Dash’s brow was furrowed. “Why?”
“I …” August shook his head. “It’s important. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t. Please. I know it’s a lot but please trust me.”
I thought of Brit’s conversation with August on the patio: I would jump off a bridge if she asked me to. Because I know she wouldn’t ask without a really good reason.
“Please,” August said again.
Silence.
And then Dash extended the keys toward him. Something like relief flooded August’s face.
“Thank you. Thanks.” He took them, and crossed around to the driver’s side. “I’ll be right back.”
* * *
We all got food at McDonald’s and sat in a booth by the window. It looked out over the attached gas station. Cars and trucks pulled in and out. I watched as a family piled out of a crowded-looking van, stretching like they’d been driving awhile. I wondered where they were headed.
“Where are we even?” Brit said after a few moments of eating.
“Greenville,” Dash replied.
“How do you know?” Brit said.
“I’m the driver. I actually, like, read signs and stuff as they go by. I actually keep track of where we’re at, if you can believe it.”
Brit didn’t snark back. She was already on her phone. “Greenville.” She blinked, scrolled, blinked again. “It’s the prison, right? The really big one?”
“Do you think—?”
“I mean, he’s probably not here to visit”—she scrolled for a moment—“the American Farm Heritage Museum.”
“Maybe he’s super into farming,” I said, though obviously that wasn’t true. A gnawing sensation was growing in the pit of my stomach.
“What’s his last name again? Shaw?” Brit asked.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to find out what happened,” she replied. “Shaw, Saint Louis, crime. Criminal. Criminal offense.”
“Brit.”
“Hm?”
“Don’t.”
She didn’t look up, so I put a hand on her wrist, lowered her phone from her face.
“Seriously.”
She looked up at me, saw the coinciding seriously in my eyes, and clicked off her phone.
“Fine.”
* * *
Dash went back for more food, and when we got a text from August a while later (On my way back), I went up and ordered him a cheeseburger meal, in case he was hungry.
But it was another forty minutes or so until the Cutlass actually appeared in the parking lot. Brit had eaten half the fries I got for August, and the rest were stone-cold. I considered tossing the rest of the meal, but I didn’t, crumpling the top of the bag shut and clutching it as I headed out into the parking lot with Brit and Dash trailing behind.
“Thank God,” Brit said. “Let’s get this show on the road. We’re gonna get in trouble if we’re late.” Our program wasn’t until the afternoon, but she was right. It would not go unnoticed if we missed it.
August handed Dash the keys. I handed him the crumpled bag.
“We got you a burger.”
His expression was unreadable. “Thanks.”
“It might be kinda cold and gross, though. We could order something else?”
He shook his head. “I’ll eat it. Thanks.”
He didn’t say anything after that.
* * *
It was a few exits later that August straightened up in his seat.
“Can we stop?”
I could see Dash’s frown in the rearview mirror. “Are you serious right now?”
“We just stopped for, like, two hours,” Brit said.
“I don’t feel good.”
“August.”
“I’m gonna be sick,” he said, with an urgency in his voice that sounded like, yeah, he really might be.
We pulled off and into a gas station and August got out before we’d barely even stopped. I unbuckled my seat belt and followed, watching as he ran from the car to a patch of grass. He was bent over, heaving, when I reached him.
I wanted to rub his back, something, but instead I just stood a few feet away, hands useless at my sides while he made gross sounds. He didn’t throw up—just spit a lot.
He straightened up after a while.
“You okay?”
“I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea,” he said, looking back at me. His eyes were wet.
“I told you that burger would be cold and gross.”
He let out a hollow breath of laughter and turned to face the road. Beyond that was the highway, semis and cars zooming by.
“We can pretend it’s not happening,” I said after a pause. “Or we could talk about it, if you want. If you want to talk, I’ll listen.”
“What is there to say?”
I shrugged. “Whatever you want.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
I stepped closer. “Were you visiting someone? At Greenville?”
“I didn’t even go in,” he said. “I couldn’t even—I couldn’t—” He shook his head. “I’m such a piece of shit, Soph, I couldn’t even go in. I tried and I left and I drove back and I tried again but I just … I don’t know what to say to her.”
“Your mom?”
He nodded.
I swallowed. “How long does she have to stay there?”
“Seven years.” His face crumpled. He pulled the collar of his T-shirt up over his face.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and then said it again, even though I knew how meaningless it was.
One hand still hung by his side, so I reached for it. I could hear Flora’s voice in my head—Laced fingers means it’s romantic. The kind of tidbit she’d share with Brit and me as she pored over dating articles online.
This wasn’t the romantic way. It was the same way I’d grab Brit’s hand on field trips when we were little kids, a chain of Harrison Elementary kindergartners taking a trip to Fairview Park. One arm pulled ahead of you, one angled back, palms squished in each other’s grasp. Brit always insisted on holding my hand and Dash’s hand, stretched between the two of us. Sophie is all-time leader and Dash is all-time caboose. Dash would stick out his lower lip, eyes sad: I don’t wanna be caboose.
Brit’s gaze was steady. The caboose is the best part.
I know if I had complained instead, then the leader would’ve been the best part. If we were both upset, she’d have found a way to make each part equally good, so long as she got what she wanted—to be buffered on both sides.
Right now I held August’s hand. I watched the cars and trucks pass by on the interstate and didn’t look over for a while, until August moved to pull his shirt back down. He ran his free hand under his nose.
“I’m okay,” he said finally. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t, but I nodded anyway.
He squeezed my hand once and then let go.
Brit and Dash were standing by the car when we approached, each holding giant Styrofoam cups. Brit handed one to August when we reached them. “It’ll settle your stomach,” she said.
He took it. “Thanks. Sorry.”
Dash was worried, I could tell, but his expression betrayed nothing. “Should we go back?” he said, and then added, “To Acadia,” when panic flashed in August’s eyes.
“Yeah, fuck the showcase, some Missouri school’s gonna sweep the awards anyway,” Brit said, before taking a pull from her soda. We all knew we’d be in trouble for ditching, but in this case, I cared as much as they did. Which is to say, not at all.
“No, it’s fine,” August said. “We should get going. You don’t want to miss it.”
So we got back in the car and went.
twenty-seven
The day at the showcase—which stretched into the evening—was long, and everyone was cranky by the end of it. Spending that many hours in plastic seats, outfitted in head-to-toe polyester, isn’t ideal, but we made it through.
I didn’t like leaving August when we got there. He parted ways with us outside the arena where the showcase was held and said he’d meet us back there before the bus was taking off.
I wanted him to stay. But I didn’t know if he would find spending the day in the stands as a spectator to be particularly soothing, so I just watched him as he headed away, down the street and out of sight.
I don’t know what he did all day. I texted him—a quick Going on soon, a picture of Brit with her hat askew, tongue sticking out, eyes rolled back, captioned Hot in here—but he didn’t respond.
But he met us at the appointed time that evening all the same, hands shoved in his pockets. It was hot outside too, felt hotter than at home, even as the sun hung low in the sky. The air was thick with humidity.
It grew dark as we drove back. I looked over at August as we neared Greenville, but he was facing the other direction, didn’t turn away from the window. Didn’t say a word as we neared it, reached it, passed it. Then it was disappearing in the rearview, and we were headed toward Acadia.
I left my hand on the seat next to me, palm up, but he didn’t take it.
* * *
I watched videos that night, of Megan performing on her season of America’s Next Country Star.
The full episodes were hard to find online, even cut up into ten-minute chunks on YouTube. But some of Megan’s performances had been uploaded, and some compilations of her behind-the-scenes bits had been cut together.