First Love

by Patterson, James

  “Tell me—honestly. Have you lost. Your. Mind?”

  As usual, Robinson ignored my question and instead pulled into a bus station on the edge of the city. “There it is! Our ticket to bacterial meningitis.”

  We got our backpacks and left the Porsche in a fire lane. I just wanted to be gone. I didn’t have time to write a thank-you note to the owner, but it was probably just as well. Now that we were bona fide criminals, we should try to leave fewer clues behind.

  Inside the station, it was dark and cool and grimy. All my adrenaline-fueled courage had faded, and I wanted to curl up in a ball in the corner. “Where do we go? We were supposed to see the Great Sand Dunes next,” I whispered.

  Robinson scanned the departure board. “Interesting,” he said. “Because these famous dunes of sand happen to be near Alamosa, Colorado, correct?”

  I frowned in confusion. “How did you know that?”

  “My dear, that bus leaves in moments. See?” Robinson pointed. “The luck of the traveler is with us.” He was already walking toward the ticket booth, one hand reaching for his wallet.

  Could it really be that simple? “I thought it was luck of the Irish,” I called weakly.

  He turned around and shrugged. “Who cares? We’ve got our ride. But for your information, my grandma was an Irish rose from County Cork.”

  I looked at him in surprise, because Robinson never, ever talked about his family. “Okay, but what about the cop?” I asked, hurrying up to him. “We can’t just leave him. We have to call someone.”

  “I thought you weren’t GG anymore,” Robinson said.

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “Just because I want to make sure someone doesn’t die of heatstroke?” I found an old pay phone and fished in my pockets for change. I told the woman who answered that I’d been out riding my horse when I’d come upon a cop car in the middle of nowhere. I made myself sound young and stupid, but I gave all the necessary details.

  She wanted to know my name. “Carole Ann,” I said.

  “You did a good thing, Carole Ann,” she said.

  Lady, if only you knew.

  23

  THERE’S AN OLD SAYING ABOUT HOW only the guilty sleep well in jail. The innocent man stays awake all night, freaking out, while the guilty one sleeps like a baby. He figures he’s finally where he belongs and he might as well get some shut-eye.

  Robinson and I weren’t in jail, of course—we were on a Greyhound. But it was uncomfortable and smelly and confined, the way I imagined jail to be. And we hadn’t been on the bus more than five minutes before Robinson leaned over, put his head on my lap, and fell asleep.

  Guilty, I thought. We’re both so guilty.

  For a while I stared out the window, watching the flat, dry land go by. I still couldn’t believe the way things had turned. A few hours ago, Robinson making out with someone else was just about the worst of my problems. Now? Try felony assault, grand theft auto, and who knew what else.

  Back in the moment, of course, what we’d done made perfect sense. We’d had to do it. A stolen Porsche, a hijacked gun, and suddenly cuffing and abandoning a cop seemed like a fine idea because, hey, it would keep us out of juvie.

  For now, I thought darkly.

  Reality came down on me with a crushing weight. What in the world had we done? This was supposed to be a road trip—a lark—and it was turning into a crime spree. What would we do next? Steal a kid’s lunch money? Rob a bank?

  In the seat ahead of us an old lady was knitting. I could hear her needles sliding and clicking. Every once in a while she’d turn around and smile at me. At first I smiled back, but then I started to get nervous. Was it possible she knew something? Could she read the guilt on my face? Did the Nevada police employ undercover agents old enough to collect Social Security?

  I shook Robinson awake. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and gave me a grumpy look.

  “We can never do anything like that again,” I said quietly. “Ever.”

  Robinson ran his hand through his tousled hair and sighed. “I know, Axi. Do you think I wanted it to happen like that? You know that’s not me. But we couldn’t let him stop us.” His dark eyes, with their heavy lashes, searched my face. He wanted to be sure I knew he’d done the only thing he could. “I don’t want this to end,” he said. “Not yet. Do you?”

  I shook my head. I wanted to go on like this with him forever, except I wanted more kissing and less crime. “What if we’d—” I began, but Robinson held up a hand.

  “There’s no point in what-ifs. What’s done is done.”

  “You sound like my mother,” I said. “Who, I have lately realized, was usually full of BS.”

  Robinson grinned, then faced forward and said hi to the old lady, who’d turned to look at us again. “It was total insanity, I admit that,” he whispered to me when she turned back around. “But it’s over, okay, Axi? Everything is going to be fine. In the words of Irving Berlin, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, from here on out, there’s nothing but blue skies.”

  Maybe I’m an idiot—actually, I’m definitely an idiot—but hearing him say that made me feel better.

  Robinson reached out and brushed a piece of hair from my cheek. “I never want anything bad to happen to you, Axi,” he said quietly. “And while I have not yet been in one, I suspect that jail is bad.”

  “You think it’s worse than a pediatric cancer ward?” I blurted.

  Robinson seemed to pale. Then he laid his head on my lap again. “I promise,” he said, “we’ll never do something like that again.”

  “Pinkie swear,” I said, holding out my little finger.

  We shook on it.

  “And Axi?” He looked up at me from below, his eyes wide and deep enough to drown in.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry about Chrissy. Honestly, she came on to me. It took me by surprise. And I didn’t want to be rude.”

  I sighed. Robinson was the only guy in the world who could deliver that line and actually have me believe it. “Yeah, I know how much you dislike rudeness,” I said.

  “I do,” Robinson said, closing his eyes. His voice grew sleepy again. “Rudeness is so… rude…”

  I smiled. And then I rested my head against the greasy bus window and fell asleep.

  24

  WE GOT OFF AT THE ALAMOSA STOP AND stuck out our thumbs, trying to look wholesome and innocent. When that didn’t work, Robinson told me it was time for me to show some leg.

  “You show it,” I countered. “You’re the one who always charms everyone.” (Also? I hadn’t shaved since we left home.)

  “Except that cop,” he said ruefully.

  Eventually, a nice old man in an El Camino pulled up. We told him we were headed to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, and he nodded approvingly and drove us right up to the visitors’ center. He wouldn’t even take ten bucks for gas.

  Instead, he slipped me a twenty as I was pulling my backpack from underneath the seat. “Go out for dinner tonight,” he urged. “Y’all need some meat on your bones.” For a moment he gazed wistfully at the sand dunes, gleaming golden at the base of blue, snow-capped mountains. “If my Meg was alive, I’d call her up and tell her to put a roast in the oven.” His eyes seemed to film over. Then he snapped back to the present. “Take care of yourselves, all right?” And then he drove away.

  I tried to shake off the strange, sad feeling his good-bye had given me. I looked over at Robinson, who was waving at me from the edge of a creek that cut along the base of the dunes.

  “It’s like someone picked up a piece of the Sahara and put it down in Colorado,” he said when I approached.

  “It’s amazing,” I said, snapping a picture that I knew wouldn’t do it justice. “Why do people end up in towns like K-Falls when there are places like this in the world?”

  “That’s an excellent question,” Robinson said. He flung his arms out wide, as if he could hug the whole huge vista. “We should probably never go back.” He looked pr
etty pleased by that idea.

  We began walking up a ridge to the top of the dunes. It was tough going—the sand was loose, and our feet sank deep into it. I could hear Robinson breathing hard behind me. As we neared the top, the wind picked up the sand and flung it, stinging, against us.

  “It’s like full-body exfoliation,” Robinson said, wiping the grit from his face. “There are people who pay good money for this.”

  “The glass is always half-full for you, isn’t it?” I asked. I would have smiled, but I’d have gotten sand in my teeth. Optimism was one of his best qualities.

  Stinging sand aside, we arrived in a spot that was breathtakingly beautiful. On nearby dunes we saw some people hiking up and others sliding back down on what looked like snowboards. Their delighted shouts carried through the air, which was already shimmering with heat.

  Robinson began to strum an imaginary guitar: “Even castles made of sand…” Then he looked at me somewhat sheepishly. “Jimi Hendrix.”

  “I know,” I told him. “My dad has that album.” I squinted into the distance. Beyond the dunes, the prairie was full of yellow wildflowers. I held my camera at arm’s length and took a picture of us squinting and grinning, on top of the world.

  We might have hiked back down then, but I turned and saw an old plastic sled half-buried in the sand. I pointed, and Robinson’s eyes lit up. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked, but I knew he was, so I didn’t wait for an answer.

  I climbed onto the front of the sled, and Robinson stood behind me, his hands on my back. He began to run, pushing me, and then he leapt in. He wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his head in my hair as we raced down the slope. The wind whipped the sand into my face, but I didn’t care—I screamed with delight.

  At the bottom of the dune, we lay on the sand, breathless.

  “Wow,” Robinson said.

  “Who needs snow?” I yelled, flinging up my arms. “Want to go again?”

  Of course he did.

  We spent a giddy, thrilling hour hiking up and then racing down, after which we were so hot and tired we could barely move.

  “I’m dying of thirst,” Robinson said, collapsing at my feet. “Also I think my nose is fried.”

  “ ‘What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well,’ ” I said.

  “Huh?” Robinson asked, rubbing his nose.

  “It’s a line from The Little Prince.”

  “You and your books,” he said teasingly.

  “It wouldn’t kill you to read one.”

  He raised a dark eyebrow. “You never know. It might,” he said, and smiled. “So where’s that well, then?”

  I tossed him a water bottle from my backpack, but it arced wide. He scrambled to get it, then opened the lid and drained the liquid in about two seconds.

  “You’re lucky I’ve got another one for myself,” I chided. “Otherwise that would’ve been very greedy. Very scalawag-ish.”

  He snorted. “I know you, Axi. Of course you have extra water. Now I’m going to close my eyes. Wake me in ten.” Then he put a shirt over his face and fell asleep, just like that, at the bottom of a sand dune.

  We washed off the grit in cold, clear Medano Creek, and we set up our tent at a nearby campground. After dinner—canned chili heated over the fire—we stored our food and packs in the metal bearproof box on the edge of the campsite.

  Night came suddenly, as if someone had blown out the sun like a candle. And then the stars burst from the sky, more than I’d ever seen in my life. I stared up, dazzled, and by this point almost too spent to speak.

  Robinson looked up, too. “There’s something I wanted to say to you that I never got a chance to,” he said.

  I knew not to get my hopes up by now. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You throw like a girl.”

  “You are such a jerk,” I said, laughing. I picked up the rinsed-out chili can and took aim. “I’ll show you throwing like a girl!”

  “I’m kidding. Those are the last lines from the movie Sahara,” he said. “Since we spent the day in the desert and all.”

  I put the can back down. I was too exhausted to throw, anyway. Instead, I took a deep drink of water. And I looked at the long, lean shape of Robinson through the darkness, thinking that there were many different kinds of thirst.

  25

  WE STOLE A PICKUP JUST AFTER DAWN, as the sun was rising golden over the mountains.

  Isn’t it crazy, how matter-of-factly I can say that?

  Well, Your Honor, we ate breakfast, and then we stole a truck. Granola bars and a Chevy, sir, if specifics matter to the court.

  If I ever meet that judge, I’m sure he’ll ask me, “Did you two think you were invincible?” And I’ll look him right in the eyes. “No, sir,” I’ll tell him. “In fact, I thought the opposite.”

  The engine of our borrowed truck was loud and rattling, and the radio played only AM stations. “This thing needs a new muffler,” Robinson said, frowning. “The exhaust manifold could be cracked, too.”

  “Awesome, a broken getaway car,” I said. “And wow, are we listening to Elvis right now?”

  “Love me tender, love me true,” Robinson sang. Then he stopped abruptly. “It’s not like I had time to give it a checkup before I stole it.” Was it just me, or did that sound a little… huffy? “Anyway, variety is the spice of life, and we can trade up at the next stop. Would you care to tell the chauffeur where that is, Ms. Moore?”

  I shrugged. The next stop I’d planned was Detroit, fourteen hundred miles away. “I don’t know. The world’s biggest ball of stamps? Carhenge? The Hobo Museum?” We were driving northeast, toward Nebraska, heading into what residents of the East and West Coasts liked to call flyover country.

  “Carhenge?” Robinson asked, sounding interested. “I bet that’s like Stonehenge, but with cars.”

  “Wow, ten thousand points for you,” I said. He gave me a hurt look. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

  I was irritable because I’d been awake most of the night. And it wasn’t the claustrophobic tent or the hard ground; it was Robinson. What was I supposed to do about him? About us? We’d been through so much together—and our journey had started well before the trip began. Wasn’t it time for me to tell him how I felt (even if I wasn’t exactly sure how to describe it)?

  I spent a long time thinking about what I’d say, and revising my lines, but in the end I was about as successful as I’d been with my good-bye note to Dad. As in: Not. At. All.

  Sample: Robinson, I think I loved you from the first moment I saw you. (But I was high on painkillers that day, so I loved everyone.) When I look at you, I see a better version of myself. (Wait—so I want to kiss myself?) I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life. (Um… not steal cars?)

  It was stupidly, infuriatingly impossible. No wonder I hadn’t written anything decent in ages—I couldn’t even figure out how to tell a boy that I loved him. That whenever I looked into his eyes, I felt like I was drowning and being saved, all at the same time. That if I had to choose between dying tomorrow or spending the rest of my life without him, I would seriously consider picking imminent death.

  I was afraid of what I felt. But was that the only reason it was so hard to admit it to him? Or was I afraid that he didn’t feel the same? Yes, I was definitely afraid of that.

  Now, as we drove in silence through the wide-open morning, I wanted so much to slide over to his side of the bench seat. I wanted to put my hand on his leg and feel the answering tremor go through him. I wanted to say, Pull over and kiss me.

  I took a deep breath. I couldn’t sneak over toward him, inch by cowardly inch. I was just going to have to go for it. All or nothing, Axi. Now is the time.

  I closed my eyes, offering a prayer to the gods of young love, Cupid or Aphrodite or Justin Bieber: Don’t let this be a terrible mistake.

  When I opened my eyes again, I saw that the truck was drifting to the right.

  “Robinson?” I said,
my voice rising as we veered toward the shoulder.

  He didn’t answer, and I looked over. His face was so pale it looked almost blue. He began to cough—a terrible, racking, wet sound that came from deep within him.

  He looked at me and his eyes were full of fear.

  And suddenly he was vomiting.

  Blood.

  “Stop the truck!” I screamed, reaching for the wheel.

  We were already on the shoulder, and Robinson somehow managed to hit the brake while still gagging. Cars whizzed past us, shaking the cab with their speed.

  “Oh my God, Robinson!” I cried, moving toward him. I was holding out my hands as if I could catch the blood—as if I could stop it from coming out of him and then put it back inside, where it belonged.

  The air swam in front of my eyes. I was crying.

  After a horrible, endless moment, Robinson stopped coughing. He wiped his red-streaked mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt.

  “It’s not that much, really,” he said weakly, looking at his shirt. “I’m okay now.”

  But I knew this if I knew anything: Robinson is not okay.

  Then again, it was possible that I wasn’t, either.

  part two

  26

  AND SO NOW, UNDER A COLORADO SKY so blue it hurt my eyes, we arrived at the terrible truth. You can plot your escape, you can ditch your life and your family, and you can race down a two-lane highway in a stolen car. But there are things you can never outrun.

  Things like cancer. Because that comes along for the ride.

  I managed to get us to a hospital forty-five minutes up the road in La Junta. Robinson lay with his head in my lap, and I ached to run my fingers through his hair and tell him everything would be all right. But because the truck didn’t have power steering, I needed both hands on the wheel.

  And I wasn’t sure that everything would be all right, not at all.

  The small hospital waiting room was freezing cold, lit with the kind of harsh fluorescent light that makes people look as damp and gray as fish. Robinson shivered and leaned against me. There was a bloom of dark blood on his T-shirt. He buttoned his flannel self-consciously. “Otherwise I look like I’ve been stabbed,” he explained.