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All I’m missing is a relationship and I’ve reached the trifecta.
19
HOPE
Emotion crashes through me as we return to Will’s car. The owner of the store remembered Brandon, remembered the locket, but no one had returned it to his shop. He promised to keep an eye out for it and took my number. It was the best he could do.
I hadn’t really expected the locket to be at the jewelry store. Still, I’d gotten my hopes up higher than I’d realized. It’s what Brandon called my fatal character flaw—my hopes were always too high.
“Are you okay?” Will asks, lowering the volume of the NPR broadcaster discussing the pros and cons of interest-rate hikes. “Do you want music?”
“We listened to my music on the way there. It’s your turn. That’s the rule.” I don’t realize what I’ve said until the words are out of my mouth. That’s only the rule between Brandon and me, established the moment he’d gotten his driver’s license. Shotgun chooses music to. Driver chooses for the way back.
Will changes the station back to the one I chose at the start of our failed mission. A raspy-voiced pop star who’s barely older than my niece croons about first love. Will’s hand reaches out at the same time as mine to turn down the volume. Our fingers touch, and he yanks back his hand.
“Go ahead,” I murmur as the young pop star’s voice gives way to Waze letting us know we’re going straight for another two miles. Two miles and then another fourteen minutes driving through Kingsette’s slow, traffic light–riddled streets in this silence that I have made unbearably awkward.
“Hang on.” Will jerks the steering wheel to the right. The car cuts across three highway lanes. A car horn blares.
My hand shoots to the grab handle, and the seat belt tightens around me, preparing for an impact that’s haunted all my dreams. I brace myself. Images rise up from that dark place I’ve buried. Brakes squealing, metal twisting, glass shattering, screaming.
We glide onto the side of the road. The horn fades. In some distant part of my mind, I register Will leaning over me, bringing a hand to my shoulder.
“Oh, God, Hope. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking how that must ...”
Brakes. Metal. Glass. The sounds clamor over each other, twining into one awful keening in my mind. I grip the handle tighter. My stomach twists.
“Shit. I’m sorry. I feel like all that at the jewelry store is my fault, and I wanted to ...”
Brakes. Metal. Glass. Over and over. Somewhere beyond that keening, Will’s still speaking in that calm, deep voice.
“I know I said you’ll go on an adventure when you’re ready, and you will. I don’t want to push you, but I thought it might be good to go on a mini adventure now. Call it an adventure trial run? Obviously I should have handled that exit better.”
Adventure.The word is a beacon, three clear syllables among the noise, and I hold on to it. Hold on and let it pull me up and above the keening, just high enough that I can push the lid closed over that dark place where those memories have to stay.
Will’s fingers brush mine. “I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head, command myself to look him in his earnest eyes. I don’t need his apology or his pity. Air fills my chest on my inhale,pushing at the walls I’ve built and fortified over the last two years, testing their strength. I exhale. “Please don’t say ‘I’m sorry.’”
He regards me. After a long moment, he nods. “One day you’ll have to tell me why you hate ‘I’m sorry.’”
I open my mouth to deliver my rehearsed answer, but he holds up a finger. “The real answer, Hope. Not the one you give everyone else.”
Will’s car rocks from the force of passing cars. I wipe the sweat from my palms on my jeans.
“I’ll take you home.” He secures his seat belt.
The idea of being in my cramped room with all these memories drawn so close to the surface makes me nauseated. “No, don’t—” I force a smile onto my face. “I mean, we survived that lane change, might as well make the panic attack worth it, right?”
Will’s eyes darken, the conflict he’s not saying aloud etched into the thin line formed by his lips. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Maybe another time.”
“I don’t want to miss another adventure I ... think I’ll regret not going.” I restore my trauma-nurse expression. It doesn’t fit quite right this time, but Will nevertheless sighs at the sight.
“Okay. You’re the boss.”
He checks the rearview mirror and drives—under the speed limit—for another ten minutes. In that time, my pulse returns to normal, and I feel like myself again. Meanwhile, Will’s knuckles have gone white on the steering wheel and his movements are small and jerky.
We park in a dusty lot beside a blue broken-down Toyota Camry and in front of a massive faded sign, the wordADVENTUREjust barely legible. It looks like the entrance to an amusement park, though I’ve never seen one quite so desolate.
