Page 8 of Survive the Night

“Sorry about the air freshener,” he says. “It’s, uh, potent. I can take it down, if you want.”

“It’s fine,” Charlie says, even though she’s not entirely sure it is. Normally, she loves the smell of pine. As a kid, she’d bring her face close to each freshly cut Christmas tree and inhale its scent in lung-filling gulps. But this is something different. Chemicals pretending to be nature. It makes Charlie want to crack open the window. “I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

It’s a good enough answer for Josh, who nods while staring out the windshield. “I did the math, and I think the drive should take us about six hours, not counting pit stops.”

Charlie already knows this, thanks to similar trips home. It takes a half hour to reach Interstate 80, all of it on a local road lined with hobby shops, dentist offices, and travel agencies. Once on the highway, it’s about another thirty minutes until they cross the Delaware Water Gap into Pennsylvania. After that comes the Poconos,followed by hours of nothing. Just fields and forests and monotony until they hit Ohio and, soon after that, the exit for Youngstown. When Josh told her they couldn’t leave until nine, she resigned herself to not getting home until three a.m. or later. She didn’t have much of a choice.

“You’re welcome to sleep the whole way, if you want,” Josh says.

Sleeping through the drive is not on the table. Josh might seem friendly and nice, but Charlie plans to be conscious during the entire trip.

Always remain alert. Another piece of advice on that Take Back the Night flyer.

“I’ll be all right,” she says. “I don’t mind keeping you company.”

“Then I’ll be sure to make a coffee stop before we hit the highway.”

“Sounds good,” Charlie says.

“Good,” Josh replies.

And just like that, they run out of things to say. It only took two minutes. Sitting awkwardly in the newfound silence, Charlie wonders if she should say something—anything—to keep the conversation rolling. It’s something she’s fretted over since Josh agreed to give her a ride—the etiquette of being in a car with an almost stranger.

She knows it’s not the same as in the movies, where two strangers confined together in a car find endless things to talk about, usually leading to either romance or murder. But in real life, if you talk too much, you’re annoying. If you don’t talk enough, you’re rude.

The same standards apply to Josh. As she packed, Charlie was both worried he’d be too chatty and worried he’d say nothing at all. Silence between strangers is different from the long periods of quiet she’d experienced with Maddy or Robbie. With someone you know and trust, silence doesn’t matter. With a stranger, it could mean anything.

A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet, Maddy used to say. Ironic, seeing how she was the more judgmental of the two of them. Charlie was merely awkward and shy. It took tenacious prodding to coax her out of her shell. Maddy was the complete opposite. Outgoing and theatrical, which made her quick to tire of those who either didn’t share her flair for the dramatic or failed to appreciate it. It’s why they were a perfect combo: Maddy performed, and Charlie watched with adoration.

“You’re not her friend,” Robbie once said in a huff after Maddy had shrugged off plans with them in order to go to a kegger with her theater major friends. “You’re her audience.”

What Robbie didn’t understand—what hecouldn’tunderstand—was that Charlie knew and didn’t care. She was a willing audience to Maddy’s antics. It gave her quiet life the drama it otherwise would have lacked, and Charlie loved her for that.

But that’s all over now. Maddy’s dead. Charlie’s retreated from the world. And since she’ll never lay eyes on Josh again once they reach Youngstown, she sees no point in turning him from stranger to friend.

Just as she resigns herself to spending the next six hours in awkward, pine-scented silence, Josh pipes up from behind the wheel, suddenly chatty.

“So what’s in Youngstown that you’re so eager to get back to?”

“My grandmother.”

“Neat,” Josh says with an amiable nod. “Family visit?”

“I live with her.”

Over the years, she’s learned that answer requires less explaining than the truth. Telling people that her grandmother technically lives in the house Charlie inherited from her dead parents usually leads to follow-up questions.

“I gotta say, I didn’t expect to find someone to share the drive with me,” Josh says. “Not many people are leaving campus. Not this time of year. And everyone there seems to own a car. You evernotice that? The parking lots are filled. I’m surprised you don’t have a car.”

“I don’t drive,” Charlie says, knowing it sounds like she doesn’t know how.

In truth, she doesn’twantto drive. Not since her parents’ accident. The last time she was behind the wheel of a car was the day before they died. When her license expired three months ago, she never bothered to renew it.

Charlie’s okay with being a passenger. She has to be. She knows that riding in a car is unavoidable, just like she knows something bad could happen regardless of whether she’s behind the wheel or not. Just look at her mother. She was simply along for the ride when Charlie’s father steered the car off the highway and into the woods, killing them both instantly.

No one knows what prompted him to drive off the road, even though theories abound. He swerved to miss a deer. He had a heart attack behind the wheel. Something went tragically awry with the steering column.

Accidents happen.

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