Page 31 of Drive Me Wilde

"Right," Dad snarls and shoves his hat back on. "Let's go, son."

Harrington sits back, signaling he's given up on talking to my dad. I grab my backpack and follow Dad. His shoulders spread out nearly the width of the hallway. I'm trying to predict my fate by the set of those massive shoulders. I'm fucking toast.

Dad doesn't say a word as we cross the puddled parking lot and climb into the truck. His silence is probably the scariest sound in the world, at least to my brothers and me. When Dad isn't talking, it means he's keeping the rage locked in so that it can eventually explode like lava from a volcano. I'm even thinking this might be my last day on earth, and all because Harrington decided to play the big shot and make my dad come to the school, a choice he clearly regretted the second Finnegan Wilde pushed through the door.

Dad doesn't slow at the speed bumps, and the truck's front tires hop up and smack the ground hard. I brace myself for the rear end to do the same. He still hasn't said a word as we pull on to Harbor Avenue, a long, windy road that will eventually lead back to the ranch. I'm sure he's using the quiet time to get creative with his punishment ideas. He's going at top speed through the rain, leaving a rooster tail of mud behind the truck as it carves a path along the road. Then he slams on the brakes hard. My hands shoot out to stop myself from smacking into the dash and windshield.

Dad holds out his massive palm. "Phone."

I'm still recovering from being ejected from the seat. "What?"

That same palm curls into a fist and lands solidly in my face. My head smacks the side window hard. My nose fills with blood. He manages to gash my lip, too. Blood is dripping on my wet shirt, but I'm not exactly sure where it's coming from. I'm lucky because he held back most of his strength. He holds his palm flat again. Through the fog in my head, I remember his order and rummage through my backpack for the phone. I place it on his palm.

"Don't want you calling for a ride. Now get out."

I pick up the backpack.

"Leave it. Get out." My dad has moments where he's entirely human, almost fatherly, then he has moments where everyounce of humanity drains from him, and he's the hardened entity years of growing up with a brutal father produced. Instead of doing things differently with his own sons, he chooses to dip into that nightmarish childhood for parenting tips from his monster of a dad.

I push open the truck door and stumble out into the pouring rain. Dad steps on the gas, and the door flies out of my hand. It bounces open and then shut. The rear tires spray me with mud as he flies down the road. Blood is still dripping from my nose and mouth, and my head aches from the impact of his fist and the window.

The slim shoulder on the road has been mostly worn away by rain. I jump down into the ditch that runs parallel to the road. A few cars roll past, the drivers glancing through rain-streaked windows to see who the crazy person is walking in the storm. If this is my whole punishment, then I got off easy.

The water in the ditch starts flowing faster. The rain hasn't let up, so it's filling quickly. I'm shin deep by the time I hop back on the road. The unpaved sides of the road crumble beneath my feet with each step. I glance behind me to check for cars and move farther onto the road to keep from falling into the ditch. I reach the last mile before the road winds up higher into the hills and to the ranch. Blood is still flowing from my nose, and I can taste it in my mouth. I spit some out, then pull my hood forward on my head, but it doesn't matter. I'm soaked. A wind blows against me. I shove my hands into the pockets on my sweatshirt, drop my face and forge through the heavy spray of rain.

I don't hear the car, but I feel the vibrations under my feet. I lift my head, squint into the onslaught of cold rain and catch a flash of movement out of the side of my eye. I turn around just as taillights fly off the road. The sounds of crushed metal and broken glass follow, and the big pine tree sitting off the roadshakes so hard a hurricane of needles fall. Steam from a broken radiator snakes up through the wet air.

I race across the road and fly down the embankment toward the wreck. I'm going so fast, I can barely stop when I reach the car. The front end is gone, wrapped on both sides of the big tree. It's a small, older sedan, which I don't recognize until I hurry to the driver's side. Indiana Nash's dad is collapsed over the steering wheel.

It takes a few good pulls to open the door. "Mr. Nash?" He responds with a low moan of pain. Blood is dripping from somewhere. He isn't wearing a seat belt, and the car is too old for an airbag. I search frantically in my pockets for my phone. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." I hurry back to the road looking both ways for a passing car. After a torturously long few minutes, one appears. I flag it down and tell the woman behind the wheel to call for an ambulance.

I hurry back down to the car. Water is rushing down the embankment. The water is ankle deep around the car. "Mr. Nash, help is on the way." He's not moving at all. I gently push his body back and suck in a sharp breath. There's a deep gash in his head. His face looks pale and slack through the rivers of blood. The smallest sound rolls up from his throat. I take his hand. It's the only thing I dare touch.

"Help is on the way," I say, but my gut tells me it's too late. "I'm sorry," I tell him. "I'm sorry." A lump the size of a baseball forms in my throat. Dad asked Harrington if I was in trouble for killing someone, and now, I have. Story of my fucking life. He should have just whipped me.

Indi is never going to forgive me.

thirteen

. . .

Indi

The story is hard to hear, like I always imagined. I wanted to stop him halfway, but I got the sense that he needed to tell it. Jameson has been internalizing that awful day, keeping all the details to himself and even convincing himself that it should have been him, that he should have died that day instead of my dad. Knowing he thought, all this time, I wanted it to be him and not my dad leaves an ache in my chest that seems to have settled there for good. And if I really thought back to those dizzying days after my dad's death, the notion probably crossed my mind more than once. It's those crazy, almost maniacal thoughts that you think about after a huge trauma.Why him? Why did this happen?And the "if onlys"—those come fast and furious for days afterward. Fate could have easily stepped in and saved Weston and me the anguish of losing our dad, but it didn't. Instead, it showed up and twisted our world in the entirely wrong direction.

"You've been carrying this around with you all these years." My voice is barely audible. I'm still absorbing everything. The lump in my throat makes it hard to talk. "I was so devastated by my dad's death. Weston was angry with you at first, but he kept reminding me it was an accident. I didn't want to hear it.All I knew was you were there, and Dad swerved to miss you and ended up dead."

"We weren't exactly buddies," Jameson reminds me. "You hated me."

I shake my head. "Hate's a strong word. You just—you were mean to me. You teased me mercilessly and then there was the whole prom night debacle. What the heck happened that night? Why were you and Zach fighting?"

Jameson picks up his soda and takes a few gulps. There's that Adam's apple again. "I think you need to let Zach tell you that story. I'm all storied out."

I look at him. "My mom was no picnic, but you guys—you really had it rough with your dad."

"There were good times mixed in with the bad. Mostly, he was too involved with his own life to care what we were up to, but if something angered him or if he was in a bad mood, we stayed well clear of him."

"There—" Rio's hair is wet, and she's changed into a tie-dye T-shirt and shorts. She pulled the pink boots back on. She twirls to the right and the left. "Am I presentable?" She lifts her feet, one at a time, so we can see the bottom of each boot. "And before you freak out, I checked the bottoms for poop."

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