Racing, Not Breaking
Adam’s ex-girlfriend’s name was Nadia. Unique. Strong. A great main character name. I’d bet her story was one for the books. It had to be with someone like Adam in her life.
He started telling me things through texting before he talked about them to my face. Like it was easier for him to keep a face behind a device.
He was much more volunteering about his family—we both didn’t have much of a dad and he, too, didn’t have a mom; she left them for another man when Adam was a kid—the wound that was nothing new, that lived in your bones, already a scab you’re used to picking at and letting grow over again.
His wound from Nadia was still tender, an instant sting when touched.
We’d taken a couple more drives after the first one. I learned more about Rosalee Bay, its little secrets and how it ticked, much more than my dad gave a bother to know now.
Dad had been noticing my uptick in attitude. I was different .
My heart leaped at the observation and thudded erratically at the scrutiny. I chided myself for not appearing the way I always had, but I got some grace when I didn’t have to come up with an answer. He gave me one by asking if I was finally getting settled and seeing the bright side of another move.
I really was.
He didn’t know.
The long look he’d given me stayed with me even longer, but I knew he didn’t, because he wouldn’t have let it go on a second more if he did. If I was caught, I was just caught. He wouldn’t give me time to own up myself. Those weren’t the kinds of mind games he played.
I was still in the clear. I just had to be a bit more careful.
Adam’s texts came mostly on the nights I didn’t see him, when he was taking the time to catch up on sleep or with Levi.
He never told me he was with Levi, and it was something I didn’t ask, but I assumed. He wouldn’t just stop needing his best friend because I came along, needy in my own ways, and wishful.
I still hadn’t seen or heard from Levi and I became twitchy at the thought of finding out why, that maybe he refused my number and asked Adam not to tell me to avoid hurting my feelings.
That thought put a shake in my head whenever it tried to settle. It didn’t feel right. But this nudging insecurity that I wasn’t worth the trouble kept me from asking.
And it was easier to say yes to Adam when Levi wasn’t around. Because Adam was. On my phone and outside my house.
This night, he was wearing a baseball cap. I knew fictional girls who swooned over that look. I wasn’t a hat girl. Adam was still cute—he’d still look good covered in dirt from the field, and I was sure he did—I just didn’t swoon over hats. I liked seeing the hair. If a breeze came along, I wanted to watch the strands flow with it.
He hurried me along more than he usually did. But I was ready, my body bouncing more and more with the rush of leaving and the rush to leave.
Time was of the essence, and I had a sense of where he was taking me. A thrill up my spine straightened me in the seat of his car as my fingers clutched the door handle, when we pulled up to that dead end hill.
We skipped down the patch of grass, Adam laughing at my fluctuating smile I kept chewing at, then slowed through the trees, until we met another patch of grass with lit up train tracks just ahead.
The lights were low, but glowing enough to see the length of the tracks from this spot before both ends disappeared on the left and right sides.
Adam told me the direction the train would be coming and my entire body lifted with a squint toward the darkness, that distant whistle we heard that first night a low blare in my brain.
“But we got some time,” he told me next, and I dropped back to my heels with a chuckle that cut off to an intake of breath as I felt his fingers graze my leg, right below the hem of my shorts.
I glanced over at him, then down at him, where he now sat on the ground. His hand was still on my leg, and he left the touch there as our eyes locked, then lowered his arm with a motion for me to sit beside him.
We’d since gotten more rain, but the ground was dry again. I probably would’ve sat with him and wouldn’t have argued about going back to my house in dirty clothes even if it wasn’t. That touch was…nice.
I was chewing at my smile again, hidden behind my hair.
“I’m almost surprised you didn’t bring me out to do this before,” I blurted out when Adam shoulder bumped me.
“I had to ease you into it,” he said, leaning back onto his palms. “Give you a taste with the sunroof.”
I laughed, apart from rolling my eyes. “That wasn’t like this at all.”
He smirked. “You’re about to find out.”
I held the still empty tracks in my periphery, listening for a whistle that had yet to come. “Am I?” It was a thought I muttered out loud.
Adam nodded. “I think you want to.” There was something in his tone that almost made those words sound like he was really saying, I think you wanted to, that night .
I shifted and hugged my knees, moving us on. “Nadia never did this with you?”
I already knew this was another thing Levi didn’t do. It’s too dangerous, he’d said, his voice still as clear in my head as if I’d heard it today.
It was dangerous. But Adam also was still here.
He paused a response, a pucker in his mouth, before he shook his head. “It isn’t a popular hobby.”
Hobby. “So you do this all the time?”
He shook his head again, staring out toward the tracks. “No,” he said low. “Just when I’m feeling too much.”
My body leaned toward his at those words, knowing the weight of feelings myself, and I shoulder bumped him.
“I came out here after she ended it,” he said, his eyes on the tracks and his voice heavy. “She had perfect timing,” he added with a side smirk before that light flickered again. “Those tracks. That train…” He pushed up to sitting, leaning closer toward those tracks with a mesmerized quality to his gaze, a look I hadn’t seen yet and seemed to transfer to me as I watched him. “You can’t think about anything else. You’re completely in your body. Your heart is racing, not breaking. You can’t be angry. You can’t be sad…”
“You’re just being,” I whispered when he trailed off again, and when our eyes locked now, the smile he gave me was soft, nudging mine.
We jerked at the sound of the whistle—real and here—and as Adam jumped to his feet, my palms slapped the ground, my legs stretched to spring—
But then my body hesitated.
“Let’s go,” Adam said, excitement in the words, before he leveled his face with mine with encouragement and assurance. “You can do it. You’re gonna be fine.”
What’s dangerous about it if I’m still here? It’s fine.
No bothers, Summer.
No fucks .
He offered his hand and I slipped mine in, then we were running for the tracks.
We stood side by side, his hand still in mine, as the distant lights from the train moved closer by the second.
The whistle sounded again.
Adam tightened his grip on me, probably to keep my hand from sliding away from the sweat collecting on my palms. “You trust me?” he asked me again.
I blinked, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the train. It was accelerating our way, growing louder, my breathing accelerating too.
I managed a squeeze to his hand as my answer, because I knew, from that moment, I did.
I trusted him.
And he was right. I couldn’t think about anything but that train. Its whistling and its chugging and its lights, a drumming throughout my entire body.
I couldn’t blink anymore.
I couldn’t look at anything but that glow as it came closer, and closer, and closer.
My heart was racing. The tracks were shaking. My feet were shaking, too, my body doing small jolts in place to get off, but not yet. The train wasn’t close enough yet. Even I knew that and this was my first go.
Just a bit more. . .
My lungs seized, my heart going haywire, as the train barreled upon us, the sounds deafening and the lights blinding.
Adam’s grip in mine pulled, and I felt myself smiling right before he yanked me off the tracks.
Wind was sharp on my back as the train whizzed past us, and we toppled to the ground as I released a scream that seemed to slowly regulate my body back to normal.
I was having a fit, my laughter rivaling the volume of the train as it continued past us.
It wasn’t until it was gone, the sounds around us quiet again, that I realized I was on top of Adam, and he was holding my hips with the biggest grin stretching his mouth.
I pushed off him and flipped to my back, catching my breath up at the dark sky.
“Well?” he asked, when I could no longer hear my breathing, or his, something smug in the question that sent me into another fit.
That was both the most frightening and most exhilarating experience I’d ever had up to that point. I wasn’t sure I was never doing that again.
“You’re just what I needed,” Adam said suddenly, laughing with me, and my laughter faded as those words settled like a second buzz beneath my skin.
He said that so easily.
He made me believe I could say things easily too.
But I didn’t have a voice, just adrenaline that pushed me back up and over him. I reached for his cap that had fallen off and flopped it back onto his head before flipping again to my back.
He smiled again, securing the cap on right, and we laid there talking for what felt like so long.
Too long, until I became antsy over the time, and the feeling of being bitten by actual ants.