Page 21 of The Roads We Follow

I don’t bother to tell her that I’d thought I grew out of it, too, yet the times I’ve sat sideways on a couch in a moving vehicle as an adult are zero.

“Hattie, your sister needs the front seat,” Mama spouts abruptly.

My eyes ping open wide. “What? No, I didn’t say—”

“Raegan needs to look out the front window. It’s the only thing that helped her when she was young.”

“But, Mama,” Hattie protests, “Micah and I are having a nice conversation up here.”

“Now, Hattie,” Mama demands. “You can come paint next to me. I have plenty of extra canvases for you to choose from.”

And just like that, Hattie is making her way from the cockpit to the sofas.

“Go on, Raegan,” Mama says with a quick jerk of her head. “You look terrible.”

My stomach churns something fierce, but this time I’m certain it has more to do withwhoI’ll be sitting next to rather than whereI’ll be sitting. I’m feeling so pukey that when I stand to make my way toward the cab, I have to brace myself against the wall for a few breaths.

I feel Micah’s eyes on me as soon as I take the passenger seat and latch my seatbelt. We’re on I-40, and it’s a route I’ve driven a thousand times. If there are levels of carsickness shame, then I must be near the top. We’re still in my home state for goodness’ sake.

“I can pull over at the next exit and stop for Dramamine,” comes the masculine voice to my left.

“No.” I manage a whisper. “I can’t take that anymore. It gives me hives.”

“Okay, well you should open your eyes, then. Concentrate on those clouds in the distance, and don’t look anywhere else. Take slow, deep breaths.”

I’m too woozy to respond, so I do as he suggests. And within a few minutes, I feel infinitely less nauseated.

“Better?” he asks, as if he can read my mind.

“Much,” I admit quietly. “That’s one more punch to add to your Red Cross card.”

There’s a laugh in his voice when he asks, “And what happens when I reach ten punches?”

I don’t trust my equilibrium enough to turn my head just yet, but my brain is finally coming online again. “That’s for you to decide.”

“But I’m curious what you would choose?”

My only response is a side-eye. I don’t understand this game.

“If you got to choose any prize, what would it be?” he tries again.

“Time travel.”

“Oh.”

It’s crazy how a single utterance can reveal so much. In this case, it says,Congratulations, Raegan, you discovered the only wrong answer to this hypothetical question.

“Sorry.” I chance a look at him this time. “I should have disclosed ahead of time that I’m not good at that kind of stuff. Carsick or not.”

“No, no, you did perfectly. I should have specified that the use ofmagical portals are definitely allowed in this game. Please carry on. I’d love to know where you would time travel to. Past or future?”

It’s a harder question to answer than I realized. If I went back in time, back before Tav and I got entangled in a losing game ofI Can Love Him Enough for the Both of Us, and back before my father passed and life as we knew it went haywire, would it have made a difference to my writing dreams? Or would it be better to travel to a time five or ten years from now and hope things might be stable enough to try my hand at publishing again under different circumstances? It’s this thought that plucks at a string a little too close to another, and suddenly I’m picturing the terrifying aftermath of a tell-all that, if real, could have consequences too big to even speculate.

“I’m starting to wonder if you just slipped through a magical portal while sitting in that jump seat....” Micah turns his questioning gaze on me as the bus rolls on.

“Sorry, no. I just realized that transporting to a different time won’t really solve much of anything. Things are ... what they are.” I must be far sicker than I thought to admit such a thing, and yet as soon as I speak it, I feel it anew. This bizarre intimacy we stumbled into earlier.

Micah’s nod is slow yet attentive. “I can relate.” He adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. “It’s been a heck of a year.”

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