throbbing silence that pulsates with words I hope Annalise doesn’t utter. Things likeplease don’t abandon meanddon’t make me get on an airplane,andI’m not ready to go back.
I wish I could be her white knight, but life and reality are crashing down like Humpty’s wall. My great fall is imminent.
One by one, the miles tick away, and I feel her mood do the same. We’re almost to the state line when she finally says what I expected all along.
“I’m not going to the airport.”
“I’ve been waiting for this.”
She folds her arms hard across her chest.
I sigh. “Annalise, you have a great family. Let them be there for you.”
“I’m not ready yet.”
“Then don’t tell them what’s up. That’s your call, but at least you have people to go back to.”
She scowls across the seat at me. “Get real, Marco. Tripp will give me no peace without every tiny detail of what’s been going on, and Mom and Dad, regardless of what he has or hasn’t told them, are going to take one look at me and freak.”
My eyes sweep over her. She has a point. Makeup might cover the off skin tone, but nothing will disguise the deep purple bruises, slowly becoming infused with yellow, on the backs of her hands. I don’t know if she got a trainee, or, more likely, the nurses were in a panic to get IVs in, lifelines to pump antibiotics and whatever else through. A shudder courses through me. I was so afraid that night, afraid I was going to have to call my friend and tell him his sister was gone.
