She looked up at me. “You see it now? It’s all my fault.”
I felt such a mix of emotions. I felt terrible for Jess; I could see how sad she was, and I understood why she felt responsible, even though I could totally understand why she’d reacted as she did. But I also wished she’d done something, anything else, something that hadn’t left Hayden thinking that it hadn’t been real, because I was pretty sure that was what had broken him.
“Just look,” Ryan had said. I realized he’d probably been talking about the text message.
And with that, the last hope Hayden had of his life being different, better, had disappeared. Really, it was Ryan’s fault, more than anyone else’s, even if Hayden hadn’t known that. I was so angry I could feel the blood pumping through my veins. I wanted to kill him for taking my best friend away from me. And then I realized that this must have been exactly how Astrid felt.
But I didn’t want to be like her. Hurting him wouldn’t do me any good. Even just blaming him didn’t make me feel any better. Who was I to say who was any more responsible than anyone else? I took a minute and waited for my pulse to slow.
Jess was still sitting there, looking at me, waiting for me to speak. Her eyes were starting to fill with tears, and I knew I had to say something, even if there wasn’t much I could say that would help. After all, nothing anyone said to me had worked. “You know, if you’re convinced it was your fault, and Astrid’s convinced it’s hers, and I’m convinced it’s mine, maybe we all need to accept that none of us are going to be a hundred percent right. I don’t think I’ll ever stop blaming myself for my part, but in some ways it’s easier to blame myself than anyone else, and maybe someday that will make it possible for me to let myself off the hook a little bit. Because if none of us is a hundred percent responsible, then it’s probably just as likely that none of us could have stopped this from happening, even if we’d known what it was we should have been trying to do. And we probably need to accept that, just like we need to accept that he’s not coming back.”
I wasn’t sure I’d made any sense, but Jess was nodding. And I realized, even as I was saying it, that it was true, though I also knew it wasn’t going to make either of us feel better. Not for a long time. But I felt a small sense of community in my guilt and grief, with Jess, even with Astrid, even though I still couldn’t process what she’d done.
We stood up and looked at each other for a minute, neither of us knowing what else there was to say. Then, almost as if she hadn’t known she was going to do it, Jess reached out to hug me. I hugged her back, feeling her tiny collarbone against my ribcage. We stayed that way for so long it almost got awkward, but it didn’t, and I felt this moment of relief that she really, truly understood everything.
We finally let each other go and walked out of the woods together, still not talking, but in a way that seemed comfortable and right. By the time we got back everyone was at the starting line; Jess walked over to Astrid and whispered something to her, and I could see Astrid leaning down to listen and nodding. They were a funny pair, Astrid so tall and Jess so little. Kind of like Hayden and me. Astrid looked over at me, and we stood there for a minute, our eyes locked. I looked away first.
Instead, I went and found Rachel and Jimmy. “Race is about to start, kiddo,” Rachel said. “Let’s go.”
THE THREE OF US STAKED OUT a spot in the middle of the field, just outside the muddiest part of the path the trucks would follow. “This is why I made you change,” Rachel said. “We’re going to get slathered. It’ll be amazing.”
I wasn’t seeing how, but it didn’t matter. We weren’t so far that I couldn’t see the drivers getting in their trucks; it looked like Eric and Ryan were going first. I hadn’t seen Ryan since the funeral, and it was kind of weird to see him alone, without Jason and Trevor—Trevor was probably still laid up, and Jason was lying low. Was I crazy, or was Ryan wearing one of Hayden’s T-shirts? I tried to remember which ones had been in the box and realized I didn’t remember seeing Hayden’s old Smiths shirt. I could feel a vein in my temple starting to throb.
From the starting line I heard the trucks gearing up—the purr of Trevor’s engine in that fancy new truck; the low rumbling of Eric’s well-used family pickup. Then both of them revved their engines, and I could hear the power Ryan had at his disposal. How exactly did Eric think he could beat him?
I heard the shrill blare of a whistle, and then both trucks were off. They had a few hundred yards to get going, from what I could tell, and for that stretch Ryan was ahead, though not as much as I’d expected given how much newer and nicer Trevor’s truck was.
It soon became clear, though, that the speed they’d built was only going to be so helpful once they reached the muddy part of the track. Both trucks hit the mud with their front tires spinning wildly, throwing mud on the throng of people who’d moved up to watch on both sides of the track. Rachel was right; within seconds just about everyone was covered. We all smelled like pig shit, which was completely gross at first, until my nose got used to it.
Once the trucks’ back tires hit the mud, though, it seemed like the front tires became almost irrelevant as the trucks fought to keep their forward momentum. It was almost as if the mud was trying to actively slow them down and suck them under; the only way to get through was to maintain speed, but it was clear how hard that was to do.
This, I could tell, was where Eric had an edge—probably from driving in mud on the farm. “Trevor usually drives in these things,” Rachel yelled to me, and I could see it—Eric obviously knew how it handled better than Ryan did. Ryan was trying to force the truck to move through the mud by going as fast as he could, but all he was doing was moving the mud around; the wheels spun and spun but the truck’s progress was minimal. He wasn’t stuck yet, but he wasn’t moving very fast, either.
Eric’s truck, in contrast, seemed to be gliding over the mud. It almost looked like he was doing an extended wheelie—the front wheels were almost off the ground, and the back wheels were the ones propelling the truck forward. It took me a minute to figure out why, partly because my eyes were half full of mud: Eric was subtly steering the truck left and right as he moved forward. Barely enough to be noticeable, but apparently enough to ensure the wheels had traction and to keep them from spinning out.
Eric’s truck passed Ryan’s just seconds before it became clear that Ryan had actually gotten Trevor’s truck stuck in the mud. By the time Eric crossed the finish line Ryan hadn’t managed to pull himself out, and finally he just killed the engine and got out. Eric and his crew celebrated at the finish line, whooping and singing and being silly in complete unabashed triumph. I watched them for a while and debated going over, but I didn’t want to interrupt their party, and I didn’t want to join it, either. Astrid was singing just as loudly as the rest of them; I looked as closely as I could for some sign that she was suffering, like I was, but I couldn’t see any indication of it now.