The monotone voice of the GPS directs me to my destination. I shut off the engine, pull out the title to the car and shove it in my Auden book. Auden wrote that when the boy falls from the sky after calamity after calamity, he still has a future somewhere and that there’s no point in dwelling on one’s loss. But did he suffer this? Would he have written that if he had lived my life?
I rest my head on the steering wheel. My shoulders shake from my sobs and my stomach heaves again. I lurch out of the car and stagger on shaky legs to the entrance of the bus station.
“You all right, honey?” the ticket counter attendant asks, looking worried. Her kindness wrenches another sob from me.
“My-my grandmother passed,” I lie.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Funeral then?”
I jerk my head in a nod.
She types into her computer, the long nails clicking against the keyboard. “Round trip?”
“No, one way. I don’t think I’m coming back.”
Her hands pause above the keys. “Are you sure? It’s cheaper to buy a round trip ticket.”
“There’s nothing here for me. Nothing,” I repeat.
I think it’s the anguish in my eyes that gets her to stop asking questions. She silently prints out the ticket. I take it and climb into the bus that cannot take me far enough and fast enough from this place.
Reed Royal has broken me. I’ve fallen from the sky and I’m not sure I can get up. Not this time.