Page 20 of Road Trip

He gave me a narrow-eyed, angry look, like somehow I was the one who’d screwed up here. He sneered. “Like, why wouldn’t I? You think I’m gonna stick around and go to community college in Melfa instead?”

“But it’s on the other side of the country,” I said. From home. Fromme. There was already so much changing this summer, all our friends—well,myfriends, since Matt barely liked anyone—scattering on the wind. Matt wasn’t supposed to leave. Hecouldn’tleave. Except here he was already leaving, hundreds of miles fromCape Charles because I’d fucking driven him, and I was only just finding out about it.

“Yeah,” he drawled. “Gold star to Jacob for geography.”

“Now you’re just being an asshole,” I said as the betrayal twisted inside me, transforming into anger. “Not that that’s anything new.”

“If that’s how you feel, at least you won’t miss me,” he said, his eyes narrowing even further, “and Mom sure as hell won’t. Did you know today’s the first time she’s been home since we left? She’s been staying at Zeke’s.” He rolled his eyes. “So it’s not like she’ll care that I’m gone.” He stuck his chin out the way he did when he was nervous or frightened but trying to hide it.

“You didn’t answer her calls, though,” I said, not willing to let go of my anger yet. Matt had fucked up, and he didn’t get a free pass just because we’d been friends forever.

“I blocked her number,” he muttered.

The couple at the next table glanced over curiously, and I decided that if Matt and I were going to have the straight guy equivalent of a lovers’ tiff, I wasn’t doing it at the BBQ Shack.

I stood and stalked over to the car, hands shoved in my pockets, and Matt followed. He thrust the keys at me silently, and I unlocked the doors and we climbed in. I stared at the console for around thirty seconds before the heat got stifling, and I started the engine and turned the AC to high. The cold air blasted against my heated skin, and it still wasn’t as chilly as the sudden distance between us. We sat there for a minute and Matt cleared his throat. “Jacob?—”

“Save it,” I snapped and slammed the car into Drive so hard that we lurched forward out of the parking spot. It was some passive aggressive bullshit, and Iknewit was, but I couldn’t help it. I was pissed. Matt was meant to be my anchor while everything else in my life was adrift, and anchors didn’t move. That was the point of them.

We drove without speaking. When the silence got too loud I flipped on the radio, and since we were in Tennessee we landedon Classic Country FM. And let me tell you, hearing Patsy Cline falling to pieces did zero for my mood.

I could see Matt just itching to put on a playlist, but he must have realized that his best friend Spotify privileges had been revoked because he didn’t even make a sound as I flipped between a few more local radio channels. Of course, everything was coming up country. I got a small glow of satisfaction from knowing just how much he was hating it, so I turned it up.

How’s that feel, huh?

He clenched his hands around his stupid sketchbook, rolling the rubber band that held it closed back and forth under his thumb. Hard. But he still didn’t say anything, so I knew I was winning.

Funny how that didn’t make me feel any less shit.

Matt was leaving me. It wasn’t even that he’d lied, although I was plenty pissed about that. It was that he didn’t think enough of me to bother letting me know so I could get used to the idea of life without him. Like, we’d just pull up at his dad’s and he’d be,Well, nice knowing you, or some shit.Peace out.

Okay, so Matt would never sayPeace outto anyone, but that kind of vibe.

Suddenly his giant duffel made so much more sense.

“So,” I said, just to break the silence once we were a few more miles down the highway, and Matt flinched, “when were you going to tell me? Today? Tomorrow? Five minutes after we pulled up in your dad’s driveway?”

He mumbled something.

“What?” I asked over the song.

He glared at me. “You’re going away to college anyway.”

“And coming home on weekends!”

“Bullshit,” he said, jutting his chin out. He plucked the rubber band so loudly that he could have been playing a twanging guitar as backup for Patsy. “Like, maybe for the first few weeks, but then you wouldn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” I demanded, putting my foot on the gas to get around a slow-moving RV.

“Because you’d have a fuckinglife, that’s why!” He looked away so quickly I was surprised I didn’t hear his neck crack. “Pull over. I need to piss.”

I took the exit to the rest area, rolling my eyes. “Hurry up or we’ll end up behind Grampa Jed’s RV again.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Matt grumbled.

He was halfway across the parking lot when I called out, “Hey.”

He hesitated, listening.

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