“Sorry for the mess,” he said.
Jess nudged the bags with her foot. “What is all this?”
“My things,” he said. “What’s left of them. Clothes. My mother’s paintings. I found it all on the lawn. I haven’t been in the house since.”
“Why do you have Dani’s car?”
“She didn’t want it anymore,” he said. “She said, and I quote, ‘I don’t want anything that reminds me of you.’ ” He turned on the engine and adjusted the heat vents.
“How is she?”
“I haven’t seen her since that night. She won’t take my calls, either.” He shrugged. “The only thing she said was, ‘Why? Why did you?’ ”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said I didn’t know.”
Jess pressed her calf against a bag, let something sharp dig into her skin. She hadn’t imagined the possibility others could find out, or what would happen if they did. Now she could. Vomit on beige carpet. Flying knives and an upside-down pie. A car stuffed with black garbage bags. An unlit house. Everyone bloodshot and nauseous and hiding from the world. Secrecy, infidelity, betrayal, forbidden. If it was love, it was the love of Capital T Tragedies.
“I didn’t want any of this to happen,” she said.
“No. But it would always have been like this. No matter how I told them.”
“I didn’t want you to tell them. Why would you tell them anything? There’s nothing to tell.”
“Listen,” he said, “I can’t stay in town. I’m moving. I thought about moving into my mother’s place in Colorado, but it needs too much work, and it’s too far away anyhow. I found a place, a cabin in Kachina Village near Flagstaff. Far enough away but close enough to visit Dani. I’m moving in this Sunday, the twenty-second.”
“First day of winter,” she said. She cupped the heat vent, leaning close to it.
He gave a short laugh. “I guess so. Appropriate.”
She faced him, leaning against the door, the handle digging into her spine. “So I won’t see you anymore.”
“I don’t know. That’s up to you. That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
She squeezed her knees.
“Everything’s changed now,” he said.
“Because we destroyed people’s lives.”
“Okay, yes. Yes. So the question is, was it for nothing? Is this nothing?”
She pressed her hands on the sides of her neck. “No,” she said. But it wasn’t something, either. Nothing, something, the space in between. She tipped her head against the window, the glass cold on her temple. “I’m completely turned around. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do.”
“You could come with me,” he said.
The words floated in the close space, almost an incantation, as the air vents pushed warm air at their faces. She heard her mother’s scoffing question: You’ll start a sweet little life together? Happily ever after? She wanted to scoff, too. Going with him wasn’t an option. Was it?
“Hear me out,” he said. “You’ll be eighteen in a couple months. You could finish school in Flagstaff, away from all this. A fresh start. You could go to college there. The university has a great forestry program, or whatever you decide you wanted to study. You’d be close enough to visit home. And we could see—” He pushed his foot against the gas pedal and revved the engine. “About us.”
“We’re not an ‘us,’ ” she said.
“I love you,” he said. “It’s true, as much as everyone thinks I’m out of my mind. As much as, as Rachel said, I’m doubling down on it. Maybe so. But I know I want to be with you. I didn’t know how to make it happen before, but now.”
“We don’t even know each other,” she said.
He gripped the steering wheel and rested his forehead on it. “Do you love me, or don’t you?”
Her heart thudded as if she had run fast up a hill. She felt a pulse of heat in her traitorous body.
He said, “Shouldn’t we at least give it a shot? Shouldn’t we find out?”
He reached out and took her hand, pressed it between both of his. The engine rumbled under her, and more warm air gusted from the vents. A drowsy, dreamy heat. She pictured it: A cabin in the woods. A man who loved her. College, her mother close by. A happy picture. Did they deserve to be happy after what they’d done? Her father must have believed it. He’d burned his bridges, scorched his earth, and walked right into the sunset.
He lifted her hand to his face, put his mouth on her wrist. “It’s real, Jess. What can I say to make you believe me?”
“Don’t say anything,” she said.
He pulled her close, and she breathed in his woody scent. His beard brushed her cheek, and she trembled, the gearshift digging into her thigh. That thread of heat wound through her, taut and golden. Her body told her it was true. Believe, it told her. What if, for once in her life, this was right? Unexpected. Unconventional. Irregular.
“Beautiful Jess,” he said. His lips were on her ear, his voice a low whisper, as if afraid to startle her from a trance. “My beautiful girl.”
She pulled away at those words, curling her hands in her lap. Her father’s phrase. His grumbly voice. She looked at her shoes, pressed her toe against the worn-thin canvas. Shoes she’d worn out with her walking. Feet to walk on, to run on. Her own two feet.
She grabbed the door handle. “I can’t,” she said. “I have to go, Adam.”
“Wait,” he said.
She knew what she had to say. “I don’t love you. Okay? I don’t. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be with you.”
He slumped in his seat. “Just like that. It’s that easy for you.”
“Yes,” she said.
And it was. The door swung open, and she stepped outside onto the pebbled pavement. She walked away. She walked through the darkness. She walked home.
Her mother was sitting on the sofa in her robe when Jess let herself in. They stared at each other for a moment.
“Were you with him?” her mother asked.
“Yes. Just talking. He wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
Jess paused, trying to find the right words. She had yet to say the words to herself: It’s over. I won’t be seeing him again.
“Do not lie to me, Jess,” her mother said. “Do not.”
“I won’t. He wanted to say good-bye,” she said. “He’s leaving town. He asked me to go with him, and I said no.”
“That son of a bitch. For Christ’s sake. Come here.”
Jess plunked down on the sofa and leaned on her mother’s shoulder.
“I’m proud of you,” her mom said. “That was the right thing.”
“Okay,” Jess said, wishing she felt right. Normal. “I want it to be over now.”
“I know you do. Hey, no more sneaking out,” her mom said. “Don’t make me wake up terrified.”
“I’m not doing anything. Just taking walks. When I can’t sleep.”
“You can’t go roaming around any time you want. Okay? It’s not safe. You have to be careful. Even here. At the very least, leave a note.” She sighed and pulled Jess closer. “What am I going to do with you, huh?”
Jess nestled into her mom’s shoulder, wishing she could fall asleep and wake up with the world restored: a teenage girl with a father, with a best friend down the street.