by Leah Konen
For the last hour or so, I’ve been telling myself that this was all in my head. I knew it was ill advised, and I knew what romance does to people, and I knew, most of all, that this was all a bad idea. But it didn’t matter anyway, because I always had the fact that he was completely taken with somebody else to fall back on.
And I still do, I guess.
And yet he still hasn’t answered.
I can’t help but think about how he lifted me up in the Enterprise office and spun me around, how for those brief, wonderful moments, I thought that maybe, just maybe, it was me he wanted, not her.
I hoped it was true.
It was a tiny hope, as small as the snowflakes spinning in the air around us, but a hope just the same. One I hadn’t realized I had until now.
But does that make it all okay?
He’s going to tell another girl he cares about her, that he wishes they were still together. Does that make me the other woman this time?
Because if that’s the case, I couldn’t stand it.
I know it’s different—that Noah’s not married, that the girl isn’t even aware that he’s coming to surprise her tonight, that we’re teenagers, not old people with families and stuff—but still, he told me that she’s the one for him. He’s been telling me this entire trip that he regrets breaking up with her.
I’m rationalizing, and I know this, but I want it to be the truth.
Because I want him to be right for me.
As much as I’ve been telling myself otherwise, as much as I’ve been reminding myself of my vow, sitting here in the car with him, it’s hard to listen to anything but my heart.
And he still hasn’t answered.
I don’t know how to put it all into words.
Don’t pick her! Pick me!
It’s all ridiculous. All sappy. All everything I wanted to avoid.
So I stare straight ahead. So I begin picking at the tiny bit of leftover nail polish on my thumb. So I’m silent and still.
But suddenly, none of that matters.
I recognize the familiar feeling of ice beneath the car, see Noah’s fists clench, like they do every time the car hits a patch; we swerve, and he says: “I don’t know how to answer that.”
And I want to ask, what in the world does that mean?
I want to make him clarify. Make him tell me whatever is going on in the deepest part of his heart. But I can’t. I don’t have time.
“Damn it,” he says. The car is still moving. Noah turns the wheel, but it’s like the car has a mind of its own. I feel a bumping, and my whole body begins to bounce. Just like that, the car swerves out of its lane, and it keeps on swerving.
I turn to Noah. His hands are still on the wheel, but his face looks terrified now, and I don’t even know what order it all happens, but we’re still moving, on the edge of the road, toward the shoulder, the ice carrying us where it wants us to go. I brace my hands on the dash and Noah swears again, and then he slams on the brakes and . . .
We spin.
One, two, three times maybe. I don’t even know.
The world, the darkness, the storm is all around us, and we are spinning frantically, and my blood is pumping, and my breathing is so fast I’m scared I’m going to have a full-on panic attack, just like my mom, and Lord knows what will happen now. If I’ll ever make it home at all. If I’ll see my dad or my mom or Kat or Bea or Dara or Simone or even Sophie—if I’ll see any of them ever again. And all I can think is that I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about being mad. I don’t care about last Thanksgiving. I don’t care that my dad left and built a new family without us. I don’t care if it was my fault or his or my mom’s or anyone’s.
I just want to see them. All of them.
I just want another chance to love them.
I want another chance to forgive myself, to forgive everyone.
Noah’s hands grasp the wheel desperately, and I move one hand to his thigh, the other to the side of the door, bracing myself.
And then—finally—the spinning slows.
We can see again. The road and the trees and the fluorescent lights flanking the highway in the distance.
And then we finally come to a stop.
NOAH
6:38 P.M.
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT.
I seriously can’t believe it.
My heart is racing so fast it’s scary, but the world is going on like nothing happened, the snow still falling, the lit-up signs on the other side of the highway glowing, the wind outside the car whirring.
The car is turned around, off in the grass next to the shoulder but facing the wrong way, like a toddler dropped us haphazardly on the toy road set at his preschool.
Ammy’s hand is in mine. I grabbed it as soon as the car stopped, without even thinking. I can feel her pulse. It’s fast and furious. Like the car was only a minute ago.
I turn to look at her, and she’s sitting rigidly straight, her eyes locked ahead. Shocked.
I find my voice before she does. “Are you okay?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, only breathes in and out, in and out, her breaths labored . . . heavy, yet short.
My hand is still in hers. I don’t let it go. I couldn’t let it go, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, because she’s holding on to it so tight.
I give it a squeeze and ask again, “Are you okay?”
That jolts her out of it. She turns, and her eyes are huge and doe-like, as if she’s an animal lost in the woods in one of those fairy tales my grandma used to read to me.
“I think so,” she says finally.
All that could have happened, it terrifies me.
Damn adventures. We could have gotten hurt. Worse, we could have . . .
I can’t think of it, because it’s the polar opposite of everything I want.
I want to protect her. So badly.
I want to make sure she never gets hurt.
“Are you?” she asks, her voice shaking.
“I think so, too.”
Her hand squeezes mine back. Then she returns to staring through the window. “Just sit a second. Just don’t talk. I’m okay.”
I glance down at my legs and then over at her. No blood. No bruises. No nothing. My shoulders hurt a little from where they slammed back against the seat, but in the grand scheme of things, we both seem okay. No one but the two of us will ever know what it felt like, what it meant.
We’re okay.
We’re just scared out of our minds, that’s all.
“I’ve been driving for two years in the winters here, and nothing like that has ever happened to me,” I say.
“I thought I told you not to talk,” Ammy says, but she squeezes my hand again.
She’s still staring straight ahead.
“I’m really sorry. I had no idea that was going to happen. I never would have driven if I thought that . . . well, I’m so sorry. About everything. I could never get over it if I caused something to happen to you.”
My eyes are wet. I brush the tears away with the back of my hand, the hand that’s not holding hers, hoping she doesn’t notice.
Knowing that even if she did, she wouldn’t care. She’s cool like that. She’s not one to judge.
“You really suck at not talking,” she says.
I laugh harder, and more tears come. I wipe them away. “I know.”
She lets go of my hand and turns to me. She leans forward and runs a thumb along the bottom of my eyelid.
I feel a chill run through me, a tingling all over. Like waking up after a long dream.
I look at Ammy, and I want so badly to do something I know, very much, that I shouldn’t.
But then her hand drops from my face and she leans back in her seat.
Relief. Calm. Disappointment.
“We can’t keep driving in this,” she says.
“I know,” I say. Even though we’ve only gone just over twenty-five miles, and we still have fifty-five to go.
Then she points through
the window, at the neon lights on the other side of the highway.
All I can do is nod.
It’s a Super 8. Quite possibly the worst of all the motel chains. A crappy motel, for us and us alone. I can’t help it . . . the thought of that drives me wild.
I pull out slowly, the gravel and snow on the side of the road crunching beneath the wheels of the car.
My heart beating wildly once again.
It takes us fifteen full minutes to get there. We have to get back on the road, take the next exit, and wind around to the other side of the highway. I’m so damn nervous—about crashing the car? About spending the night with her?—that I don’t dare go above fifteen miles per hour.
Finally, we pull into the parking lot, which is mainly empty. That means vacancy; it has to mean vacancy.
I park the car as close as I can to the front.
“I’ll handle this,” I say.
Ammy puts a hand on my shoulder as she unclicks her seat belt. “No. I’ll come with you.”
We walk up to the awning and approach a set of double glass doors that don’t look like they’ve been cleaned very recently. The door opens, and at first glance, it looks like no one’s inside. I start to worry, but Ammy walks up to the desk and dings a bell like she owns the joint.
As we wait, I contemplate the prospect of us setting up camp on the crappy couch in the lobby if no one shows. I’m convinced that somehow no one will show, even though it’s not even seven o’clock. It’s been that kind of a day.
But finally, a guy our age approaches.
“Help you?” he asks. He’s got curly hair, scruffy stubble, and a weak chin.
I breathe deeply, preparing. Ammy looked up the Motel 6 policy on her phone while we drove. Most locations will let you in if you’re only eighteen. Some require you to be twenty-one. I pray that this is the former. “We’d like a room for tonight, please.”
The guy starts typing on the computer. I sigh, relieved.
“Single or double?” he asks.
“Double!” Ammy says before I can join her.
“Two full beds it is,” he says. “ID?”
I retrieve my wallet. Push it over to him.
The moment of truth . . .
He picks it up, looks at it for a minute.
“So here’s the thing . . . ,” he says.
Crap. Damn it. Balls.
Ammy jerks her head up. She’s thinking the same thing I am.
“I’m from Hudson, too. Went to Hudson High. You?”
My heart bursts with joy. He probably just wants to reminisce; he looks like the kind of guy for whom high school was the highlight of life.
“Nah,” I lie. “Private school.”
“Aww, man,” he says. “I love catching up about the good old days.”
Bingo.
“Breakfast starts at seven. Checkout is at eleven. Enjoy!”
He gives me the keys, and I turn to Ammy. Her eyes are full of so many things . . . exhaustion and, of course, relief.
But there’s something else in there, too. Excitement?
When I left this morning, I had no idea I’d be spending the night with another girl.
And I had no idea just how thrilled that would make me.
AMMY
7:18 P.M.
THERE’S A HUGE UPTICK IN MY PULSE AS SOON AS WE walk into the room.
My eyes go straight to the beds, with ugly mauve floral-patterned coverlets that look like they came from an old lady’s yard sale, but oh so close together, only a couple of feet between them.
Only a couple of feet between him and me.
It doesn’t disappoint me, this fact.
If I’m being totally honest, that is.
For a crazy second, I almost wish that there hadn’t been a room with two beds available. That there had only been one. . . .
I’m being nuts. I force myself to stop and take a deep breath.
But Noah shuts the door behind us, and I feel a tiny electric shock shoot through my body as it fully sinks in that I’m in a motel room. With a boy. Someone who I only met eight hours ago. Someone who’s already so deep under my skin I know I’m not going to be able to get him out.
“Which bed do you want?” I ask him.
Noah comes up next to me, and I can feel his presence all over me. It’s so big and imposing, here in this tiny motel room. He gives me a pat on the back, and my skin seems to come alive where he touches it. “Your pick, Mrs. Adler.”
I turn to him, try to stay composed. Cool. He’s got a stupid grin on. “You know I would never take a dude’s name,” I say. “Ever. I’m Ammy West until the day I die.”
He chuckles. “It was a joke.”
My narrowed eyebrows don’t move an inch. He throws his hands up. “All right, all right, fair enough—don’t take my last name.” He winks. “I wouldn’t either if my name was so cool.”
He smiles, and I pause, realizing that I hadn’t told him my full name until now.
That now he could look me up on Facebook, message me, talk to me, tell me all his secrets, long after tonight.
But if he’s thinking that, he doesn’t say it. “So I take it that means you don’t want to pretend marry me?”
I shake my head, but I feel my face getting hot all over. I hope it’s not turning red. “I’ll pass.”
Needing an excuse to look away, I set my suitcase on the bed closest to the window. I pull off my gloves, tossing them on top of my suitcase, and sit down. The comforter is as scratchy as it is ugly, like sandpaper against the palms of my hands. The bed creaks as I plop down, doing justice to the cheap motel room cliché.
“I’ll take this one,” I say, my face fully composed now.
He tosses his bag on the other side, plops down himself. “Well, that leaves this one for me.” He grins. He’s enjoying this, our little charade.
And I am, too.
I look around. A beat-up, puke-brown shade is drawn, and the carpet is this distracting teal that I think I’ve only seen before in the Crayola crayon box. There’s a print of a bad painting of a lake on the opposite wall, over a flat-screen TV that looks to be the only modern upgrade in decades. The walls are expired-milk white, and the lights are somehow too bright and not bright enough at the same time, one of the lampshades tilted haphazardly like someone tossed it on while they were drunk.
Noah leans forward, putting his hands on his knees, and looks at me. “Well, it’s not exactly a quaint ski lodge, but it will have to do.”
I smirk. “I know; here I thought the Catskills were supposed to be charming. That’s what my dad is always saying, at least.”
“We’re not in the Catskills,” he says, laughing. “Hudson is closer to the Berkshires, if anything.”
My dad was always going on about the magic of the Catskills, where he met Sophie. I guess I got them mixed up. It’s hard to keep up with facts when you’re learning that your family is falling apart. “Whatever,” I say quickly.
Noah sits up a little straighter. “Do you need to . . . uh . . . tell anyone you’re here?”
I take a quick short breath, and then I look over to my bag like it’s an alarm or something. “Oh shit.”
“Forgot?”
I hop off the bed, rush to my purse, and pull out my phone without even answering. There are three texts from Kat.
Girl, what’s going on? I’m worried about you!
Are you going to make any of the party?
Lemme know you’re OK, ok?
I type back as fast as I can.
Loooooooooooooong story, but the train broke down and this guy and I tried to rent a car, we hit ice, and now we’re in a motel
She doesn’t say anything back, so I send her one more text.
I’m sorry to miss everything but don’t worry about me, hopefully home tomorrow.
And then, because I can’t help myself, I open the muted conversation with my mom.
Is it over?
What was it like?
I guess you’
re not talking to me now?
I tap out of the conversation, because there’s nothing to say to her.
When I put my phone down, I see that Noah’s staring at me, leaning back on his elbows, grinning.
His smile pushes the bullshit one-sided convo with my mom right where it needs to go—away. His smile gets my heart beating quickly again. His smile makes me want to jump right into that bed with him.
“So you still won’t tell me?” he asks.
“Tell you what?” I sit back down on the bed. My bed. The safe zone. The zone where I don’t lose my mind wondering if he’s going to touch me again.
“Why you’re here. I mean, we did have sort of a deal, and I did go first, and whatever’s going on, it’s probably not your fault, unlike with me, since I got into this whole mess due to not being able to jump off a cliff . . .” His voice trails off.
I force myself to laugh, to lighten the mood if anything. But inside, I’m pissed. At this stupid girl who would try and make him feel like he needed to be anyone else but himself. Someone who would pick at him, year after year, day after day, and then be shocked when he flipped out.
I have a sudden, awful thought.
Is that how my dad thought, after that last Thanksgiving together?
Was it just too much?
Was he right?
I stand up as soon as the thought hits me, because it’s suffocating, and the room is too small, and Noah is too, well, here, and I’m afraid if I stay I’ll do something crazy.
Like wrap my arms around him and tell him I’ll never make fun of him for backing off a cliff, tell him that cliff jumping is insanely stupid anyway.
Like ask him if he’d leave me, too. If one day I’ll become as bad as my mom and push him away, just like she did with my dad.
Lord, Ammy, get ahold of yourself.
“I’m going to get some ice,” I blurt out, fast as I can. “And—er—some snacks and stuff.”
Noah stands up as well. “Do you want me to come with you?”
I shake my head, fish in my bag, and pull out the first few crumpled dollar bills I can find, and then without looking him in the eyes, I head out the door.
ACCORDING TO THE fire exit map, the ice machine is all the way down on the other side of the motel. I follow the desolate balcony to the end. The highway is relatively silent, and the lack of sound makes it hard to focus on anything but the fact that it’s downright freezing—I should have brought a coat.