“I’ll be fine.”
“Do you know how dangerous this is?” Nico replies angrily. “Driving a strange car to a strange city to meet up with someone from Craigslist. There are weirdos on Craigslist.”
“Relax. I googled him. He owns a reputable car shop. It’s even on Yelp.”
“You could end up getting mugged or kidnapped or raped.”
“You watch too many crime shows.”
“Real crime shows. About real people getting really murdered.”
“I’m not getting really murdered. I’m just driving the car up to Crescent City and coming right home.”
“No, actually, you’re not.”
I sigh, trying to keep hold of my slipping composure. “Nico. I’m not your girlfriend anymore. You don’t need to protect me.”
He scoffs. “I didn’t say I would go with you.”
Humiliation warms my cheeks. I get in behind the wheel. “Good. ’Cause I don’t need anyone to go with me.”
I’m convinced that this is the end of the argument until Nico places a hand on the car door, stopping me from closing it.
“Nico, let go of my car.”
“I’m just wondering,” he says, feigning curiosity, “how you plan to get the car to Crescent City.”
I stare blankly up at him. “I just told you, I’m driving it.”
An infuriatingly cocky smile makes its way onto his face, like he knows a secret I don’t.
“What?” I demand.
His smile doesn’t falter. “Did you even look at the pictures you posted?”
I groan. “Didn’t anyone teach you that it’s rude to spy?”
“Did you?” he repeats.
“Of course I looked at them. Why?”
“I don’t think you looked close enough. Otherwise, you’d know that you’re not driving that car anywhere.”
I ball my fists against the steering wheel. “Yes, I am. And you are not going to stop me. You’re getting away from my car. Right now.” I reach for the handle and try to pull the door closed. But Nico doesn’t release his grip.
“Did you get a good look at the gearshift in the center console? Did you happen to notice the lack of letters like P and D? That car is not an automatic transmission. And if memory serves”—he grins defiantly—“you can’t drive stick.”
My whole body deflates and I berate myself for not thinking of this on my own. I was so desperate to take the photos and get the Craigslist ad posted, I didn’t even notice. Of course the car is a stick shift. I remember Jackson driving it. I remember when he used to let me shift gears for him from the passenger seat. I always fantasized about the day I’d be old enough for him to teach me how to drive the car for real. But he was gone long before my feet could ever reach the pedals.
Nico tried to teach me to drive stick shift in his truck once, during our ill-fated eighty-eight days together. I failed miserably. After countless tries, we ended up just hopping into the bed of the truck and . . .
You know what, it doesn’t matter. The point is, I couldn’t make it three feet without stalling out. How am I ever going to make it three hundred miles?
Nico’s grin widens, as though he’s remembering the exact same day. “Well, good luck,” he says in an obnoxiously cheery voice. Then he releases the door, hitches his backpack onto his shoulder, and turns to walk away.
Furious, I slam the door shut and fume inside my car.
There has to be someone else.
Think, Ali. Think! You have to know someone in this town who can drive a stick shift besides him.
I squeeze the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white, slowly coming to the conclusion that I never wanted to come to again.
No! I can’t need him.
Except, I do need him. At least for this.
He’s the only person I know who can drive a manual transmission. June hates to get behind the wheel. She makes Tyler drive her everywhere.
But five and a half hours?
Trapped in a car?
With Nico?
I could barely stand to be in the same computer lab with him for five and a half minutes. There’s no way we can survive five and a half hours together in car. There’s got to be a better way.
But what?
I think about the notice that was pinned to our front door yesterday. The deadline seared into the page. If I don’t get that money to the bank by next week, our house will no longer be our house.
I peer through the windshield and watch Nico slowly sauntering down the aisle of the parking lot toward his truck.
You just realized your ex-boyfriend is the only one who can help you solve all of your problems. What do you do?
A Swallow your pride and chase after him.
B Admit defeat and let the bank take your house.
C Stew in this parking lot forever. You’d rather die than ask for his help.
C. The answer is most definitely C.
And yet, I know that’s not an option. I’m out of options.
This is my only option.
I kick open the car door and get out. “Nico. Wait!”
He turns around and cocks an eyebrow, setting my nerves on fire. It’s the same expression he used to get after he thought he’d won one of our fake arguments. An adorable mix of boyish innocence and manly arrogance.
I cross the aisle of the parking lot and stand in front of him, my fists clenching and unclenching at my sides as I work up the strength to do what I know I’m going to regret for the next five and a half hours.
“Look,” I begin rigidly. “As you know from reading my computer screen when you were supposed to be minding your own business, I’m selling the car for a lot of money. If you help me drive it to Crescent City, I will pay you five hundred dollars.”
He crosses his arms. “Five hundred dollars?”
I sigh. “Fine. A thousand.”
“So you’re saying you need me to help you.”
I roll my eyes. “I need someone to help me, yes.”
“But you’re asking me.”
“You’re . . .” I flounder, roving my eyes over the parking lot. “You’re the closest person.”
“Uh-huh.” The amusement in his voice is making me want to scream.
“Do you want the money or not?” I snap.
Nico shrugs. “Sure. I could use an extra thousand dollars.” He brushes past me and starts walking back toward my car. I spin around and watch as he casually opens the passenger-side door and sits down, buckling his seat belt.
I must be insane. I am insane. No one in their right mind would knowingly choose to go on a road trip with their ex-boyfriend. But that’s just the thing. I’m not in my right mind. I’m in a hopeless, desperate state of mind, which is apparently the worst state of mind in which to make decisions.
I blow out a breath and walk unsteadily back to my car. After getting in behind the wheel and buckling my seat belt, I close my eyes.
Five and a half hours, I tell myself. You can do this. One more day and then you’ll be free of him forever.
When I open my eyes, Nico is staring intently at my face, his expression focused, like he’s trying to figure something out. Then, before I can react, his hand is reaching toward me. Toward my cheek. I track it like he’s moving in slow motion. Like this is one of those stylized fight scenes in movies where the action slows way down, just before someone’s face is about to get smashed in.
What is he doing?
If this were one month ago, I would close my eyes. I would let his touch send goose bumps over my skin. I would melt into his hand.
But this is not one month ago. This is now. And I feel the sudden urge to swat his hand away.
But I don’t. Instead, I freeze, bracing myself for the heat. The contact. It never comes.
“Um, you have . . .” Nico squints. “. . . glitter on your face.”
I let out a stutter of a laugh and nervously brush my cheek with my palm, feeling incredibly stupid. “Oh. June made me a . . . thing. Ther
e was a lot of glitter involved.”
His eyebrows form two question marks. But I’m not about to explain any further. The less we talk to each other throughout this process, the better.
Hastily, I stick the key into the ignition. Nothing happens. The Honda doesn’t even try to turn over. It’s laughing at me. It’s laughing at this whole ridiculous situation. I would join in if I weren’t so on edge right now.
I let out a loud groan and try again. Still nothing.
“Come on!” I urge the car through gritted teeth. “Don’t do this to me right now.”
I press on the gas and turn the key with a hard jerk. Nico reaches over and places his hand atop mine. I yank it away like he’s just set my fingers on fire. He turns the key back and pulls it from the ignition. “Don’t worry. We’ll take my truck.”
The last time I was in Nico Wright’s truck was the night of Fabian’s Comet. The night we broke up. Exactly eighty-eight days after we got together. We’d been fighting more and more lately, the glimmering translucent cocoon of our first few months together fading with each argument, each accusation, each lie.
That was the night it disappeared completely, leaving me alone in my cold, damp reality with nothing left to shield me from the elements. The rain had been there the whole time. It drizzled or poured practically the entire three months that Nico and I were together. Some kind of historic California record. But I never felt it until that night. I don’t think either of us did.
The night of the comet, the fight was so bad—the ending kind of bad—I made him pull over and let me out of the truck. I told him I’d rather walk home then spend one more second in his car.
I got out. I slammed the door. I started to walk. But I clearly hadn’t thought the whole thing through very well because we were in the middle of nowhere, somewhere along Route 128, the only highway that actually passes through Russellville. It’s infamously dark in its long, winding stretches of no streetlamps, no houses, nothing but towering trees.
Of course, he didn’t just drive away like I wanted him to. He followed after me, inching along the road to keep pace with me. Despite my frustration that he was still there—always there—in that moment, I kind of loved him for it. I didn’t really want to be alone. I just didn’t want to be with him anymore.
That’s when I called June.
“Where are you?” she asked.
I glanced around, seeing only miles of wet road and dense, creepy fog, and Nico’s car idling next to me, his wide, worried eyes watching me through the open window.
“I don’t know. Somewhere on Route 128. About three miles north of town.”
“I’m coming,” she said before I could even click over to the map on my phone to check. “Hang tight. I’ll be there soon.”
I hung up. I stood there on the side of the empty wet road, the engine of Nico’s truck the only sound for miles.
“You can leave now,” I said without daring to look at him. I knew if I looked at him, I’d cry, and I swore I wouldn’t cry until I was safe inside June’s car. “June is coming to get me.”
There was a long stretch of silence during which I half prayed he would finally leave and half prayed he would stay. “I’ll just wait for her to get here,” he finally replied. His voice was soft with a rough edge.
I shivered but tried to hide it with a shrug. “Suit yourself.”
“Get back inside the truck, Ali,” Nico said, sounding annoyed by my shivering. “Where it’s warm.”
For a moment, I considered it. I could feel the heat from the vents wafting out of the open window, brushing up against my goose-pimpled skin, making the hair on my arms stand straight up. For a moment, I even glanced at the door handle.
But I couldn’t.
I knew what would happen if I got inside that truck. I’d lose. I’d cave. I’d get sucked right back in. The way my mother always did whenever Jackson came back. The warmth of the heater would wrap around me, and his kind eyes would hold me, and his pleading words would soften me. And then his lies would fade into the background.
But they couldn’t fade into the background. I couldn’t let them. I had to keep them right there in front of me where I could see them. Keep tabs on them. Never let them out of my sight again.
And so we both waited.
Him inside the car, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. Me outside, in my muddy shoes and wet hair, fidgeting with my phone, the lingering anger rising off both of us like steam, swirling with the night’s mist.
As Nico pulls onto Route 128 and we head west toward my house, I’m grateful that it’s not night, it’s not raining, and there’s no world-famous celestial object streaking through the sky. These are the only consolations I have. The clear blue skies and warm sunlight are what separates me from that night. From our whole relationship. Because the rest of this car—the cracked leather seats, Nico’s strong hand expertly maneuvering the tall gearshift from first to second to third, the glove box—they’re all like black holes waiting to suck me in, waiting to drag me back to the past. When things were so good, and then so bad.
The downpour finally stopped two days after Nico and I broke up. As though the rain were waiting it out. Waiting for this doomed relationship to end so it could finally stop being such an obvious omen.
As soon as we clear the main drag of town, Nico pushes down on the accelerator and compresses the clutch, maneuvering the shifter into fifth gear and my heart into eleventh.
Oh God. I shouldn’t be here.
I’m starting to wonder if thirty-two thousand dollars is even worth the agony of being trapped in a car with my ex-boyfriend for five and a half hours. If any amount of money is worth that. Is there anything more uncomfortable, more awkward, more unnatural than sitting an armrest away from the boy who used to drive you crazy with just a simple touch? The boy who used to kiss you like you were the only thing that mattered.
Now, it feels like those memories are just hanging between us. Giant elephants in the truck that take up all the space, that leave no room for us. For what we are now.
As Nico drives, I keep my gaze trained out the window, at the passing scenery. But my eyes keep drifting back toward the glove box. It’s nearly impossible not to see it. It’s right there. Inches away from my knees.
Is it still in there? Does he still have it? Or was that just a temporary hiding place?
“There’s nothing in there,” Nico says, crashing into my thoughts, reading them as clearly as if they were scrawled across my face. “But you’re welcome to look if you don’t believe me.”
My head whips to him. I can’t see his eyes because he’s wearing his sunglasses, but his stiff smile lets me know that he’s joking. Or at least trying to. Trying to make light of this heaviness that surrounds us like humidity.
Isn’t it too soon?
What is the acceptable amount of time to wait after a tragedy before you can start making jokes about it?
I guess it depends on the tragedy.
“That’s okay,” I mutter. Because the truth is, I don’t care what is or isn’t in that glove box anymore. It’s no longer my problem. Or my concern.
As Nico refocuses on the road and turns onto my street, I notice how fast the smile slips from his face. Like it was never that secure to begin with. Held up by cheap, flimsy tape with weak adhesive. “Well, it’s empty now,” he says, much quieter, the humor in his voice replaced with resentment. “It’s all empty now.”
I steal a peek at him out of the corner of my eye, wondering if he’s still talking about the glove box.
“Whoa! Is that it?” Nico says the moment he pulls into my driveway and his gaze lands on Jackson’s open-top Firebird convertible through the windshield.
I roll my eyes. “No, that’s the other 1968 Firebird convertible I have.”
“No freaking way!” Nico says, ignoring my sarcasm. In a blur, he’s killed the engine and is out of the truck, bounding up to the Firebird like a kid bounding toward the tree on Christmas morning. He dr
ags his fingertip along the bumper, taking extra care to trace the red 400 emblem affixed to the trunk, just above the right taillight.
“This baby’s not the base model. It’s the 400. It’s worth much, MUCH more.”
It better be, for all this trouble I’m going through, I think.
Then, I watch in amazement as Nico lets out a very unmanly “Whoop!” and runs up the left side of the car, then jumps into the driver’s seat, bypassing the door completely. The way Jackson always used to.
“This car is sweet!” he gushes, glancing around the open interior, running his hands appreciatively over the arc of the wooden steering wheel.
I slowly get out of the truck and approach the car. It looks exactly as it does in my memory. The blue exterior is the color of a clear California sky. The white leather seats are as smooth and soft as cotton. The license plate reads FEPDMIC, an homage to Jackson’s favorite band.
“Okay, be honest,” Nico says. “How good do I look in this thing?” He gives his hair a flip, and bile rises in my stomach.
They’re different, I tell myself over and over again. Completely different people.
Jackson’s hair was dark; Nico’s is light. Jackson’s face had stubble; Nico’s is almost always clean-shaven. Jackson liked to break things; Nico likes to build things.
And yet, in this instant, they are the same. Everything is the same. The car. The hair flip. The smile. The arm resting on the open window.
And I just can’t. I turn away. I have to turn away. “I’m, um, just going to get some stuff before we leave.”
I run toward the house, unlock the door, and dash inside, stopping short when I see the boxes. I almost forgot they were there. They jump out at me from time to time, like ghosts with loud, rattling chains.
I hurry into my bedroom and empty all the things from my backpack, including June’s scrapbook, which I store safely in my nightstand. Then I pack a fresh pair of clothes and underwear. I try to ignore the stabbing in my gut reminding me that the reason I’m packing clothes is because Nico and I are not coming home tonight. We’re going to have to stay somewhere in Crescent City before we can catch a bus back to Russellville. Which means we’re going to have to stay somewhere. Together.
The Geography of Lost Things Page 4