Page 3 of Drive Me Wilde

"Yep, I remember the days of paper-thin sandwiches and potato chip crumbs."

I'm so hungry, my eyes water as I wait for her to pull my half out of the wrapper. She hands me the larger half.

"This is so sweet of you, really." I take a small, demure bite, but what I really want to do is devour my half, snatch her half, eat it and then hurry down the aisle to the white-haired lady with the grocery bags and beg her for a chunk of that salami. "Hmm, this is one of the best I've had."

"Thanks. It's all about the sourdough." Sunni has nearly finished her sandwich, and I feel guilty for taking her other half.I don't know much about her. Maybe it's the only meal she has planned for the day. And now I'm eating half of it. I'm too hungry to worry about it. I down the rest in three bites and wish I had another three halves. Aside from some stale, low-sodium crackers I found in the back seat of my car and a dry donut from a going-out-of-business mini-mart, this is my first meal in three days.

Sunni hands me a wipe, and I'm hit with another childhood memory—sitting in the back of my dad's old car as he drove my twin brother, Weston, and me home from a trip to the waterpark. Dad always bought us an ice cream cone for the ride home and then supplied us heavily with hand wipes, so we didn't make the seats sticky.

"You never said—" I look over at Sunni. She seems less imposing, less goth sitting in the rattling bus with its graffiti-filled walls and hard plastic seats. "Where are you headed?"

"Don't know yet." She tilts her head toward me. "Guess we have that in common. Only, not knowing is my everyday routine. I pick a random amount of money for bus fare, then I ride the bus until the money runs out. That's where I stay for a week or two. I work remotely." She pats her pack, then lets it slide slowly down the seatback in front of her to rest between her boots. I do the same with my duffle. "My mom, the brilliant baby namer, keeps telling me to get a real job," Sunni continues. "Her definition of a real job is getting up at six, pulling on suitable work clothes, chugging a cup of hot, bitter coffee, driving thirty minutes in aggravating traffic and then spending the rest of the day in an over-airconditioned office where they play horrible music and coworkers pretend to like each other. Never mind that I've been paying both her rent and insurance for the last year. My job is still notrealbecause I carry my office in a backpack."

"That actually sounds cool. I'll bet you've got some great stories to tell."

She shrugs. "Not really. Occasionally I meet someone who makes things a little more interesting." She looks pointedly at me. "Like this girl I met standing in the pouring rain at the bus stop, looking as lost and hungry as a stray kitten. I don't know her whole story, but from the way she keeps wincing and pressing her arm against her side and the way she looked at my crummy sandwich as if I was about to hand her a prime rib dinner makes me think she's really been through something."

I blink back tears. "You're pretty perceptive." I relax back against the seat. It takes some of the pressure off my bruised ribs. I am soaked, hungry, sore and have no idea where I'm going, but for the first time in days, I feel at ease. It might just be the company. Sunshine is not such an outlandish name after all.

Sunni rests back too. "I understand if you don't want to talk about it. None of my business."

"No, it's not that." I turn toward the window. The pane is so scratched it's hard to see through, but we're heading past a Home Depot and Food for Less. "I can't talk about it yet because I still can't believe it's happened." I turn my face to her. "Ever have your entire life turned completely inside out in a matter of hours?"

"I've definitely had it zig when I wanted to zag but never inside out." We both face forward, our bodies hopping and swaying to the unwieldy movements of the bus.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. It still has some charge on it. I pull it out of my damp pocket along with the last piece of tissue I've been using to soak up my tears. It's in shreds now as if it has gone through the washer and dryer. I push the pieces of tissue back into my pocket and swipe the screen. It's a text from my brother, Weston. He thinks I'm still in Los Angeles, living the good life in a high-dollar apartment, working a high-caliberjob and dating one of Hollywood's rising leading men. But that was Monday Indi. The girl reading the text is Thursday Indi, wet and hungry and riding in a public bus that has the words "clowns suck" etched into the window next to her head. Weston is in the army and stationed in Germany. I don't dare tell him my predicament because it will only worry him.

The glory days.

I open the photo. It's from prom. I'm wearing a slinky pink dress, and the prom queen crown has slipped sideways on my head. I'm gripping Zach's arm and laughing wildly about something. We look drunk off our asses.

"I guessed that," Sunni said. "Sorry, my eyes just happened to fall that direction. Even rain-soaked, with those cheekbones and green eyes, I had you pegged as prom queen material. Do you mind?"

I lift the phone so she can see it better. "Now that's the guy I would have crushed on in high school."

"That's Zach. He was prom king and my steady boyfriend. I thought we'd be married and living the whole picket-fence lifestyle by now, but things turned out differently. He married someone else."

Sunni is still staring at the photo. She shakes her head. "Not the prom king. I'm talking about that angry, intense-looking dude behind y'all. Who's that? He looks pissed off about the two of you. And he looks like a guy I'd drop my panties for without a second thought."

I turn the screen my direction. I suck in just enough breath to remind myself of the bruised ribs. An intense, silver-blue gaze skewers me from the phone screen. I stare at him for a long moment. "That's Jameson." As his name comes out my voice gets thin and hoarse. "He's—he's—" I can't finish.

"Hmm, not sure how to interpret that reaction. Could go either way. Looks like you're all having fun anyway."

I shake my head. "That night, prom night, had a spectacularly bad ending. And all because of that guy you'd drop your panties for." I look at the picture again. It wasn't the first time I saw it, but I never noticed how angry Jameson looked. I still have no idea what set him off that night, and Zach always avoided talking about it.

Sunni nods confidently. "Yep, I pegged him as one of those dark, brooding guys. Always liked that type." She laughs. "I suppose you could have guessed that. I never went to prom." She chuckles. "Something else you could probably guess. But, apparently, at mine, there was a big brawl in the lobby of the hotel outside the ballroom. Police and parents were called, and all the after-parties were cancelled. I thought it was funny as hell. Did your prom end in a fight, too?"

"Yeah and I still have no idea what caused it. Although Jameson was always looking for trouble. Or maybe it was the other way around. Trouble was always looking for Jameson. Jameson, Zach and my brother, Weston, were inseparable back in high school. But Jameson made my life miserable. We hated each other, and he did something—" The tightness in my throat has been a constant reminder of the terrible week, but this time, it's different. This time it comes with an ache that tumbles down through my chest and my entire body. "Something that's too hard to talk about." I close the picture and push the phone into my pocket. I rest my head back and close my eyes.

The bus enters the freeway. With fewer stops and turns, drowsiness starts to seep in. Good sleep has been as absent as food. Regardless of the pain in my side, my body melts, slow and heavy like wax, into the hard seat.

"You know, I travel most of the time." Sunni's tone is mellow, comforting. She knows I need sleep. She knows I'vebeen "through something." Just like she knew I needed that sandwich. "But whenever life gives me a kick in the ass—" her soft tone flows over me. It's getting harder to keep my eyes open. "I find the best place to be is back home."

"Home," I say on a whisper. "Not entirely sure I know where that is anymore."

two

. . .

---