They heard a train whistle in the distance.
“You gonna call the cops?” Dill asked.
Travis gave a quick, bitter laugh, then drew in his breath. “No. The lumberyard would shut down. I’d lose my job. My family would lose its income. My mom couldn’t get by on the little sewing jobs she does.”
“Yeah.”
“Has it been a good thing for your family to have your dad locked up?”
“No.”
“You can’t tell Lydia about any of this. She wouldn’t get it. She’d call the cops for sure.”
“I won’t.”
The train took its time getting there. Train whistles always carried farther on winter nights. It came and passed. They didn’t bother getting out of the truck.
They sat with the heater on, saying nothing.
“You know,” Travis said, staring forward, “Gary made me believe in myself more tonight than my dad has in my whole life.”
“Yeah. I know how that feels. Your dad not believing in you. That’s a bad feeling right there.”
“Things are going to change. I’ll make them change. I won’t live this way the rest of my life.”
Dill sat silent and listened. Travis had a steadfastness and purpose in his voice that Dill had never heard before.
“I think when we graduate,” Travis said, “we should get a house together and be roommates. Even if you can’t pay much rent. That’s all right. I’ll pay most of it and you can play me songs to pay for the rest of your part of it. Cheer me up if I’m feeling sad.”
“I like that idea. Even though my songs aren’t cheerful.”
“And we’ll both work hard at our jobs, but when we’re done, I’ll write and you’ll do your music. We can have a room with desks right next to each other. Maybe I’ll build us desks using scraps from the lumberyard.”
“Count me in.”
“And we’ll have a really fast Internet connection so you can put up your videos and I can post my stories. And we’ll still do Friday-night movie night. Maybe we can even have Lydia do it with us, on video chat or something. And maybe Amelia because by then I’ll have asked her to be my girlfriend. And no dads are allowed in.”
Dill smiled. A genuine smile.
Travis looked him in the eye, that steely resolve in his voice. “I mean it, Dill. I really mean it. We need to take care of each other from now on. We need to be each other’s family because ours are so messed up. We need to make better lives for ourselves. We gotta start doing stuff we’re afraid to do. I think you should tell Lydia how you feel.”
Travis meant it. Dill could see that. And despite feeling guilty for drawing hope for his own life from his friend’s desperate circumstances, he felt hopeful all the same. Maybe Travis is strong enough to keep me from falling when Lydia leaves.
“I’ll think about the Lydia thing. Until we get that house, though, you better park around the corner from my place and sleep in my room. My mom won’t notice. She sleeps heavy from being so tired.”
“You sure? I can sleep in my truck.”
“Yeah. You need a warm, safe place to sleep. We’ll get you a water bowl and a can to pee in.”
Travis giggled. “Dude, don’t make me laugh. It hurts to laugh.”
“You positive you’re okay? You need a doctor?”
“I’ve had worse. No broken bones. No teeth knocked out. Just welts and bruises. What would the doctor do?”
“You think you’ll be okay sleeping on the floor? We’ll make you a bed out of my clothes and blankets and stuff. I’d let you sleep in my bed and take the floor myself, but what if my mom peeks in?”
“I’ll be okay.”
They sat mute for several minutes.
“We’ll get through this, Travis.”
He choked up. “I wish he hadn’t wrecked my amazing night.”
They drove back to Dill’s house.
“Hey, Dill, can I have a few minutes alone in here before we go in?”
“Yeah, take all the time you need.”
As Dill opened his window to climb into his bedroom, he caught a glimpse of Travis. He had his head down on the steering wheel, his body shaking, as he sat solitary in the frozen January midnight darkness.
Lydia opened the front door. “Travis. What’s up?” It was unusual for Travis to show up at her house unannounced.
Travis held a sheaf of notebook paper. He looked nervous. “Hey, Lydia. So. I wrote this story. And you know writing and stuff. I wonder if you could read it for me and tell me what to do better.”
“Already? Wasn’t it two weeks ago that G. M. Pennington told you to consider becoming a writer?”
“Three.”
“Ah, right. It’s almost as though that date sticks in your head more than it does mine.”
Travis smiled.
“How familiar do I have to be with Bloodfall to understand it?” Lydia asked.
“You don’t need to know anything. It’s original.”
“Because I started reading Bloodfall after we met Gary. He was so awesome. I owe it to him. And you. But I’m not even close to done.”
Travis grinned. “Finally!”
She held out her hand. “Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, finally. Anyway, of course I’ll read your story. But fair warning, I’m pretty no bullshit when it comes to writing. If something sucks, I’ll tell you. And since this is your first try, there’ll probably be stuff that sucks.”
Travis handed her the papers. “I’m pretty used to criticism. I can take it.”
Lydia remembered what her dad had told her about Travis and she felt a stab of guilt. I can take it, he says. That and more. She leafed through the papers. “Wow, handwritten? Who does that? Look at you go, Shakespeare.”
“I haven’t had much access to my laptop the last few weeks.”
Another pang—this time of worry. “Is everything okay? Like at home?”
“Yeah, fine.” Travis sounded nonchalant. But not too nonchalant.
If he was lying, he was doing a better job of it than when he lied about Amelia. “Gotcha. What are you and Dill up to tonight?”
“Dill’s working; I’m out selling firewood,” Travis said.
“Are you serious? You’re handwriting stories and selling firewood? Could I maybe show you a flashlight and have you worship me as a god?”
“I finally inherited the firewood sales. Lamar, a guy I work with, did it for years. We get the scraps of lumber we can’t sell and bundle them and sell them as firewood. But I guess he got tired of doing it. It makes me extra money to save for a new laptop and writing classes.”
Lydia looked out the window and saw Travis’s truck laden with firewood.
“Dad!” she called. “Come buy some of Travis’s dumb firewood.”
Dr. Blankenship came padding to the door in slippers, holding his wallet. “Travis! Hello.”
“Hi, Dr. Blankenship.”
“I take it you’re still working at the lumberyard?”
“Yessir. Most likely’ll keep doing that after I graduate. In the last few years, business has kind of slowed down, so I’m one of the only employees left.”
“You enjoy it?”
“Yessir. I like the smell of cut wood and it gives me time to think.”
“Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” Dr. Blankenship said.
“I didn’t tell Lydia to tell you to come buy my wood, by the way,” Travis said.
“Oh, I know that. If you’d told her to tell me, she’d have said no.”
He bought half of Travis’s supply.
As Travis left, it occurred to Lydia that there was something different of late in his smile, with its two fake front teeth. Triumphant. Like he had forded a raging river and come to the other side. Or survived some great battle. He shone bright, as if burned clean by fire.
A couple hours after Travis left, Lydia’s phone buzzed.
Sitting here with fat envelope from NYU, Dahlia texted.
OMG open it.
A few minutes later, her phone buzzed again. A photo of an NYU acceptance letter.
CONGRATS!!!!!!!
I’m dying here. You have to tell me when you get yours.
“Hey, Mom?” Lydia called downstairs. “Did the mail come yet today?”
“The flag is down.”