The Albany bus station was a little like what Ryan imagined the seventh circle of hell would be like, if the seventh circle of hell had a McDonald’s in it. He leaned against a greasy metal pillar with his arms crossed while Gabby went up to the Greyhound window and talked to the bored-looking clerk sitting behind it. He wondered what kind of bad decisions you had to make in your life to wind up manning a bus station window in Albany on a Saturday night in October. He wondered what kind of bad decisions he himself had made to wind up here.
“Okay,” Gabby said, coming over to him with a couple of paper tickets in her hand. “I got us a bus. It doesn’t leave for another hour and a half, and the closest it gets us is Poughkeepsie, but it’s better than nothing.”
Ryan nodded. “Thanks,” he mumbled. He knew he was being a tool, letting her handle the logistics of getting them out of here, but it was like something in his brain and body had shut off as soon as his dad got up from the table at the restaurant, like he’d hit a power button somewhere.
They found a place to sit on a wooden bench in the waiting room, between an old lady knitting a hat on skinny circular needles and a sleepy-looking homeless dude with a cart piled high full of grocery bags. Ryan crossed his arms and stared at the dirty tile floor. He hated his dad for being such an unrelenting asshole. He hated himself for losing the game. He hated Gabby a little, too, for being here and seeing this. For taking care of him like he was a little kid.
“Ryan,” Gabby said finally, in a voice like maybe this wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get his attention. “Come on. The bus is boarding.”
They found seats near the back of the bus, Gabby sliding into the window seat and shoving her backpack down between her Conversed feet. He could hear Drake leaking out of somebody’s headphones; a few rows ahead of them, someone was eating something that smelled strongly of garlic.
Neither one of them talked as the bus pulled out of the station and toward the highway. Eventually the broken-down cityscape gave way to strip malls, then the blurry outlines of naked autumn trees. The bus was dark except for the glow of streetlamps outside and somebody’s reading light a few rows ahead of them; Ryan thought possibly Gabby was sleeping, when suddenly she spoke.
“I’m going to ask you this one time, and then I’m never going to ask you again,” she said quietly, staring straight ahead at the back of the seat in front of her. “Did your dad ever hit you?”
“What?” Ryan blinked at that, surprised and kind of weirdly offended. His dad could be kind of a jerk sometimes, sure—his dad had been a jerk today—but he wasn’t some kind of Lifetime-movie child abuser. “No.”
“Did he ever hit your mom?”
“No,” Ryan repeated, then added, “Jesus.”
Gabby exhaled, leaned her head back. “Okay.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” Ryan started. Shit, he was so embarrassed. This whole day was a wash, clearly; he wanted to smooth it over as quickly as possible, then forget about it and be done. “This was a clusterfuck, I—”
“Nope,” Gabby said, tucking one denim-covered leg underneath her and turning to face him for the first time, holding her hand up. “Don’t even start. This isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault, okay?”
Ryan shrugged. Intellectually, he knew she was right: odds were, even if they’d won this afternoon his dad would have found something else to give him a hard time about, the other team playing dirty or a bad call the ref had made. He got in these kind of dark, crummy moods sometimes, and there was nothing anybody could really do to talk him out of them. It was just how his dad was. Sometimes it sucked a little, sure. But that didn’t mean Ryan wanted to talk about it. “Yeah,” he said finally, hoping she’d take the hint and drop it, so they could ride home in peace and forget this ever happened. “Okay.”
But Gabby wasn’t biting. “No,” she said. “Ryan. Look at me.”
Reluctantly, Ryan did. She looked tired, makeup creeping down underneath her lower lashes. She also looked like she could fight a bear, should the need and opportunity arise. “Yeah.”
“Your dad—and I have literally never said this about anyone’s parent before, but I am going to say it: your dad is a huge dick.”
Ryan snorted, not entirely in amusement. “Okay . . . ?”
“I mean it,” Gabby continued. “Every time he opened his mouth today, I wanted to punch him in the face. I can’t imagine what I’d do if my dad talked to me that way.”
Ryan’s back prickled at that, like a cat or a porcupine; he felt his face go hot with shame. “He’s not that bad, if you get to know him.”
“Really?” Gabby shook her head, dismissive. “Because I won’t lie to you, today seemed kind of bad.”
“Well, it wasn’t,” Ryan said tightly. He didn’t like the tone she was using, like he was some dope from a white-trash family who wasn’t even smart enough to realize how tragic his life was. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Really?” Gabby asked, frowning. “Does that mean it’s usually worse?”
“It means not everybody’s family is as civilized and pristine as yours, Gabby.”
“Wait, what?” Gabby’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with my family?”
“It’s not about your family,” Ryan said; he could hear his voice getting sharper, but it was like he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He didn’t have a bad temper, generally, but enough was enough. “It’s about you not knowing what you’re talking about.”
“You realize I’m on your team here,” Gabby said, eyes flashing like he was being the unreasonable one. “I’m telling you as your friend that this wasn’t normal.”
“And I’m telling you we’re not good enough friends for you to be telling me what’s normal about my life!”
Gabby looked at him like he’d punched her. “We’re not?” she asked, and her voice was so quiet.
That was when the bus began to smoke.
GABBY
Gabby stood miserably on the side of the highway twenty minutes later, stamping her feet against the cold and listening to the irritated murmur of the displaced crowd all around her. There was another bus coming to rescue them, allegedly, since theirs was still emitting great, billowing clouds of stinky black smoke from underneath its massive hood. The bus driver had assured them it wasn’t going to explode, but he’d also quickly ushered them all about a hundred yards down the shoulder, so Gabby wasn’t entirely impressed with his confidence. She had no idea how long they’d been waiting. Her phone was officially dead.