Kate drove us through Tulsa without stopping, and then Oklahoma City, and finally stopped for gas somewhere west of there, in a land now almost entirely taken over by farms. It had been more than five hours, and Brooke had chatted with her for all of it. They’d even played the alphabet game, but with so much banter mixed in I’d lost track of who was winning. I checked my map, looking for which crossroads we needed to stop at, trying to remember if our next leg took us north or south.
“Want to stop for some food?” asked Kate, jerking her head toward the truck stop while she pumped gas. “They’ve got a burger place and a taco place, your pick.”
“No thank you,” I said quickly. “We’re good.”
Kate looked puzzled. “It’s been hours—Brooke, I heard your stomach rumbling like five minutes ago.”
“Honestly,” said Brooke. “I’m not hungry. You get something if you want it.”
“Do you not have any money?” asked Kate.
I wished she hadn’t asked that. How could we possibly proceed from here? Either she offered to buy us food, in which case we were a burden, or she didn’t, in which case she’d feel uncomfortable eating in front of us. Even if she ate in the truck stop without us watching, the difference in food possession would define the rest of the trip. She’d wonder if she should have given us some, or she’d wonder why we didn’t get any, or she’d wonder if maybe we really were criminals. Were we running from something? Would we steal things from her car? Would we hurt her? In just a few sentences, her entire perception of us had changed.
“You know what?” I said, holding up the map. “This is where we get off anyway. I just found it.”
“You sure?”
“We go north,” I said, and looked around at the flat nothingness that surrounded us. “I told you we were headed for the country.”
“I can take you farther if you want,” she said.
“You’re headed west,” said Brooke, shrugging helplessly. “Thanks, though.”
“Do you need food?” she asked, but she lowered her voice as she said it. It made her uncomfortable. What was she thinking about us? That we weren’t equals anymore—that we were poor and possibly homeless. Whatever easy relationship we’d had was gone now.
But … who cared what she thought of us? We needed to eat, and if we made her uncomfortable, well, we’d never see each other again. “Sure,” I said. She bought a burger each for the three of us, with fries and a drink, and we ate together in silence. Then she waved goodbye and drove away.
“I just hope she doesn’t tell anyone about us,” I said.
“She’ll tell Becky,” said Brooke. “A story like this is too good not to tell.”
“Who’s Becky?”
“Her roommate,” said Brooke. “Weren’t you listening?”
I watched the car drive away. “None of it really applied to me.”
“That was the longest conversation I’ve had in two years,” said Brooke. She stood silent for a moment, then started walking toward the freeway. “Let’s go.”
I followed, studying the map. Two more cars, give or take, and we’d be there.
15
We arrived in Dillon around noon the next day. A Wednesday. Just four days after we’d left, and three days since Derek was chopped into pieces.
The city was nearly silent and it was crawling with cops.
Our latest driver dropped us off at the same gas station where we’d bought our meager lunch the day we left. Brooke and I went straight to the restroom and locked ourselves inside, pulling out our cleanest clothes and washing our hair in the sink. I turned to the corner while she changed, counting off my number sequence and trying not to think about her skin, and then she did the same for me—though without, I assumed, the suppressed urge to flay me. Dark thoughts about Brooke had become so common and ignoring them had become such second nature, it was almost backwards at this point—my number sequence had become so firmly associated with thoughts of sex and violence that counting it off almost made it worse. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one …
I needed a new coping strategy. My rules were like a lifeline for all three of us.
As quickly as we could, before the gas station clerk started asking questions, we repacked our bags and walked back out, looking for all the world like two normal teenagers with their dog. We walked down Main Street, looking at the store fronts and houses. With one or two exceptions—a man in a delivery van, a woman in a tow truck—the streets were empty. The children who would have been out playing were all inside, watching TV or, just as often, watching us through the cracks in the blinds. We could see them all through the town, little faces peeking out through the windows, wondering who would be next. And older faces behind them, looking out sternly, wondering which member of their community was a vicious killer.