“What—”
He’s two steps behind, his arms out and to the side like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
“Seriously, Nolan, at least pretend.” I grab his wrists and hook them around my waist so his hands press to my lower back.
I don’t think, I just lean down and kiss him. His entire body tenses, and then his fingers press deeper into my waist, and his other hand trails up my back, and it occurs to me he knows exactly how to pretend, when the rap of a flashlight against the window jars us apart.
My heart beats quickly, and his hands still grip my waist. I have to squint from the light, and Nolan raises a hand to his eyes. He lets go of me to lower the window more, and the officer leans into the car, the rain dripping from his black hood, the smell of summer rain filling the car, the humidity surrounding us.
He frowns, and his face, so close, smells of rain and aftershave. “This is private property,” he says, though he backs away, seeing the position we’re in. He looks away, like he doesn’t want to look too closely at the disheveled clothing, the fact that we’re young enough to need to be in a car, for privacy.
I duck my head into Nolan’s shoulder, then slide from his lap, back to my side of the car.
“Sorry,” Nolan says. “We didn’t know. It just looked like a”—he winces—“an empty road.”
The officer sighs, panning the light back and forth between us. He shakes his head. “Go home,” he says firmly.
Nolan nods and raises the window as the cop walks back to his car. We sit in silence, both of us breathing heavily, until the red and blue lights turn off. Then Nolan clears his throat and turns the car around, looping us back onto the main road, where we pull into the parking lot of the gas station, which has a twenty-four-hour convenience store attached.
The whole time, it’s painfully silent. He doesn’t look my way or try to make a joke to lighten the mood. Nothing.
Not even a Thanks for the quick thinking, Kennedy.
I finally look over at him, and he looks decidedly uncomfortable. I thought he felt the same as I did—like Joe had noticed, too. But then I think, Maybe he’s just a great pretender. Maybe I always only see what I want to see: in Nolan, in Elliot, in myself.
“I need a soda,” he says, his voice scratchy, as he exits the car.
“I’ll get it,” I say. I slam the door, and he jumps, frowning at me. “It didn’t have to be that hard, Nolan.” I take a step back, toward the store. “But thank you for your sacrifice, either way.”
And then I step out from the overhang of the station, thankful for the rain.
I watch her walk through the rain under the glow of the gas station lights until she disappears into the brightly lit store. I count the cash in my pocket, taken from the emergency envelope in our kitchen drawer. I hope it’s enough to get us all the way back. I hope I don’t have to ask her to pay for this, too.
This…wouldn’t be the best time to ask her for a favor.
She looked so angry, but I don’t know how to tell her these things. I’m not good at saying what I’m thinking. The times when I’ve been fully honest, laying everything out there, have been twisted around on me instead. The police, eyeing me with suspicion. My parents, even, disbelieving.
So I don’t know how to tell her that instead of dreaming of my brother, his image flickering in the corner, I now dream of her hair, the sound of her laugh.
That when she talks I am both listening to the words and watching her mouth, imagining kissing her. The rain comes down heavier now, and it’s like there’s a wall growing between us, the more time that passes.
Shit. I leave the pump and follow her across the lot, and within five seconds, I’m soaking wet. I push open the door to the store, the bell ringing overhead, with the sharp cold of the air conditioning on my skin, and the glare of fluorescent lights. “Kennedy, wait.”
I weave through the aisles to find her. She turns around, the cool air from the soda fridge trailing goose bumps over her wet skin. I don’t know how to say it, so I just do. Fast, before I can second-guess myself. “I think about you all the time, and not just because of all this.” I wave my hands around, and I hope she knows what I mean. “I wanted to, Kennedy. I’ve been wanting to. I didn’t want it to be a joke, the first time I kissed you. Or, like, a way out of jail.”
She regards me slowly, then pulls two sodas from the fridge, letting the door swing closed behind her. I realize then how close we are, and how she’s leaning against the glass, the clothes clinging to our skin, and exactly how little space there is between us.
“I also didn’t want it to be in a car,” I say, thinking of Abby, then try to shake her from my mind. “And I don’t want it to be in a convenience store, while I’m making a list.”
I get the ghost of a smile then. “You’ve given this a lot of thought, I see.”
“It was a long car ride down here.”
She laughs, and it sounds like music. She brushes by me, and I can feel the air move around her, imagining that moment in the car again. Replaying it, and imagining it was real. She pays and exits the store without looking back.
I purchase the gas from the guy behind the counter, and when I leave, she’s standing underneath the overhang, leaning against the car. Like she’s waiting for me.
I keep walking until I’m definitely inside her personal space, one hand on the car behind her so her head tips up, just to look at me. “We’re sort of close to the car, though,” she says. “And a gas pump. And this lighting, I mean, it’s not ideal.”
“Ha ha.”
“And there’s a convenience store within sight. Also, there might be animals out there. Are you sure this is okay?”
“Kennedy…”
She opens her mouth to speak, but I’ve closed the distance already.
* * *
—
I’m not sure how to balance this moment with the bigger ones. This connection between us, with a message from somewhere beyond our world. This need right here, with the need for answers. This tiny truth, with the ones that might be waiting farther out, in the universe, on the other side of what we can understand.
I pull back first, because it’s night, because I convinced her to come here with me, under the guise of answers, and this is all I’ve given her. “Are you ready?” I say.
She shakes her head, kisses me one last time, lingering there. Then she opens the car door and slips inside. And I know she understands, too.
* * *
—
The construction site across from the old Rollins factory is empty. We park the car in the lot, and I take the flashlight from the glove compartment.
“Maps and a flashlight,” she says. “Nolan, I think I like you.” She nudges my shoulder.
“If I knew this was all it would take,” I say, and she smiles. We’re procrastinating. We’re frayed nerves. Misplaced energy. Getting ready to leave a car in the rain in the middle of the night at an empty factory, walking around back to some alleged building, a location given to us by a girl neither of us knows, other than the fact that she caught us trespassing.
This is stupid.
At least it’s not raining as hard, but let’s be honest, rain is rain, once you’re out in it for more than a few minutes. I feel it in my socks, between my toes. My sneakers are a lost cause.
Kennedy walks forward, and I follow her, shining the light in her path. The rain hits the puddles in the dirt on a poorly marked path, overgrown with weeds, as we circle the main building.
Behind it, the trees stretch out in the distance. Until the dark building comes into focus. It seems like just another abandoned building out here, with the windows boarded up, the wooden steps half broken off. It looks like it was once part of the factory but has since been left to disrepair, same as the others. We duck under one of the large oak trees, which shelters us from most of the falling rain.
“Do you see that?” Kennedy says, and it takes me a second to notice what she’s pointing out.
The soft glow of a light, from the corner of one of the plywood boards covering the window. A corner forgotten. A sign that not everything is dark and abandoned out here. At least, as Hunter Long’s sister implied, not at night.
We sneak around toward the back, where there’s a door, boarded up. I’m not sure how they get inside, but there’s something happening here. Kennedy stands on a rotted bench under a window, where there’s another sliver of light peeking through.
She peers inside, then quickly backs away. She points at the gap and whispers, “There are people inside.”
I step up beside her, but it’s hard to share the tiny gap in the window boards. We have to take turns, and even then, we can only see random streaks of fabric moving in the distance.