It’s true my dad isn’t my mom and he never will be. He doesn’t get me. And sometimes I feel like he doesn’t miss my mom enough. Like maybe they had fallen apart for good before the night she died. But he is trying his best now. I have no doubt about that.
Still, I duck down as we roll past my dad’s car, moving fast in the opposite direction. I again choose protecting Cassie’s secret—whatever it is—over waving him down and telling him everything. Right now, I am Cassie’s friend first, a daughter second. And I could pretend that’s about me doing what’s right for her, but the dark truth is it feels a whole lot more selfish. Like it’s a lot more about proving her wrong about me.
On cue, my phone vibrates in my hand, and I brace myself for a text from my dad, begging me to come home. But the text isn’t from him. It’s from Cassie. And it says so very little. But also way more than I want it to.
Hurry.
We do as Cassie has told us. Jasper and I drive briefly north on 95, then to Route 3 and onward north on 93 for almost an hour. The lights of Boston fade out behind us quickly and soon we pass out of Massachusetts and into New Hampshire. The highway is still wide, but pitch black on either side. Jasper and I each text Cassie again, more than once, hoping she’ll tell us something. How far north on 93? What next after that? What town are you in? Anything that might get a response. Are you okay? Please, answer us. But Cassie hasn’t. Not a single time.
The only person I have heard from is my dad. He’s already sent half a dozen texts, all of which sound pretty much exactly the same as the one that just came through: Please, Wylie, tell me where you are. Please come home. I’m worried. He’s called a couple of times, too. Left a message once, though I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to it.
Not surprisingly, my dad found the Be back soon note I left in our kitchen lacking. But he’s trying so hard not to freak out. To even act like he’s also kind of proud of me for making it outside. To be honest, I felt pretty good about it, too. For a whole twenty minutes after we pulled away from the house, I was on an actual I’m-cured high.
Now, that prison-break rush is gone, but I still feel better than I have in months. Like being in the middle of this actual emergency is exactly the cure I’ve been searching for. Or maybe it’s just harder to hear all the alarms sounding in my head now that they match reality. Because there I am, hurtling north to an unknown destination for an unknown reason to save a friend whom I love, but whom I also know cannot be trusted—and I feel calmer than I have in months.
Jasper and I don’t talk much as the miles pass except “Are you cold?” and “Can we change the station?” Pretty soon almost every alternative on Jasper’s old-school radio is static, except some talk-radio program about the evils of psychiatric drugs and teens, which under the circumstances—my circumstances—feels pretty awkward.
Luckily, it’s hard to hear much of anything anyway over the roar of Jasper’s car. Riding in the worn Jeep feels like being a stowaway in a cargo plane. Like I’m in a space not meant for passengers. And the farther north we go, the colder it gets. Soon, my toes are almost numb, despite the fact that Jasper keeps turning up the heat. As I check the time on my phone—almost eight thirty p.m.—I’m starting to worry that the cold and the noise might be a sign something is dangerously wrong with the Jeep. I peer over toward Jasper’s feet, where the sound and the wind seem to be coming from.
“There’s a hole.” Jasper points down.
“In the floor?” I ask, squeezing the door handle so hard my hand starts to throb.
“Don’t worry. It’s not dangerous or anything,” Jasper goes on. “It’s nowhere near the pedals. My brother should fix it. It’s his car. But he never thinks about anything, except getting laid and beating the shit out of people.” Jasper looks like he’s going to say something more. Instead, he half smiles. “Like me, for instance, when he realizes I took his car.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Whatever. It’s fine. He’s big, but seriously slow. I can usually outrun him. Once I didn’t.” He points to a scar next to his right eye. “Pushed me into the corner of our coffee table. Only five stiches, but the blood was insane. Luckily, my mom is a nurse, so she was pretty calm about it. She did have to replace part of the carpet afterward, though.”
“That’s terrible.” I wince. “She must have killed him.”
Jasper glances over at me. “Yeah, not so much. In my house, it’s survival of the fittest.”
This must be the “hard-knock life” Cassie told me about. “Oh,” I say again, because I have no idea what I’m supposed to say.
“Yeah, my mom only gets involved in my life if it’s going to have a direct effect on her wallet.” He smirks like he doesn’t care, but I can tell he does. “She’s got high hopes about my future as a human ATM.”
“That sucks.” And it does.
“Yeah,” Jasper says quietly. “There are worse things, I guess.”
My phone buzzes in my hand again then. Wylie, please don’t do this. Answer me. Right now.