Page 50 of Road Trip

Jacob didn’t say anything as we drove away. Just gripped the steering wheel tightly and stared out the windshield, as tightly wound with nerves as he had been the day we’d hit the interchange outside Norfolk.

He didn’t have his phone plugged into the car, so there was no route showing on the screen. If he had any idea where the hell we were going, he didn’t share it with me, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask, too busy listening to the echoes ofnobodyplaying over and over in my brain.

Did he play baseball with his other son? He’d gotten me a glove when I was about six or seven, but I’d never been good at it.

Watch the ball, Matthew! Don’t run away from it!

In the end, he’d been as good at parenting as I’d been at catching. At parentingme, anyway. He was probably doing a bang-up job with that other kid—apart from, y’know, not telling him he had an older brother.

Jacob was still focused on the road, his knuckles white, and I still had no clue where we were going. He could drive us rightinto the ocean for all I cared. Maybe he was so pissed at me that was what he was planning.

We pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall and he turned the engine off. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t, so I said something instead.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No!” he yelled, sounding pretty fucking mad actually. He twisted to face me. “No! Matty, I’m mad athim!”

Jacob was the best person I knew, but I bet even he would be pissed when he realized it was my fault we’d just driven all the way across the country for nothing.

“Okay,” he said, drawing in a deep breath. “Areyouokay? That’s a dumb question. Okay, so we have gas. I don’t think…” He grabbed his phone and started to scroll. “Okay, I think if we drive away from the coast for a while, motels will be cheaper than around here. But we should get one pretty quick, don’t you think?”

Why the hell was he asking me? I’d wanted him to drive us into the sea. But I shrugged.

“Because…can you look at me, Matty? You’re not looking at me.”

I reluctantly lifted my head.

“We’re gonna get a motel,” Jacob said. He looked almost scared, and I hated that all of this was my fault. “Okay?”

“Whatever,” I said, hating the way my voice cracked. I cleared my throat. “Yeah.” At least I wouldn’t be sleeping on the beach my first night in California, but after that? Who the fuck knew?

Jacob nodded and started the car. “Okay, let’s go find somewhere.”

Somewhere turned out to be a La Quinta at Miramar with twin beds, a gas station out the front, and a McDonald’s right across the road. Jacob’s brow creased when he handed over his card.

“That your college fund?” I asked in a low voice as I trailed him down the corridor on the way to our room. “You’re not supposed to spend your college fund.”

“Shut up,” he murmured. “Come on.”

I’d been keeping it together by sheer force of will since we’d left my dad’s, determined not to look like the pathetic mess I was, but I could feel my control crumbling as we approached the motel room door—like now there was a safe space in sight, all the rage and confusion that was bubbling up inside me was desperate to spill out.

I just had to make it to the other side of that door.

“Hey,” I said as Jacob held his card up to the reader and opened the door, “I bet you wish we’d taken my dad’s money now.” I forced a wry smile.

We stepped inside and Jacob whirled to face me, eyes blazing. “Don’t you say that! Fuck him! You don’t need anything from him!” Two bright spots of color appeared on his cheeks, and his chest heaved.

I’d never seen him this fired up, not over anything.

He sucked in a deep breath, and when he spoke again he was calmer, but I could tell he was deadly serious. He reached out and cupped my face. “The only thing of your father’s that’s worth anything isyou.”

And just like that, that thread I’d been holding onto since standing on my dad’s front doorstep snapped, and I fell apart.

My eyes flooded with tears, my lip wobbled, and an ugly sob tore its way out of my chest, because howdareJacob care about me this much when my own father didn’t even want me? When all I was worth to him was fuckinggas money? It was too much to take, and when he opened his arms and said, “I’m here, Matty,” I fell right into them, shaking and crying in a way I never had before.

When shit happened, I didn’tcry. I got mad and lashed out. That was what I’d always done. But somehow, Jacob had stripped all my layers away, and now he was stuck with this—a sobbing, pathetic mess. But I couldn’t stop and I didn’t care. And weirdly, he didn’t seem to care either. He just held me and rubbed asoothing hand up and down my back as I cried out all my disappointment and betrayal and hurt in a flood of tears.

It took a long time, but eventually I was able to take a snuffly breath without crying. I kept my face buried against Jacob’s chest, though. He shuffled us over to one of the twin beds and sat down, drawing me with him.

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