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This is a dream.
Distantly, I’m aware of Mason turning his face away from the window. He sits up. Says something.
My gaze is on the odometer, watching the little red ticker creep up and up and?—
“Watch out!”
I slam on the brakes just as my head snaps up, eyes widening when I see the deer jumping out of the fields up ahead.
The car swerves a bit, fishtailing before straightening and grinding to a lurching stop. On instinct, my arm shoots out next to me, just as Mason’s body is thrown forward.
Chest pressed to my steering wheel, I stare wide-eyed and unblinking through the windshield. Moisture clings to the night in a sort of mist where my headlights sweep over the empty road.
The deer’s already gone.
My arm’s shoved away, and there’s a click, and then the passenger door is being thrown open. I’m vaguely aware of Mason tumbling out onto the road, the sounds of him vomiting echoing into the night.
Save for the dinging coming from my car, his dry heaves and the furious roar of my heart are all that can be heard.
I inhale sharply, gasping.
Fumbling for my seatbelt, I release it, and throw my own door open. Not bothering to close it, I round the front of the car, and crash to my knees in front of Mason, who’s on all fours, spitting at the asphalt.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out.
His eyes are squeezed shut, and he’s cradling his stomach.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I chant, the words running all together. My hands hover around him, fingers clawing at the air. My voice breaks, but I don’t cry. “I’m sorry.”
He lifts his head, reddened eyes meeting mine. He’s panting, lips parted and damp.
“I’m sorry,” I rasp.
His face bunches and we just stay there, kneeling on wet, glittering asphalt. Staring at one another, stripped down to the bone, with nothing but crushed cornfields, icy mist slamming into our faces, an endless black night bearing down on us…
And the wasteland that is all of what we once were, stretched out between us.
It’s a divide I fear we’ll never be able to close, and yet one we can’t help but trek across anyway, clinging to the past. To our histories. To hope. To who we were…
To the girl in both our hearts, who for all we know, is nothing but a ghost.
If there’s a way out of this hell, would we even take it at this point?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I’m not sure how I ended up out here.
It’s the middle of the night, but you wouldn’t know that by the flurry of activity going on around the hotel, both inside and out.
News vans.
Tents.
Flashing red and blue lights.
Back here though, for whatever reason, it’s quiet.
Empty.
