Unless . . .
Getting out my phone, I scroll through my contacts until I find the one I’m looking for.
Did you go somewhere?
I wait. And wait.
Five eternal minutes later, the phone buzzes.
Had to come back to my mom’s for a while. Sry.
I stare at the words, not touching the keys. The screen goes half dark, then shuts off, and I throw the phone onto the seat next to my bag and shift the car back into drive.
And point the car toward Iowa.
19
THE LAST TIME I crossed the Missouri River was for one of Paul Maziarz’s away games. It was just in Council Bluffs, basically two minutes from Omaha. And I guess there’s that weird stretch of road on the way to the airport, where you’re technically in Iowa and then back in Nebraska again. Dave always laughs about that. He was born in Iowa so he likes to make these loud I’m home! jokes every time we go somewhere or pick someone up. I guess I forgot about that when we picked up Maddie at the end of the summer.
God, I wish I could go back and do that all over again. Or go back even further, and never hook up with Cory to begin with. Maybe not hook up with half the guys I have . . . except, I don’t know. They were fun. I was just having fun.
There’s a lot of traffic driving toward downtown, but I don’t know any other routes east, and now that I’m moving I don’t want to stop to get my phone out. Plus, it’s easier to pretend I’m just going shopping or something. Or for a drive. I turn on the radio and flip around for a while. I roll down my window, but the air outside has turned colder, so I roll it back up. Dark clouds are starting to gather in my rearview mirror, too. Crap. I hate driving in the rain.
In the passenger seat my phone buzzes a few times, new texts making it scoot around on the upholstery. I ignore it, telling myself I’m just being a good driver by not texting. And actually, Mom is always threatening to take away my license if she ever catches me texting and driving. How she’d catch me, I don’t know, but it’s okay because it freaks me out, too.
Finally the main road turns into an off-ramp, then a bridge, and then with absolutely zero fanfare, I’m in another state. I pass the big welcome sign, and a good Katy Perry song comes on the radio, so I sing loudly, but inside my heart is thudding around in my chest, beating against my lungs and it feels like my stomach, too. I don’t want to think about how this is probably a terrible idea . . . but, I mean. It probably is.
I keep singing, song after song, and watch the boring road fly away under my wheels. There’s nothing to see out the windows and the clouds are getting heavier, but for a long time I manage to not think about anything but the cars around me and the white stripes ticking by between the lanes of traffic. Just hurtling through space. Like you do.
I didn’t tell Alex I was coming. I don’t even have his address, but I know it’s Des Moines, so basically I just have to take the highway east. For a couple of hours. And then . . .
And then he’ll really know what a whack job you are. Good work.
No, then I’ll apologize. Make something right. Just one thing.
My argument with the voice in my head is immediately, mercifully drowned out by a deafening crack of thunder that sounds like it’s going to split the roof of my car in half. An instant later, everyone on the highway has slammed on their brakes as a freaking monsoon’s worth of water comes hammering down on top of us.
I’ve been driving for an hour and a half already, and I have no idea where I am. Especially now that I can’t even see any signs or move faster than fifteen miles per hour. I lean over the steering wheel, trying to see through the wall of water, and ease forward whenever the giant SUV ahead of me does. We all creep along, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who lets out a little half sob of relief when an exit sign appears on the right. I join another line of cars pulling over, but I don’t park along the ramp like a bunch of them are doing. I keep going until there’s a turn, then a gas station, and I ease into the parking lot.
The rain is even louder with the car stopped, and for a second I wonder if it’s going to start hailing again, like last weekend. Or something worse.
My hands are shaking, but I manage to open my texts, which all seem to be from Mom and Ryan. I’m too scared to read what either of them wants right now—too scared and too far away and too determined to see this stupid trip to the end. Especially since I’m a lot closer to Des Moines than I am to home, thanks to my dumb ideas.
I have to try three times before I successfully click through and dial Alex’s number, and even then I’m not sure if I’ll be able to hear him. If he even picks up. It rings once, twice, three times, four times—
“Rosie?”
“H-he-ey!” I’m stuttering and yelling at the same time. “I’m sort of in Iowa?”
“What? I can’t hear you at all, is everything okay?”
I take a deep breath and put it all behind my sad little voice to shout, “I’m in Iowa! I need your address!”
There’s a silence, and I can practically see all the confused thoughts going through Alex’s head right now. But after a few seconds he yells back, “I’ll text you!”
I realize I’m nodding and almost laugh at myself. “Thanks!” I yell and then he’s gone. The phone vibrates in my hand a moment later, and as much as it scares me to get back on the road, the map says I’m only twenty minutes away, even with the current traffic. I turn the radio back up and take a few big inhales.
I could turn back around. It’s not too late.
I keep going.
The rain is slightly less downpourish when I pull back onto the highway. I can see more than one set of taillights ahead of me, and I can drive closer to forty miles per hour now. The annoying GPS voice alerts me to the exit I want about six times, and I yell back at her every time, and eventually I almost feel like a normal person again.
Alex’s neighborhood—or his mom’s neighborhood, I guess—is kind of old and run-down. The houses are all really small, a few of them bordered off by ugly chain-link fences and the rest just sitting on plots of weedy, toy-strewn lawns.
The GPS robotically nags me to turn right onto Fort Road, and as soon as I do, the rain stops completely. Everything goes weirdly quiet for a second, until the phone announces, “Your destination is on the right.”
There’s a cute, tiny, yellow house on the right. Lights glow through the windows, and an old swing hangs from a tree in the front yard. The number 112 runs diagonally on the narrow stretch of exterior wall next to the front door, and there’s just enough space in the driveway to pull in.
Too late I realize I haven’t checked my makeup all afternoon, or brushed my hair, or bothered to scrape the paint splatters off my jeans. You probably look exactly like the psychopath that you are, the voice says gleefully.
I start to check my hair in the rearview mirror, when the front door of the house opens and Alex steps onto the small top step of the concrete stairs. The car fills with silence, and everything feels lighter, weightless, as I look at him.
He’s in jeans and a gray, long-sleeved T-shirt. His hair is messy, like he just woke up, and he’s standing barefoot on the rain-soaked stair. He watches me with so much . . . concern. My heart does a flop, and my hands are trembling even harder than before as I fumble to get my phone and my purse and open the car door.
“Hey,” he calls as I step out.
“Hi. Sorry to just . . . drop by.”
He smiles. “It’s nice to see you.”
I shut the door and carefully, methodically tuck my keys into my bag, which gives me a second where my hair falls around my face and hides my blush.
I’m doing a selfish thing right now, I know it. I told myself I came here to apologize, but I really just want to see him, want to change his mind about Friday night, and it’s crazy and also very, very selfish. But it feels amazing. It feels better than anything I’ve done in a long, long time.
“You hungry?” Alex calls.
I circle a
round the car and climb the steps. He backs into the house, holding the door open for me, and as I step inside I smell lavender soap and something smoky and the piney scent that I know is Alex himself.
“I’m starving,” I say, and he closes the door behind us.
“Okay, Mom. I know. . . . Yeah, I saw that. I’ll tell her. . . . See you soon. . . . You too. Bye.”
Alex hangs up the phone and rolls his eyes at me. “My mom’s worried about the storm. She made me promise to keep you here until she gets home from work, and you have to call your parents.”
I glance back over my shoulder at the front windows. We’ve been sitting at the kitchen table eating chips for a few minutes, and the rain looks like it’s stopped for good.
“If the storm was over I could just go . . .” I don’t want to leave, but I’m not sure I’m ready to meet Alex’s mom, either.
He shakes his head. “There’s another thunderstorm behind this one, I guess. Not another tornado or anything, but pretty bad. You might—” He stops, clearing his throat. “You might need to stay here tonight.”
I laugh. “I can’t do that. My mom’s already going to kill me!” I pick up my phone, look at it, and set it back down. I can call her in a minute. “So are you, like, sick? Is that why you weren’t—I mean, why you’re here? And not at school?”
“No,” he says, sitting down across from me and staring at his can of Coke without opening it. “I came out for the weekend, and I just—wasn’t ready to come back.”
“Oh,” I say. I stare at my Coke, too.
“Weren’t you . . .” He looks at the clock hanging over the kitchen sink and then at me. “When did you leave?”
“I sort of skipped out of school early,” I admit. “It wasn’t the best day.”
“It’s crazy you’re here.”
“I know—I don’t know why I came, I . . .” I stop myself, bracing my hands against the table. “Actually, no. I felt like I owed you an apology for what happened.” I sneak a look up at him and try not to laugh at his bewildered expression. It’s not that it’s funny, he just looks so surprised. “I didn’t mean to make you talk about things, and then try to turn it into something it wasn’t. I don’t know, I just . . . I’d like to be friends.”
He blinks at me a few times, then shakes his head. “We’re definitely friends, Rosie,” he tells me. “I mean. Do you know the last time someone came to my house?”
I shake my head lamely. My skin prickles with electricity. It’s the storm, I think, changing the air. Already we can hear rain starting to tap against the roof again.
“Even—even Selena,” he says softly, like he doesn’t want to bring up his girlfriend’s name. “After everything with Brian, no one knew what to say. No one wanted to be around me.”
I must look baffled—I definitely feel confused by that—because he nods.
“I know, I’m this big hero, right? But there’s this force field around me. No one can get in, and I can’t get out. I forgot what it felt like to just talk to someone until . . .”
Until me, I think.
And Alex says, “Until you.”
My hands soften, slide off the table into my lap.
“I wanted to see you,” I say very softly.
“I wanted to see you, too. I’m sorry about Friday.”
I shake my head. “I’m the one who’s apologizing for that.” I smile shyly at the unfinished bowl of chips. Somehow this is a completely different place than I was just sitting a minute ago.
“I came back here to . . . do a lot of things, actually. But I also wanted to break up with Selena. In person,” he says. “We’re still friends, you know? But I met you and I realized it just wasn’t fair. I’ve changed too much. Everything’s changed too much.”
My whole body is frozen so I can listen as closely as possible. My heart doesn’t beat, my eyes don’t blink, my hair doesn’t grow.
“I know we just met, basically,” he goes on, and a warmth starts crawling up my spine. “But I mean. I hope this makes us . . . after I talk to her, you know, maybe you and I could . . .”
My head nods for me, without even checking in with my brain first.
“Okay.” Alex sighs, leaning back in his chair like he’s relieved. “Okay.”
I’m not sure what to say back. I twist the strap of my purse between my fingers, staring down at the blue and gold polish on my nails. For Lion Pride, of all things. I’m so happy, but suddenly I feel terrified, too. What have I done? What have I convinced Alex to do? Am I actually ready to be who he wants me to be? I’m not even sure who that is, exactly.
He clears his throat. “And just so you know, I wanted to kiss you. I should’ve been more honest about the situation.”
I lift my face and find him staring at me, his face on the verge of a smile. Before I can open my mouth to ask all the rest of the questions I have, there’s the sound of a car outside.
“Oh, shit, my mom’s home,” he says, reaching over and grabbing the bowl. “She hates when I snack too close to dinner, sorry.” He pauses and grins at me. “That is definitely the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever told a girl.”
And then he’s flying around the kitchen, putting the chips away and pulling out stuff that looks like it’s for dinner. I stand up again, awkwardly, and turn toward the door.
Alex’s mom comes in like her own little tornado, all flushed cheeks and wild, curly hair, shaking an umbrella behind her.
“Hey, there!” she calls to us, still propping the door open with her hip and half leaning outside. Finally she throws the umbrella down on the small entryway mat and laughs. “You must be Rosie!”
“Hi,” I say, taking a step closer to her. I’m terrible at meeting parents, especially mothers, and I feel almost sick as I reach out a hand for her to shake. Moms can always see right through me. Or they don’t care what I’m doing or who I am, and they just hate me on sight. One night last year I was hanging out at Paul’s house and his mom wandered in from the next room, clearly drunk, and swung her empty wineglass my way. “You are too damn pretty,” she’d slurred. “I was pretty like you. Believe it or not.” She said the last part like it was a curse or something. And then she left.
But Mrs. Goode is definitely sober and definitely just smiling at me. Just truly, kindly smiling. And when she sees my hand she doesn’t shake it—she grabs it and pulls me in, wrapping her damp arms around me.
“You’re so tall!” she exclaims, still hugging me. “Alex, you didn’t tell me how tall she was!”
“Mom,” he says warningly.
She lets me go and holds my shoulders, looking up so she can study my face. I feel like she’s trying to memorize my features, maybe so she can pick me out of a lineup later on.
“And beautiful,” she says thoughtfully. “Really beautiful.”
“Mo-om.”
“Alex, honey, I think this girl knows she’s beautiful. Don’t you?” she asks me.
I make a face and she laughs again.
“Yeah, you know. She knows, honey!”
“You’re only supposed to embarrass me to death,” he tells her, coming out of the kitchen to kiss her cheek. It’s such an easy, loving thing to do that it nearly takes my breath away. Effortless.
“Sorry about the house,” Mrs. Goode says, taking off the cardigan she’s wearing and throwing it on a chair next to the TV.
“It’s really nice,” I say.
“Yeah, it’s really not,” she says matter-of-factly. “But it’s in the right school district, if you can believe. Fat lot of good that did us.”
Alex is still hovering nearby, and now he turns pointedly to look at me. “Tacos okay?” he asks. “That’s what we have on Mondays.”
“Taco Mondays!” his mom yells. “It’s actually margarita Mondays.” She winks at Alex and hurries toward the fridge.
“I’m sorry,” Alex says to me in a low voice. “She’s really . . . high-energy.”
“And she can hear you!” Mrs. Goode shouts. “Plus, she h
as a name!”
“Right, sorry.” He widens his eyes for a second, like he’s gathering his strength and I should, too. “Rosie Fuller, please meet my mother, Jillian Nolan.”
“Nice to meet you!” she calls from the kitchen, where she’s holding up a bottle of margarita mix.
I do a quick mental fix of her name and smile. “Nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Nolan.”
“You should just call her—” Alex starts, but his mom is already yelling, “Jill!” over her shoulder as she pours herself a drink.
“Seriously,” Alex whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
“Are you kidding?” I ask him. “This is amazing.”
And it is. Even when Jill forces me to call home and get yelled at by my mom—but only for a minute, because then Jill grabs the phone from me and has a loud, laughing conversation with, it sounds like, my entire family. Then she makes me and Alex virgin margaritas, and then we all sit down and watch two reruns of SVU together. Which is embarrassing, what with all the prostitutes who get killed, but somehow Jill manages to make jokes throughout the whole show—jokes that are actually hilarious—and then, when an episode of Seinfeld starts, she declares, “Not funny!” and switches off the TV. Before I know what’s happening, I’m helping her unfold the couch we were all just sitting on and catching the opposite end of a fitted sheet she’s helping me wrap around it.
Alex disappears down the hall, I guess to the bathroom, and Jill hands me a pillow with a pillowcase, taking the other one to fix up herself.
“I’m really glad I got to meet you, Rosie. Alex has talked about you a lot.”
“He has?”
“I can see why,” she says. At first I think she’s going to talk about my looks again, but then she shakes out the pillow, throws it on the sofa bed, and smiles. “You seem like a really kind person. Maybe a little, you know, reckless? With the driving?”
I blush, looking down at the pillowcase I’m still wrestling with. She holds out her hands, and I give it over.
“But he needed someone to show him that they cared. You got here just in time, kid, and I’m grateful.” She throws the second pillow down and holds up one finger, asking me to wait for something.
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