Page 51 of Road Trip

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. The crying wasn’t the bad part.Thispart was the bad part. I’d stopped crying, but if I pulled away from him, at some point I’d have to make eye contact. And possibly words. And I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay here while the world carried on without me. Forever, if I could.

Jacob moved first, leaning back from me a little. “You want to grab a warm shower and then a nap?”

I didn’t reply at first. The flood of emotions had left me exhausted, and undressing and walking to the bathroom seemed like too much effort. But I was still covered in dried salt from our swim at the beach, and at least I wouldn’t have to talk to Jacob if I was in the bathroom. So I sat up and scrubbed my palms over my face, then nodded.

“Yeah.” My voice was hoarse but Jacob didn’t mention it. He knew better. When I glanced at him, he didn’t look weirded out or disgusted at me being a crybaby. He did have that little worried crease in his brow that he got when he wanted to fix things and didn’t know how, though. I leaned forward and smoothed a thumb over it. “I’m fine,” I lied.

Iwasfine—as long as I didn’t think about what had happened or what the hell I was supposed to do now.

Standing, I shuffled into the bathroom, moving as slowly as an old man. I undressed and turned the shower on. I made it as hot as I could stand and then stepped under it. Stood there for a while. Then I sat down. Well, sat. Slid down the wall in a wave of despair. Same thing.

I stayed on the floor staring at the off-while tile and not thinking about the future, just listening to the static in my brain. Ihad no idea how much time had passed when there was a faint knock on the door and Jacob asked, “Did you drown in there?”

The forced note of levity in his tone didn’t hide his concern.

“Not yet.”

“I got food,” he said.

I dragged myself to my feet, my fingers squeaking on the wall tiles. Turning off the water, I dried myself on the thin hotel towel before wrapping it around my waist. I stepped out into the room to find Jacob on the phone. He pointed over to the tiny round table in the corner where a McDonald’s bag sat as he said, “Yeah. Yeah, we will. Thanks, Mom.” His gaze lifted to meet mine. “I gotta go. Bye.”

I sat down on one of the beds.

“I got you food,” Jacob said, grabbing the bag and setting it beside me. “And your clothes.”

A pair of track pants and a soft T-shirt landed on the bed next to me. I brushed the fabric of the T-shirt with my fingertips. “This is yours.”

“Is it?” He wrinkled his nose and looked genuinely confused. “Nah, I don’t think it is.”

It was.

Just a plain blue T-shirt I’d borrowed one night when I was sleeping over at his place and never given back. It had been in my possession for so long that I wasn’t surprised he didn’t remember it was his. But I remembered, because I’d worn it to sleep for weeks after, imagining I could smell him on it when all it really smelled like by that point was me.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked, because maybe his answer had changed since last time.

The mattress dipped as he sat beside me. He shook his head. “Still no.”

I nodded slowly. “I think I’m mad at me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m stupid.”

He shook his head. “You expected your dad to mean what he said. How does that make you stupid?”

“Because he never came to see me in ten years, Jacob. Ten fuckingyears. He never even called. I only knew he’d remarried because I stalked his Facebook, so it’s not like he was going out of his way to stay in touch, you know? He didn’t want anything to do with me. But I was still dumb enough to ignore all of that and plan my whole fucking future around a comment he made when he walked out on us when I waseight.” My throat hurt and clearing it didn’t help. Not when a fresh wave of tears was waiting right behind my words. “So yeah, stupid.”

Even though my stomach was churning, I opened the takeout bag and shoved a handful of fries into my mouth so I wouldn’t say something that made me start crying again. I unwrapped my burger with shaking hands.

Jacob tilted his head back and stuck out his chin the way he did when he was getting ready to argue. “So your dad’s a liar. So what? Doesn’t make you stupid. I mean, you had a whole plan. You found out where he was, and you found a way to get here. That sounds pretty clever to me.”

“Yeah, I’m a genius,” I muttered, biting into my burger.

“And your dad’s an asshole.”

“Yeah. I guess Mom was right. Like, whenever we’d fight, I’d yell that I’d go live with Dad then, and she’d yell back that he—” My voice cracked. “That he didn’t want me. It only came up when we were fighting. I thought she was just…I don’t know what I thought. That she was only saying it because she was angry with me, not because it was true.” My shoulders slumped. “What the hell am I going to do now?”

I was justsofucking tired.

---