Chapter 8 Ethan
Ethan
The song ends, leaving a gaping black hole, sucking in all the time between Shane and I.
I keep my eyes on the road, watching out for signs onto the thruway, trying my damnedest not to glance in Shane’s direction.
But it’s difficult. I hadn’t bet on taking all these memories with us.
I hadn't really considered the memories these songs carried, just that they’d been bands that Ev had liked.
Shane lets out a slow exhale and says softly, “Wow. Haven’t heard that song in a long time.”
I leave his comment hanging, but I cut the volume down on the CD player when the next song begins. That one, at least, doesn’t come with vivid and depressing memories.
Shane sighs. “I don’t like things being this way between us.”
Should’ve thought of that five years ago, dickwad, I almost snap, but I hold my tongue.
“I know it’s my fault,” he says. “And I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but can we talk about it at least?”
I don’t know what the fuck he would even want to talk about.
It was pretty simple. He fucking ditched me.
He disappeared from my life. The fucker got me right where he wanted me and just fucked off.
He shoved me away, shoved me right into the dark, shut the door, locked it, and left me there without another word.
What else could there possibly be to discuss?
I cut my eyes over to him. “I told you. This isn’t about me and you.
It’s about Everett. We don’t have to discuss anything, because there is no we.
You’re Shane Carraway, you’ve got a kid, you live in Port Leyden.
I’m Ethan Sawyer, I’ve got a degree to work for, I live in fucking New York City. That’s it. That’s all there is.”
When I look back at the road, I see a sign for the thruway, and I slow down, cutting on the turn signal. In my periphery, I see Shane shaking his head.
“No, that’s not all there is. That’s not all there was. And, yeah, we might be different people now, but we were—”
I almost miss the turn when I look over at him. I want him to say it. “We were what?”
He shakes his head again, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Never mind. I guess it doesn’t matter.”
I merge into the thruway traffic and look for a sign to tell me how far until Highway 27. “We were what, Shane? Fucking say it.”
He doesn’t answer for a minute or so. When he finally speaks his voice is barely loud enough over the music and traffic. “You know about my daughter?”
“Everybody knows. It’s a really small town.”
He’s quiet for a minute before he says, “Who told you?”
“My mom.” I spot the sign and see we’ve got about twelve miles before Highway 27. “She saw you with a little girl at the Dollar General in Lyons Falls.”
My mom and dad were sort of casualties in the whole thing between Shane and me.
The outward ripples of it affected them too, and I bet that fucker didn’t even consider that.
Because even though Shane was Everett’s best friend, my parents cared about him.
I think they sometimes even saw him like an adopted son.
My mom told me the story of seeing Shane with the little girl, saying she’d wanted to go up to him and say hi and say hi to his daughter.
But she was worried Shane wouldn’t want to speak to her.
“Oh, I see,” he says quietly.
I guess, if you’re really skilled and determined, it wouldn’t be too difficult to avoid someone in our little town.
Some of the neighborhoods are really far apart.
And some homes are way out in the woods.
Most people go to either Lyons Falls or Lowville to do their shopping, and there are some that go all the way to Boonville.
And pretty much no one that lives in Port Leyden works in Port Leyden unless it’s at the fire house or the post office or the funeral home.
So, I think it would be pretty easy in some ways.
After all, Shane’s been successfully avoiding the same people for five years now.
“How old is she?” I hear myself asking, then wince because I don’t really want to know.
“She’s almost five.” He almost sounds ashamed.
Somehow, I think I knew that already. Just like I think I already knew the mom is Gina Pritzer.
The news came as both a slap in the face and almost welcome to me.
Because when I heard, I figured that was it.
I could get over him now, I could move past it, because Shane Carraway wasn’t really into me, wasn’t even actually into dudes at all, and here’s the proof.
He’s got his own family to take care of now.
But I didn’t get over it. It’s clear now, stuck in a car with him.
“This is why I think it would be good for us to talk,” Shane says. “You don’t know the whole story.”
I’m wondering if I’m that transparent, and I’m determined to do a better job of being stoic, so I don’t respond to him. Focusing back on the road again, I find the exit for Highway 27.
He doesn’t say anything again for a few minutes. I have to hit the brakes when a car in front of me swerves because the dumbass in front of him cut him off. I glance at the back seat to make sure the urn is okay. It hasn’t budged.
“I can see why Ev preferred to drive at night,” Shane says. “He wouldn’t have to deal with dumbasses like this.”
“There are dumbasses on the road at any time,” I mutter.
And other things can go wrong.
“Does it feel weird to be driving?” Shane asks me. “Since Everett was driving.”
I don’t want to answer him. I don’t want to engage in any more conversation with him. I turn up the music once more and focus on the road in front of me.
After a few minutes Shane says, “One time, Ev and I drove all the way to Lake Ontario.”
I glance over at him quickly, then put my eyes back on the road.
“Your parents didn’t know. Guess you didn’t either.
It wasn’t long after he got his license.
We just…got in the car and started driving.
I think, at first, he was lost and didn’t want to admit it.
But it was really fun. We saw the lake. We didn’t really do anything.
I think we got something to eat then drove back home.
I thought he was going to get in trouble using up all that gas, but I guess he didn’t.
” He laughs. “God, we did some really random and boring shit back then, but it seemed like such a huge deal at the time, you know?”
Everett was pretty popular, athletic, the typical All-American boy next door, the kind you find in sitcoms and the dorky girls crush on.
He mostly stayed out of trouble, and I can count on one hand the times he did anything rebellious—that I know of at least—and even those things were typical of any teenager anywhere.
But every once in a while, he’d get some wild notion to do something spontaneous, like take a drive somewhere, dye his hair maroon, learn the guitar, let Addison Wilcox pierce one of his ears, do a back flip off the porch railing into a kiddie pool, which almost got him a trip to the ER.
It’s like he’d just get bored and before you knew it, Ev had done something. Just random. Out of nowhere.
So, I’m not surprised he just decided one day to drive him and Shane to Lake Ontario. But I am a little surprised, and a little hurt, he never told me about it. And never thought to take me along.
I see that the highway’s coming up, so I switch lanes to take the exit.
Shane says, “It’s not like there was a lot to do in Port Leyden anyway. You kind of just had to go somewhere else.”
“It’s still like that now.”
“Yeah. But, I mean, when you’re an adult there’s work and shit.” He pauses, head turning toward the window. “Nothing’s fun anymore.”
I almost tell him about Everett’s last email to me.
About how he wasn’t so happy with his new adult life either.
He’d majored in business, after starting college without a major at all, and quickly got some office job for an insurance company.
It didn’t seem so bad at first, but then he just hated it.
Is this really all there is to life? He’d written to me. You just sit behind a desk until you get too old and die?
He’s not going to have to worry about sitting behind a desk anymore.
Or getting old.
My stomach knots up as I take the exit and my face heats, sweat forming on my skin.
My pulse starts to race and there’s a whoosh of blood in my ears.
He’s never going to get old. He’ll never be as old as our dad.
I get little flashes of the future that will never be—Ev and his wife and kids, I’m the fun uncle, and our parents take their grandkids to get ice cream on Sundays.
It’s never going to happen. No gray hairs. No wrinkles. No complaints about his joints and kids these days.
The thoughts are suffocating.
“Hey, you okay?” Shane asks softly.
I didn’t realize I was shaking so hard. I try to nod, but I feel like I can’t catch my breath. The Blazer swerves and Shane’s hand darts out, grabbing the steering wheel.
“Hey. Ethan.”
My heart’s pounding. I can’t catch my breath. Suddenly, my body feels like a prison I desperately need to escape from. I fumble for my pack of smokes.
“Ethan, it’s okay, just pull over here. Where that sign is.”
I don’t want to listen to him, but I do as he says, pull the Blazer over next to a pile of dirty snow and try to catch my breath. I’m vaguely aware of Shane getting out of the car and then the driver’s side door opening. I feel a warm hand on my shoulder, and I’m too overwhelmed to shake it off.
His hand rubs up and down my arm. “It’s okay.
My grandma used to have panic attacks.” The hand rubbing is oddly soothing, but tears spill down my cheeks anyway.
I can hardly hear him over the sound of blood rushing in my ears.
“It’s okay, Ethan. Just try to shift your thoughts.
Try to think of things that begin with the letter B. ”
I try to but my mind’s a whirling mess. Fuck, I didn’t think this would be so fucking hard.
“Say them out loud, Ethan. Here, I’ll start. Bears, bananas, boulders…”
He waits for me to continue, so I try to think of something, but I can’t.
“It’s okay, Ethan,” he says softly, squeezing my arm. “I’m right here.”
I try to get a cigarette out to light it, but Shane grabs the pack from me. “Come on, Ethan. Things that start with B.”
“Okay, um.” My voice is trembling and my lungs hurt. “Bats. Um…bricks.”
“Yeah. Good.”
“Brakes…”
As soon as I say it, my vision tunnels. I can’t breathe.
“No, hey, Ethan.” Shane’s leaning over me in the seat, grabbing both my shoulders now. “It’s okay. Just think about C then. Things that start with C.”
Crash. Collision. Crushed.
More tears spill down my cheeks. My lungs are struggling for air.
“Think of animals then,” Shane says. “Just any kind of animal. You said one already, bats. What else?”
I really try to focus on his words, but it’s hard. I don’t want to feel this way anymore.
“Come on, Ethan. You can do it. Name some animals.”
“Cats. Um…dogs. Horses. Cows.”
“There you go, good.”
“Swallows. Foxes. Bluebirds. Swans. Geese. Squirrels. Chipmunks.”
“That’s it, good.”
Shane rubs up and down my arms, squeezing, and I keep reciting.
Wombats. Hyenas. Tigers. Elk. Crows. Ducks.
I fucking didn’t think this would be so hard.
I keep reciting any animals that I can think of.
It seems like we’re on the side of the road for an eternity before the shaking finally starts to subside.
In the rearview mirror, I see a car pulling up behind us. A middle-aged man gets out and trudges through the snow over to us. “You boys okay?”
“We’re fine,” Shane says to him. “Just a little car sickness is all.”
The man nods, peeking in at me, and then he looks us both over with vague suspicion. I’m aware of him and Shane exchanging a few more words, and I’m suddenly so fucking tired and drained, I lay my head on the steering wheel.
“Ethan?” Shane says, his hand back on my shoulder. It’s warm and heavy. I hate how I want him to keep it there. “You want me to drive?”
“You don’t know where to go,” I mutter.
“You can tell me,” he says. “And we just have to go east now, right? So we can get back to Route 8? Because we’re going south?”
“I can drive,” I argue pathetically.
“Come on, Ethan,” he says gently. “Lie down in the back for a little while and let me drive.”
I slowly, bitterly, get out of the car. I climb in behind the driver’s seat, next to Ev’s ashes. Shane gets in and puts the car into gear. I see him glance back at me in the rearview.
“I can use the map,” he says, unfolding it and laying it out on the passenger seat. “If you want to take a nap. I know that shit can wear you out.”
I shrug and look over at Ev’s ashes, still snug in the collection of cushions. I put my hand on the lid. I whisper, “I’m sorry I’m being like this. But we’ll get you there, buddy. I promise.”
Shane turns the Blazer and waits for a break in traffic before he gets back on the highway. I stare out of the window and watch the naked trees and guardrails whiz by and feel like a failure.
I glance at the back of Shane’s head.
A failure in a lot of ways.
He glances at me in the rearview again. “Doing okay?”
I nod. When he looks back at the road, I add, “Thank you. For helping me.”
“Of course, Ethan.” His soft-brown eyes appear in the mirror again. “I just want you to be okay.”
I almost add something snarky and mean, something alluding to how he sure as shit didn’t care if I was okay for the last five years, but I leave it.
We drive the next few miles or so in silence.