“So tell me about yourself, sunshine.”
Tell him…about me? He couldn’t really care, and I couldn’t really want to tell him—could I? Sadly, I wasn’t so sure. I had spent most of my twenty years with one person. Here was a new one. The novelty was too much to resist.
“I’m not sure what there is to tell. I’m not…anyone special.”
His insouciant expression slipped slightly as he looked at me. “How about you let me judge that? Tell me what you do. You in college?”
He kept that gaze trained on me, even though we were hurtling over the road. Nervous, I glanced ahead. We were still in the lane, still steady, and he seemed unconcerned.
“Um, not anymore. I graduated…but just with an associate’s degree. In graphic design.”
“Oh yeah, you an artist?”
“No, it was just something good to do from home, because…” Because I was a loser who had listened to my mother for far too long. And I had stopped listening at the one moment I should have heeded her safety advice. I couldn’t seem to win.
I stared at the rushing pavement as it slid under the truck. “But I was moving out. I was going to Little Rock, Arkansas. I had a job there at a camera shop.”
My voice had lilted up at the end in a small challenge. We both knew why I was no longer on my way to Little Rock. I didn’t even know where we were anymore, but I wasn’t on track to Niagara because of him. Bringing it up had almost been an accusation, the closest I could come to things better left unsaid: Why did you take me? When will you let me go? How could you do this to me when I had finally broken free?
Terrified of his anger or retribution to my impertinence, I slid my gaze over to him. He didn’t look mad, just thoughtful.
“A camera shop, huh? You ever been there before?”
“No.”
“You know anyone who works there?”
“No.”
“You like cameras?”
Despite my fears, a small smile played at my lips. I liked scenery and majesty. I liked angles and lighting. I liked seeing in a photo what I yearned to see for real. I wanted to take a picture of Niagara Falls.
“Yeah,” I said. “I like cameras.”
“Yours looks pretty fancy. Heavy, too.”
My eyebrows snapped up. Had he looked through my stuff back at the hotel? Of course he had. And he must have been disappointed to find less than a hundred bucks. What did he think of my book?
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Got no destination.”
I blinked. I had expected him to have some delivery or route or something. Wasn’t that the point of an eighteen-wheeler, to transport things?
He chuckled. “I like to drive. Sometimes I do jobs, but in between them, I keep driving.”
It seemed…well, inefficient. It also seemed wonderful, like a ball without friction, with nothing to slow it down, just rolling around, seeing everything in every direction but not having to participate. Not really being able to join in, always separate.
How lonely that must be. Almost as lonely as I had been, locked up in my mother’s house. That was when I realized—if this was a cage, then he was caged too. Even though he could go wherever he wanted, he couldn’t escape these steel walls. My mother was trapped too, even if it was by her own fears.
Maybe we were all held captive by something.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I was just thinking…” I paused, wondering if it was wise to speak so openly with him. He didn’t seem to get angry with me when I did, but it could be I exposed myself this way, made myself weaker by my own speculation. “I was thinking it seemed a little lonely.”
He was quiet so long I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he said, “Sometimes we do things only because they are better than the alternative.”
“The lesser of two evils?”
He grinned. “Exactly.”
And I thought, what could have been so bad to make him avoid all human contact?
He was not so unlike my mother, and that thought should have made me hate him, but instead just made me sad.
“It’s not as bad as all that,” he continued. “I know a lot of people. People who live along some of the main lines. I’ll stop by for dinner or even overnight. I know the other truckers, and I can talk to them over the radio or my cell phone, if I wanted to.”
My heart beat a little faster, although I struggled to hide it. A radio? A cell phone? Methods of communication, means of escape. There was no obvious device on his dashboard, just a high-tech panel of flat screens, currently black, and buttons. Where would he keep his cell phone? His pocket? Somewhere else? Luckily he didn’t seem to notice my frantic plotting.
“Besides, I have you to keep me company now.”