On the Way to You

by Kandi Steiner

  I dropped Kalo’s bed into the back seat and she immediately climbed into it, turning in two circles before plopping down.

  And then I had a panic attack.

  “Wait!”

  He paused mid-reach for the handle on the driver door, but he was still relaxed, a peaceful expression on his face as he did what I asked.

  I couldn’t catch a steady breath, ears ringing and fingers reaching blindly for my braid. I pulled it over my shoulder and picked at the ends of it, mind racing, questions burning through me.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Emery.”

  “Emery what?”

  “Emery Reed.”

  I nodded, over and over, still picking at my split ends. “Okay, Emery Reed, and have you ever been convicted of a crime?”

  He laughed, just one quick, humored bark, the noise warm and comforting. “No. Have you?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Of course not.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, looking up and down my street. One of my neighbors a few trailers down was sitting on their porch, watching me with curious eyes. “Are you dangerous?”

  “If I was, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “But you’re not, right?”

  He shrugged. “Guess you’ll find out.”

  I scoffed. “I’m serious. You’re not like… crazy or anything, are you?”

  At that he threw his head back and laughed again, eyes warm when they found mine. “Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

  A warm breeze blew between us then, the faint smell of pumpkin riding on its wings, giving me the first scent of fall I’d had all season.

  “Can I get in now?” he asked, eyes not leaving mine.

  I swallowed, and then with a quick nod, he opened his door as I slipped into the passenger seat, and we closed the doors at the same time, the quiet thunk of them solidifying my choice.

  I was leaving Alabama.

  I was going to Washington.

  With a strange boy.

  Whom I had just met.

  Who admitted out loud that he’s crazy.

  He fired up the engine, the soft purr of it sparking a wave of chills up my arms. And there was no ceremonious goodbye, no rush of memories as he put it in drive and pulled away from my house that never was a home.

  I’d nearly shredded the end of my braid, so I threw it behind me, right leg bouncing as I wrung my hands together in my lap.

  “I’m Cooper,” I finally said when we pulled out of the trailer park. “Cooper Owens.”

  “Nice to meet you, Cooper.”

  I nodded, leg still bouncing.

  “So, why are you going to Washington?”

  He shifted, switching hands on the steering wheel as those two familiar lines creased between his brows. “There’s just something I need to see.”

  “Well, that’s not vague or anything.”

  He didn’t respond, pulling onto I-10 and picking up speed. The wind blowing through the car from the top being down whirled more now, picking up the stray strands of my hair and twirling them around me.

  “How old are you?” I yelled over the wind, heart still thundering under my ribs, nervous system in a practical breakdown as it fired off all the warning signals.

  DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS.

  DON’T GET IN CARS WITH STRANGERS.

  DON’T TRAVEL ACROSS THE COUNTRY WITH STRANGERS.

  “Twenty-three.”

  “What do you do?”

  He shook his head, as if my question disappointed him. “I drive.”

  “Like for a living?”

  “No, like right now, in this moment, I drive.”

  “Well, that’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?” he challenged, glancing at me quickly before returning his gaze to the road.

  I stammered, hands waving erratically around me. “I don’t know, just like, who are you? Tell me something to help me freak out less about the decision I just made to get in the car with you.”

  He paused. “If I do kill you, I promise to take care of your dog.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Funny.”

  He bit back a smile, and I lost my train of thought watching the slow spread of it on his face, the wind whipping through his sandy blond hair, the sun casting a warm glow over half of his face and cool shadows over the other.

  “Wait, I know,” I said with a snap of my fingers, pulling my cell phone from my back pocket. “Is your name Emery Reed on Facebook? I can just look through your profile and reassure myself that you’re not a serial killer.”

  “I don’t have a Facebook.”

  I balked, heart stopping in my chest before kicking back to life. “What do you mean you don’t have a Facebook? Everyone has a Facebook.” My nerves sparked to life again, head shaking of its own accord. “Oh, my God, you really are going to kill me, aren’t you? Oh my God, oh my God.”

  Suddenly, the car veered to the right and a scream ripped through my throat, Emery riding the tail of a semi-truck and cutting off an old van before pulling off onto the shoulder, stopping us altogether with enough force to send me flying forward before I was jerked back against the seat again.

  “We almost wrecked!” I panicked, checking the backseat to make sure Kalo was okay. She just stared up at me goofily from her bed like I was the crazy one.

  “Hey,” Emery said, calling my attention back to him. “Are we doing this?”

  Cars and trucks zoomed by behind him, each one rocking our car with a whoosh as I tried to calm my racing heart. He wasn’t annoyed, his face wasn’t screwed up with impatience, his eyes weren’t accusing or judging. He was simply watching me. He was simply waiting. I knew that look, because I’d been waiting my entire life.

  “Are we doing this,” he asked again, voice even steadier than before. “Or not?”

  And in perhaps the most chaotic moment of my life, on the shoulder of I-10, with cars zipping by and a stranger waiting to drive me to my new life, I closed my eyes, pressed my head into the warm leather seat, and took my first breath.

  “We’re doing this,” I whispered, eyes still closed.

  “Okay,” he said, and then I felt a hand on my knee.

  My eyes shot open, heart back in my throat.

  “Seatbelt,” he said, squeezing my leg before reaching into the center console for his sunglasses. He slid the frames into place. “And I hope you like The Black Keys.”

  His hand reached for the knob, cranking up the volume, and then he pulled back onto the highway, effectively ending my freakout.

  Kalo popped her head between our seats, nudging my elbow with her wet nose. I looked down at her, still in a daze, numbly petting her head to assure her I was okay.

  Then, with one more deep inhale, I shook the negative thoughts from my mind, choosing instead to embrace the moment.

  I was leaving Alabama.

  I was going to Washington.

  Everything I’d always wanted was finally happening, even if it wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined it, and the next breath that left my lungs also left a sense of peace behind it, one that filled me from the inside out.

  I think I knew, even then, that the greatest adventure of my life was about to begin.

  I didn’t know who I was, or who I’d become, or where I’d go when we got to Washington. I didn’t know where we’d stop on the way, or how we’d get along, or how I’d feel when we hit our final destination, when we said goodbye and went our separate ways.

  I didn’t know any of that.

  But I did know something about that day, and that boy, and that car felt right.

  I knew as the sun warmed my skin and the wind blew through my hair that I was never coming back to Alabama.

  And ten minutes later, when we crossed the state line, I smiled.

  I smiled, and I didn’t look back.

  My dad used to hit my mom.

  I was nine years old the first time I saw it happen, though I couldn’t be sure it was the first time
it’d happened ever or just the first time I’d witnessed it. That memory was burned into my brain, the image of Daryl winding up and smacking Cindy square across the cheek, sending her flying back into the wall, where there’s still a hole today.

  I thought Daryl was evil then.

  I thought Cindy and I would become closer, that we’d run away, but we didn’t.

  Because she was evil, too.

  There were always drugs in our house — the bad kind. The kind that make craters in your face and dull the life in your eyes all at once. I remember that starting around the time I was nine, too. Maybe that was just the year I grew up.

  I knew they wouldn’t care the day I left, but part of me wondered if they’d argue, anyway. It was me, after all, who put groceries in our kitchen. It was me who paid half of our bills, since my dad was the only one working, and he spent most of his money on whiskey and lottery tickets. But it was after five now. Daryl was home, and he knew I was gone.

  And still, my phone hadn’t rang.

  My body was in a sort of numb trance, with the car engine humming beneath me and the wind whipping through my hair. The music volume hadn’t been touched again since we left Alabama, and I just watched out the window as Mississippi floated past. It reminded me of Alabama. I didn’t really mind that we never stopped.

  I didn’t really mind that Emery didn’t talk, either. Once we left Alabama, I slipped out of my freakout and into a strange awareness of being. My body was in the car, but my mind was on my yoga mat, opening itself to new possibilities. I knew it was a big moment in my life, one that would alter everything, and yet I was struggling to grasp it. I almost felt numb.

  It wasn’t until we crossed over into Louisiana and ran right into bumper-to-bumper traffic that Emery reached forward for the dial, the wind dying down right along with the music.

  “Why do you think people deny the existence of aliens?”

  His voice surprised me a little, and Kalo popped her head up in the back seat, looking at him with a cocked ear before laying back down with a sigh.

  “Well, I suppose —“

  “Do you think it’s because we, as humans, just need to feel like our lives are worth more than they are?”

  My mouth was still open, but I popped it shut, eyes on the South Carolina license plate in front of us.

  “I mean there are infinite galaxies — we don’t even know how many there are, and we’ve found a shit ton. The universe is just this… this massive plane of mass and matter and time and space and distance. And yet most of our population thinks we are the only intelligent lifeforms, that we’re like God’s only project or whatever.”

  “I take it you’re not religious,” I finally said.

  “Are you?”

  He asked the question the same way he’d asked what made me happy, in a way that made me question the answer before it left my lips.

  “I am, but not in the way you think I am.”

  He laughed, switching hands on the steering wheel and leaning his elbow on the center console. “What other way is there? You either believe in a higher power or you don’t.”

  I traced the lean lines of muscle in his forearm with my eyes, noting the comfortable way he gripped the wheel, the confidence that showed even through his dark sunglasses.

  “I believe in the universe, and in things happening for a reason.” I paused. “And, yes, I guess I do believe in a higher spirit.”

  “In God?”

  “Not like the old white man with a beard and a staff but yes, I believe in God.”

  “Why?”

  I laughed, the sound foreign as I shrugged my shoulders and tossed my hands up. “I don’t know, what do you mean why? You’re telling me you don’t believe in anything greater than yourself?”

  “I believe in science. And science has given me absolutely zero reason to believe there is anything or anyone watching over me, or dictating my destiny, or promising that life doesn’t just end when this—“ He thumped his chest with a fist. “Body stops working.”

  “I believe in science, too. But science only goes so far sometimes, and then something else takes over.”

  “God,” he mocked, the tiniest smirk on his lips as he glanced at me.

  “Maybe,” I defended.

  Emery shifted his weight again, hand sliding down to grip the bottom of the steering wheel as the traffic began to clear. “I think religion, in any form, is just the result of fear. Fear of dying, fear of being alone. We all want to believe that we’re special, that some man in the sky loves each and every one of us, even with our flaws.” He shrugged. “But the truth is we’re just humans. We’re just animals. And when we die, we become food for the earth and the bugs. The circle of life.”

  “That’s a little morbid.”

  “I think it’s comforting.”

  I balked. “How in the world is that comforting to you?”

  Emery looked at me then, and I only saw myself reflected in the lenses of his shades. “Because we’re just a blip on the radar, Cooper. Just like every other animal before us. And no matter how much we take while we’re here, we always have to give it back.”

  His eyes went back to the road and I heard the click of the turn signal before we rounded a semi, picking up speed. Emery reached for the music dial but I stopped him.

  “Wait.” My hand wrapped around his wrist and he looked to me, fingers still on the dial. My cheeks flushed with heat as I dropped my grip, clearing my throat. “We should play a game. A road trip game. How about twenty-one questions?”

  “That’s too many.”

  I laughed. “Okay, well, what’s the magic number of questions you’re okay with, Emery Reed?”

  He didn’t smile. “Zero is preferable.”

  “Oh, come on,” I pleaded, turning in my seat a little so I could face him. I adjusted my seat belt over my shoulder and tucked my prosthetic under the opposite knee. His eyes hadn’t fallen to my leg yet, hadn’t inspected it, hadn’t realized I was lacking. I wondered if they would, and if so — when. “Humor me. We’re going to be stuck in this car together for who knows how long.”

  He still didn’t answer.

  “How about ten?”

  “One.”

  “Five.”

  He huffed. “Fine.”

  I smiled in victory, fingers unwrapping my long braid just to rewind it again. “Okay. First question. Why are you on a road trip to Washington by yourself?”

  “I’m not by myself.”

  “Well, you were,” I deadpanned.

  We slowed again, hitting another string of traffic. “I told you, I just have to see something.”

  “You know, this game doesn’t work if you don’t give me just a little more detail than that.”

  Emery’s jaw tightened, and I watched his chest as it pushed a long exhale down. “My grandmother just passed away, and there’s a place in Washington that was her favorite in the world. She made me promise I would go see it.”

  I swallowed. “Were you close with her?” I didn’t want to say I’m sorry. No one ever did when death came up, though it seemed to be what we all went for automatically, anyway.

  “That’s two questions. I think it’s my turn.”

  I threw my hands up. “You’re right. Okay, your turn. Shoot.”

  “Why did you get in a car with a stranger to travel across the country?”

  My jaw hung open. “Hey, that’s not fair! You asked me to come!”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t. I asked you why you got in the car.” Emery raised one eyebrow, glancing at me for just a second before turning his attention back to the road.

  “I don’t know,” I murmured. “I’ve been wanting to go to Washington, anyway. It was a free ride.”

  “Oh, come on,” he chided, his voice mimicking mine as he repeated my words back to me. “You know, this game doesn’t work if you don’t give me just a little more detail than that.”

  I swallowed, eyes trying to catch on the little yellow lines as we zo
omed through them. I wanted to give him a real answer, I just hadn’t figured it out yet myself.

  “I was dying in that town,” I finally said, my voice low. I wondered if he could hear me over the wind. “And I don’t want to die before I’ve even had the chance to live.”

  I was just as surprised by the words as Emery was, his sunglasses reflecting my face again as I watched the two creases form between his eyebrows.

  “My turn,” I said quickly. “Why did you ask me to come with you?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” he said with a smirk. “You’re a girl. And you’re hot.”

  My entire face burned like I’d opened an oven door and stuck my head inside. “I… um…”

  “What?” he probed. “You don’t think you’re hot?”

  I laughed, splitting another end off the tail of my braid.

  “You really don’t,” he mused, watching me curiously. I couldn’t look at him now. “I was just kidding, Cooper. Not about you being hot, because you are, but about why I asked you to come.”

  I still didn’t turn to him, lip pinned between my teeth. “So, why then?”

  It was silent, only the hum of his car and the oddly comforting sounds of traffic filling the space between us. He stalled long enough for me to glance over at him again, and when I did, he was watching the road, his jaw tight.

  “Because I know what death from the inside looks like,” he said.

  I watched him, waiting for more. And… what? You didn’t want me to die? You wanted to save me? You thought I was too young to die? But he didn’t continue, so I pulled my leg from under the other, feet planted on the floorboard.

  “You asked me in the diner what makes me happy,” I said. “What about you? What makes you happy?”

  Emery full-on smiled, and the brightness of that smile was enough to make me forget how to breathe. The wrinkles at the corners of his lips, his teeth in a straight white line, his sunglasses lifted on his cheeks — it was beautiful. “I know I said five questions, but you’ll have to settle for two. We’re here.”

  Kalo popped up in the back, tongue hanging out of her mouth as I took in the skyline in the distance, complete with the Saints football stadium. “New Orleans?”