Page 56 of Rules for Rule Breaking
Bobby was quiet. He was trying to appear calm, but he had a death grip on the door that gave him away. “Please pay attention to the road.”
“Stop telling me what to do!”
“You’re going to miss the turn, Winter. Shut up and drive.”
“Stop telling me to shut up!”
The phone ringing through the car was distracting her, and her heart was pounding. Bobby yelling at her wasn’t helping.
“You’re going to take the turn too fast. Slow down,” Bobby said, gripping the dashboard.
“I swear, Bobby. You need to back off.”
“Slow down!”
Winter did end up taking the turn too fast. She neglected to see the curb—she felt it, though. The car went up and down, shaking them around inside like a pair of dice. Several bystanders clapped their hands over their mouths and others went, “Ohhhhhhh,” as the back of the car followed and dropped down onto the street.
The car was shaking violently as Winter pulled into the nearest parking lot. She shut off the engine and got as far away as she could. She hadn’t even driven a full hour and she’d already wrecked Bobby’s car. She was only joking when she said she wanted to ruin it. Had she subconsciously done this on purpose?
Bobby jumped out of the car and had both hands on his head. He looked like her dad when he was watching a particularly disappointing basketball game.
“Is it bad?” she asked.
“There’s a giant hole in the tire and the rim is bent.”
“And... that’s bad?”
“Well, it’s definitely not good!”
Bobby Bae
26. WE WILL PROMPTLY SHUT DOWN ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT US DATING
Bobby tried to replace the damaged wheel with a doughnut to no avail. He had hands made for Dove commercials and couldn’t loosen the bolts. He called a tow truck, which took hours to arrive.
After the tow truck left, Bobby sat near the fountain they’d driven by earlier, trying to come up with a new plan. He and Winter hadn’t exchanged two words between them since she tried to lay waste to all of New Jersey’s curbs. He was seated on a stone bench, watching her at the reflecting pool with her feet in water. She sat on the edge, using a handful of pebbles she’d collected to play a solo game of gonggi like Mr. Park had taught them when they were kids. The pebbles clacked together as she shook them up and spilled them onto the concrete.
At least I got to use my road flares, Bobby thought.
The mechanic said that the car wouldn’t be done until the next day, so they were utterly stuck with very little money because what he had in his debit card went toward the tow truck and fixing the rim. He wouldn’t be able to use his credit card without his parents knowing about it, and he couldn’t very well tell them he allowed Winter to drive. If he told them he had done it, they would never trust him to drive alone again. “A car is a privilege,” his mother always said.
He looked at his reflection in his phone screen and saw someonefamiliar looking back. His breath was steady.Your car isn’t a vase, and you’re not a kid anymore, he muttered to himself. He’d impulsively asked Winter to drive when he felt like Death was around the corner. When your insides are desperately petitioning to become outsides and you’re too weak to get not only your toothbrush but your emergency toothbrush is when you are your most honest. His truest self is the one who handed over the keys, and his body didn’t supply the panic attack to alert him he’d done anything wrong.
Bobby shook his head at his own stupidity.
He knew what he wanted to do, but he didn’t know if he should. He had always imagined reconnecting with his uncle Eugene after he’d moved away to college and had his own life. He never thought that it would be under these circumstances. His finger hovered over the call button as he watched Winter splashing around. She was by far the oldest one doing so. The kids were pushing one another under the jets, and Winter smiled every time they screamed.
A group of skateboarders flew in front of his face and broke his trance. He clicked the green button, and his phone rang. The call couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes, and Bobby barely remembered what he said. His only physical reminders that it had occurred were the tense grin from ear to ear on his face like Uncle Eugene could somehow see him through the receiver and the sinking feeling in his stomach from knowing that his estranged uncle would soon be arriving to save him and Winter.
Bobby sat transfixed to the spot, focusing on the sound of Winter’s gonggi stones hitting the pavement.
Bobby remembered very little of his uncle. He knew he was very religious and used to say something to his father every time they skipped church. He also remembered that he used to smoke, and his car always smelled like cigarettes. Bobby used to hate gettingrides from him. Anything else he knew about Uncle Eugene was constructed from little bits and pieces that his parents would let slip occasionally, like the fact that he didn’t go to college, and he had never married and appeared like he never would. The way his parents painted him, he expected to see Uncle Eugene in all leather, flicking a coin while leaning against a dim streetlight. But the man he saw marching toward him couldn’t have been more different. He was in jeans and a polo, with his hair slicked back and a watch on his wrist. He didn’t look unlike Robert Sr.
Winter slipped her sandals back on and joined Bobby at his side.
“Don’t start,” Bobby said.
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
