The Ballad of Darcy and Russell

Chapter 18

So.” I looked over at Russell and raised my eyebrows. “What do you think?”

Russell picked up a fry and bit into it with great ceremony. Then he popped the rest of it into his mouth and turned to me with a nod. “Yeah. You were right.”

We were sitting in the back of the Bronco, the hatch open and our legs dangling over the bumper. When I’d proposed my favorite In-N-Out option—the box for your car—Russell had agreed. And while we’d been waiting in line to order—even though it was still before noon, on a Monday, the restaurant was packed—we’d covered the basics.

“So.” Russell’s voice had the gravity to it that befitted such an important topic. “What’s your order?”

“Right now it’s a double-double, extra sauce, fries well, extra ketchup, strawberry shake. But since I’m getting one with my dad later, maybe I should skip it now.”

“Or you could have a two-milkshake day.”

“You make a good point.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone ordering fries well before.”

“It’s just getting your fries well done. You didn’t know they could do that?”

“No!” Russell looked shocked by this. “You mean all this time I’ve just been hoping to get the crispier fries and I could have just been ordering them like this?”

“At least you know now,” I said, trying not to laugh at the disgruntled expression on his face, like he was mentally reliving every trip to In-N-Out he’d taken, and finding them wanting. “You can also get them light, or underdone, but that seems less like a way to order fries and more like a crime against humanity.”

“I’ll say.”

“So what about you?” I gave him a nudge with my shoulder, then froze, wondering if this was okay. It had just been an instinct—but was this going outside of my just friends decision? But a second later, I figured it was fine—surely, friends shoved each other sometimes.

You’ve certainly shoved me,Didi cut in, sounding irritated.

The line moved up, and I used the excuse to walk forward and try to pretend it hadn’t happened. “Your order, I mean.”

Russell just gave me a smile, like he’d seen through my whole silent mini-spiral. “Double double, extra pickle, no onion, fries animal style. And I always ask for extra toast.”

“Extra toast?”

“It just means your hamburger buns are extra toasted. Oh—and a Neapolitan shake.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a shake with all three milkshake flavors—chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.”

“I didn’t know that was a thing! I thought I knew everything on the secret menu.”

“Next!” The In-N-Out employee called, and we stepped forward to order.

Now, back in the car, I tried not to be too satisfied with the expression on Russell’s face as he ate his crispy fries. I pulled out my phone and checked the map and our ETA.

“We’re still okay on time?”

“Right now we’re getting there with over an hour to spare,” I said. “I think we’re good.”

“Awesome.”

I picked up my burger and took a bite—I’d tried his extra-toasted tip—and nodded. “Yep.”

“Good, right?” Russell asked, looking pleased with himself.

“Basically, what we’ve discovered is that everything here just needs to be cooked more.”

Russell laughed. “Exactly.”

“I also feel like it holds the ketchup better,” I said, taking another big bite of my extra-toasted bun. “This is an excellent hack.”

“Fun fact—unless they’ve overstayed their welcome?”

“Never,” I assured him, dipping a perfectly crispy fry in the secret sauce.

“Okay, so the fifty-seven in Heinz 57 isn’t actually about the number of varieties they have. That was just a marketing campaign that came later. It was because five was Heinz’s lucky number, and seven was his wife’s.”

“So did they then have to make fifty-seven varieties? So they weren’t lying on the label?”

Russell shrugged. “Clearly, I need to do more research.” He took a bite of his burger, then wiped his mouth carefully. “This was a good call. The last time I had this was with the Bens, and that was two weeks ago now—before they both left.”

“They’re at school already? The Bens?”

“Yeah. Tall Ben is at Tulane, and Actually Tall Ben is at Emory. Apparently, he spent the first week going around pretending he thought he got into Emerson, and asking everyone where Walden Pond was.”

“They sound great.”

Russell smiled. “They really are. You’ll have to meet them someday.”

The words hung in the air between us, and I saw immediately that Russell had just registered what he’d said. “Right,” I said quickly, picking up my drink. “Sure.”

I took a sip of my Arnold Palmer—I’d decided a two-milkshake day might put me in a sugar coma—but it didn’t taste quite as sweet as before. We finished up quietly, both of us suddenly occupied with our fries or burger remnants. “Ready?”

Russell nodded, then held up his milkshake cup. “I’m going to keep working on this, though.”

“There aren’t any cupholders,” I pointed out. “Just something to keep in mind.”

“How did I not notice that?” he asked, turning around to look at the front of the car. “Also, did nobody get thirsty in the olden days?”

“That’s what I was thinking!” I gathered up our lunch detritus. “I’ll just toss this out.”

“I can get it.”

“I don’t mind.” I started to slide off the back of the car, my hands full, when Russell frowned.

“Darcy—you’ve got…” He nodded toward my face.

“Oh.” Did I have a glob of ketchup or something on my face? Had it been there for a while now? This was the problem with eating with boys. Didi and Katy would have pointed it out as soon as it happened. I went to put down the boxes in my arms just as my cup threatened to fall, and I grabbed for it. “Just… a second.”

“It’s… I can,” Russell said, moving in a little closer to me. He raised his eyebrows, asking if it was okay. I nodded, my heart suddenly beating harder as he leaned forward and closed the space between us.

He reached over, his fingers brushing against my cheek gently. “Got it,” he said. He lowered his hand but didn’t move away.

“What was it?”

“Tiny piece of lettuce,” he said with a smile. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Well—thank you.” I was having trouble concentrating—he was suddenly so much closer. I’d gotten used to it in the car, but this was different. This was leaning-forward-four-inches-and-kissing-him nearness. This was seeing-the-freckles-on-his-forearms nearness. The last time we’d been this near, we’d been half-naked and kissing furiously.

A moment passed between us—one that felt different. It wasn’t like earlier, when it seemed like just a look, a touch, was enough to generate a spark between us—exciting and ever-changing and volatile. This felt more like an ember—warm and steady and keeping watch, ready to catch if conditions were right, but not until then.

“Darcy,” Russell said softly. He took a breath—just as his phone started to ring. “Sorry,” he said, stepping back and pulling his phone out of his pocket. “That’s my dad.”

“He’s probably checking on the car.”

“Undoubtedly. I’ll just be a second.” Russell took a few steps toward the restaurant, and I found the nearest trash can to dump our stuff in. Then I made my way back to the Bronco, leaning against the back, trying not to think about the fact that when Russell and I had been so close, everything in me had been yelling to kiss him.

So kiss him!Katy screamed at me.

Shedecided they’re just going to be friends, Didi reminded her, and I could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

Yeah, like, five seconds ago. It’s not a binding treaty. She can un-decide it. Kiss this cute boy who obviously wants to kiss you!

I looked out at the highway, at the cars rushing past, while just for a moment, I got to stand still. I pulled out my phone to check our ETA. There was a tiny bit of red coming up on the map, but we would still make it in time. But even so, I could practically hear a ticking clock, one that was starting to get louder. Last night, in Jesse, it had felt like we were the only two people on the planet—and like nothing needed to be rushed, like time was stretching out endlessly before us. But now, it felt like it was counting down, sand through the hourglass disappearing until soon there would be nothing left.

“Hey.” I turned and saw Russell walking toward me. His sunglasses were on, but even without being able to see his eyes, I could tell that something was bothering him.

“Hey. Everything okay?”

“Kind of? I’m not sure. It’s… a thing. I’ll tell you on the road.” Russell headed for the driver’s side.

“I can take a turn driving.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I can’t let you do this the whole time. We should share it, right?” A second later, I suddenly worried that, given the way Wylie had talked about the Bronco, this might not be allowed. “Unless your dad doesn’t want me to—that’s fine too.”

“No, it’s not that,” he said, taking the keys out of his pocket. “I was just trying to be gallant.”

“It was very gallant,” I assured him. “In a, um, friendly way.” Russell handed me the keys, I fished my sunglasses out of my bag, got into the driver’s seat—and then we had to figure out how to move the bench seat up so that I could actually reach the pedals. Russell wasn’t that much taller than me, but I was realizing that he liked to sit farther back from the wheel than I did.

“Nice,” he said nodding at me, and it took me a moment to realize that he was talking about my scratched aviators.

“Thanks,” I said, giving him a smile before starting the car. “Whoa.” I had an old Prius and my dad had an electric car, so it felt like it had been a while since I’d driven a car like this—the steering wheel seemed to be shaking from the vibrations of the engine.

“I know,” Russell said. “You get used to it, I promise.”

I backed up carefully, then pulled out of the parking lot, Russell giving me directions to get back on the freeway. The steering wheel was wider than I was used to, and thinner, but I liked it—it made me feel like I was driving a truck.

And despite the growling engine, it was a pretty easy car to handle, which I was glad about. I could feel myself relaxing back against the seats, not gripping the steering wheel quite so hard. After five minutes in which I drove in silence so I could concentrate, very aware of don’t crash the rock star’s car, I felt like I had a handle on things. “Should we listen to music?”

“Sure—want me to play something of yours?”

“You be the DJ. Clearly, I need to increase my musical theater knowledge.”

“How about we trade off? I’ll DJ for a while and then when I start driving again, you can do it?”

I nodded, and gave him a quick smile before switching to the middle lane so I could speed up a bit. “Sounds good.” I nodded down at his phone. “Hit me with your best shot.”

But ten minutes later, there still had been no music. “Sorry,” Russell said, sounding flustered. “I’ve almost narrowed it down.”

“Anything is fine,” I assured him, trying not to laugh at the expression on his face. He’d spent the last few minutes hunched over his phone, scrolling through it furiously and muttering to himself.

“No, it’s not. Darcy.”

“Russell?”

“This is one of the finest American art forms, and it is one that you have shockingly little knowledge of.”

“I wouldn’t say shocking—”

“So I need to make sure I’m playing the right songs, or I might miss my window to make you fall in love.” I looked over at him, and he blinked for just a moment before adding quickly, “With musical theater. If I play you the wrong songs, you might think you don’t like it, and you’ll continue to only know the three musicals that you do.”

“And god knows, we can’t have that.”

“We really can’t. Okay,” he said, holding up his phone. “I think I’ve got it.”

“Great.”

“Wait.” He paused, his thumb hesitating over his phone screen. “How do you feel about cannibalism?”

“Cannibalism? In… a musical?”

“Okay, maybe we table Sweeney Todd for the moment. Maybe In the Heights?”

“What is that?”

A shocked expression passed across Russell’s face for just a moment before he took a deep breath and composed himself. “It’s the first Lin-Manuel Miranda musical—it all takes place over twenty-four hours in Washington Heights, and I frankly think it got unfairly eclipsed—”

“It takes place in a day?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Why?”

“I just didn’t know that could happen. I thought they were all—I don’t know, more epic or something.”

“Twenty-four hours can be plenty epic.”

I smiled at that. “That’s true.”

“But there’s a few of them. How to Succeed in Business, I’m pretty sure. And I think Forum all takes place in one day.…”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said, giving him a smile, even as my mind was filing this away as useful information. “What’s next?”

We drove across the desert, and Russell played me highlights from the last one hundred years of musical theater—songs about love, and loss, and carnivorous plants, and Lion King ushers. About turning thirty-five, and mythical towns that exist just for one day, and meat pies made of people (I’d relented about the cannibal thing, mostly because I was curious). About the wives of Henry VIII, and MI5 during World War II, and Mormon missionaries. With every song, I knew Russell was watching me, looking for my reaction, trying to see how I felt about it. I could practically see him cataloging the songs I liked and tailoring the next song accordingly.

I listened as I drove, sometimes requesting repeats or complaining about the logic jumps I was expected to make (like, why were the people in River City so excited about a boys’ band? And why couldn’t girls be in the band too?). And while the songs played, or while Russell cued up the next one, we talked—sharing the details we hadn’t gotten to before, filling in some of the gaps and missing pieces in both our lives.

“What are your cats named?” I asked, looking over at him as he scrolled through the songs on his phone. “You said you had two?”

“We do. Bisou and Dameron.”

“I’m guessing you named Dameron?”

“He was always taking flying leaps as a kitten!” Russell said, sounding a little defensive. “So he had to be named after a space pilot.”

“Well, obviously.”

“Do you guys have any pets? You and your dad?”

“No. I always wanted a dog, but we never had one.”

“Maybe he’ll get one now,” Russell suggested. “Keep him company when you’re gone?”

“If he gets a dog when I’ve left, after denying me one for my entire childhood, I’m going to be so mad.”

“It’s a catch-22.” Russell glanced over at me and raised an eyebrow. “A fetch-22?”

“Nicely done.”

“Fun fact—it’s been proven that dogs are stress reducers. That when you pet them, your cortisone levels drop.”

“I’m not sure I would put Andy in the stress-reducing category.”

“Well, he might be the exception.” Russell stopped scrolling on his phone and looked at me. “How familiar are you with Jonathan Larson?”

“Who?”

“Oh my god. Hold on.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said as I cranked down my window—it was starting to get really hot in the car. Russell had just played me songs from Pal Joey, Carousel, Once Upon a Mattress, and The Light in the Piazza. “All these people are related?”

“Yeah. It was Rodgers and Hart, then Rodgers and Hammerstein. Then Richard Rodgers’s daughter, Mary Rodgers. Then her son, Adam Guettel.”

“Talented family.”

“I’ll say.”

I looked away from the road for a second and across the car at him as he scrolled though his phone, totally absorbed. “Is that hard for you?”

He looked up, frowning. “Is what hard?”

“I mean… with your dad. And you wanting to do music too.” I shook my head, knowing do music was not the best way to put this.

Russell lowered his phone and looked out the window for a moment. “It’s both really great and really hard,” he said slowly. “Like, he’s the first person I play stuff for because he just gets it on a different level than my mom or any of my friends. But at the same time—I know whatever I do will be compared to him, and probably not favorably. It’s just… a lot to live up to. I think it’s the reason I was drawn to musicals in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just as a way to separate myself, since it’s not what he does. But also—I always loved the storytelling aspect of it. How you can really tell the story of a triumph, or failure, or great love…”

“Or how hard it is to be Spider-Man.”

Russell laughed. “Well, exactly.” There was a pause in which we just listened to Jeremy Jordan sing about unionizing. I was about to ask him to turn it up when Russell spoke again, his voice hesitant. “I actually… talked to my dad about it when he called. About what he did to get me in. The whole Michigan thing.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I mentioned what you told me he said—and that I could see he was trying to do a good thing. And that I shouldn’t have thrown it back at him.”

“Oh, wow.”

“But then he said he hadn’t seen it from my point of view. And that I don’t have to go if I don’t want to. If what he did really changes how I feel about it, it’s my choice if I want to go or not. He said he’d still donate the money.”

“Oh, well, that’s good. That school is famously underfunded.” Russell smiled and looked out the window, turning his phone over and over in his hands. “So what are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure. I just… I wish there was some way I could know. If I could do it on my own.”

“Well… you could do that, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t get into the Michigan theater program, right? Just—the regular school?”

Russell sighed. “Yeah.”

“But you said you really wanted to do a BFA track somewhere.”

“I did,” he said, and I could hear some frustration coming out in his voice. “But I didn’t get in.”

“No, I know. But since you’re not even going to the part of Michigan that you wanted to go to, couldn’t you just, I don’t know… defer for a year? Write a different musical and then apply to where you really wanted to go? USC and… what were the other schools?”

“Temple. And NYU,” he said slowly. “I guess I could.…”

“I thought about it when I only got in two places,” I said, remembering the very long, sleepless night I’d spent on my laptop, trying to figure out if I had any options and if I could do anything in a year to help myself. “But the most I can really do at this point is get good grades and then transfer. I wouldn’t be able to change my application all that much. It’s not like I have a musical to write.”

“Yet.”

“Yet,” I acknowledged with a laugh.

We drove in silence for a beat, Russell’s fingers tapping restlessly on the steering wheel. “I don’t know,” he finally said, his voice hesitant. “It’s strange to even consider not starting next week—like stepping off the path. You know. All my friends are going to school—most have already started—”

“Mine too.”

“But if I had a year—to work on a new show…” It was like I could practically see his wheels turning. “Is it crazy that never occurred to me until you said it? Am I just very stupid?”

I laughed. “No, I think it’s just the funnel we’re all put through. It’s probably the same with you, but my whole life, it’s been do this to get that so you can get into college. It’s like you’re on a treadmill and you’re not encouraged to ever get off or look around or go wander.”

“Exactly!”

“Didi was thinking about maybe taking a gap year. And her parents lost their minds. Like even the thought that she might not go right to college really freaked them out.”

“So what did she do?”

“She’s currently at Colgate, stealing her roommate’s Twizzlers.”

Russell nodded. We slowed down—I could see there was roadwork ahead, everyone being pushed over into the left lane. “What about you?” He looked across the car at me. “How are you feeling about starting tomorrow?”

“It feels—too soon. Like, we’re here now, in the middle of the desert, and tomorrow I’m going to be in Connecticut? I want more of a transition or something.”

“Fun fact!”

“Bring it on.”

“I’ll play that one next.” When I just stared at him, he shook his head. “Musical joke. Never mind. But! One of the reasons it’s called ‘jet lag’ is that it didn’t exist before planes. When you would, like, cross the ocean to get to Europe, you’d have enough time to be fully adjusted by the time you arrived.”

“Unless you hit an iceberg.”

“Well, exactly. But… is it going to be hard, tomorrow—seeing your mom?”

“I won’t be seeing her tomorrow. She did offer to get me from the airport, but I said no.”

I waited for the surge of anger I always felt when Gillian came up, the one that I invariably pushed away a second later and pretended I wasn’t bothered by. But for the first time in a long time, it didn’t come. I could feel the vestige of it, an outline. Like a crime-scene chalk drawing, representing something that once had been there but wasn’t any longer.

I looked over at the window—this normally would have been the moment I would have played with the button, pressing it up and down. But there really didn’t seem to be much point to that with nonautomatic windows. What was I supposed to do, crank it up and back down again? Russell glanced over at me, like he was waiting for me to say more. I just gave him a shrug, and he gave me a nod—like he was somehow letting me know that when I was ready to talk more about it, he’d be here.

We headed down the highway, the desert unspooling before us. There were rest stops and service stations, but they were getting fewer and farther between, and most of the signs now were telling us when the next service station was—so that we could prepare accordingly.

And as we drove, an idea was flitting around in my head—and not going away, to the point where I absorbed very little of Russell’s favorite song from A Little Night Music, and when he asked me what I thought, I struggled to find an answer.

“It’s okay,” Russell said, shaking his head. “We don’t have to keep listening to these. I might have hit you with too much Sondheim. It actually helps if you can read the lyrics while listening—”

“I don’t want to stop,” I said, and saw a flicker of relief pass over his face. “I was just thinking… has anyone ever made a musical of Theseus’s Sailboat?”

“No. I kind of think we might be the only two people who’ve ever read it.”

“Don’t you think it would make a good one, though? You did say that musicals can take place over one night. There could be a great love ballad when they first meet. And the campers could have their own songs. And the cat, too.”

“The cat?”

“Snoopy sings.” I honestly hadn’t known there was a Peanuts musical until Russell had played me songs from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

“That’s true. I can’t argue with that.”

“So what do you think?”

“I mean—I’m sure it would,” he said slowly, like he was trying to figure out what I was talking about.

“So you could write it. If you wanted to do a new musical—you could base it on the book.” I glanced over at him to see what he thought about this, but he was already shaking his head.

“I don’t have the rights.”

“I’m not saying that you need to get it produced. But just to have something to reapply with—if you wanted to do that—you could, right? Isn’t there some kind of exception for students, if you’re not going to try to sell it?”

I looked across the car at Russell and smiled when I saw that his eyes had lit up.

“Okay. I had a thought,” Russell said. He’d taken out his copy of Theseus’s Sailboat and was using it for reference, talking through plot points as we tossed around ideas. I’d secretly been hoping that when he pulled out the book, he’d put his glasses back on, but it seemed like maybe he had his contacts in now, and I might not get to see him in glasses again, which honestly was incredibly disappointing.

We were on a stretch of highway that was a straight shot toward the horizon, mountains in the distance that we kept driving toward but somehow never seemed to get any closer to. Three lanes and a shoulder, with short, scrubby green bushes on the side of the road. The sky was huge and blue and endless above us, wispy white clouds drifting across it. The road wasn’t very busy—I was staying in the middle lane, mostly to avoid the trucks barreling past in the right lane and the cars on the left whipping past us at speeds that seemed, even on a fairly deserted highway, really ill-advised. But the openness of the road—and the real lack of traffic—made me feel like I could relax into the drive, leaning back against the cloth-covered seat and resting my elbow on the window, occasionally letting the wind drift through my open fingers.

“Darcy?”

“Sorry,” I said, glancing away from the road for a moment to look at Russell. He was bent over his book, the way he had been the very first time I’d seen him. “What did you say?”

“Just that I had an idea. What do you think about this—the camp song can be a motif we keep revisiting; it can be threaded through the whole show. And then in act 2, when the campers sing, Will can actually be having a duet with his younger self.”

“We’ve gone through this.” I laughed. “They’re not the same person.”

“Okay, except they totally are.”

“Give me some proof.”

“What about the scar they both have on their left hand?”

I frowned. “Remind me?”

“Here, I’ll read it.” He leaned back against the door, one leg bent. He cleared his throat, then started to read out loud. And as he did, I had to catch my breath.

I was in a vintage car, windows down, driving across the desert. A very cute guy was reading to me from my favorite book. I’d wanted to go to Silverspun so I could have some memories to hang on to before I left—of mountains and sunshine and music.

But that all seemed so shortsighted now. As I let the familiar words wash over me, I knew that Silverspun was only going to be a blip in my memory—more a means to an end than anything else. This was what I would remember, and take with me, and think about in November. The wind in my hair, the sun on my legs, Russell in his sunglasses reading to me, the endless horizon in front of us.

“?‘Emma traced her hand over the small, crescent-shaped scar on William’s thumb, letting her fingers rest there for just a moment before—’?”

BANG.

A sound like a gunshot ripped through the car. I jumped, and Russell yelped, the book tumbling to the floor. “Fuck! Darcy, what was—”

But before I could even think about answering, the Bronco swerved to the right, out of my control. “Ohmygodohmygod,” I said, all one word. I gripped the wheel hard and tried to swerve back, but overcompensated and veered into the left lane. There had hardly been any cars on the road but there were some now—in my peripheral vision, I saw a blue sports car barely get out of our way in time.

Everything seemed to be happening very fast and very slow, all at once. My heart was racing—I could feel the adrenaline coursing through me, everything in my body screaming danger danger danger. The car was shaking, the steering wheel getting hard to hold on to, the wheel pulling right even though I wasn’t turning it that way.

“Gonna pull over,” I managed, and Russell turned to glance behind him.

“You’re clear.”

I put on my turn signal, then slowed down, feeling the jerky movement of the car that I knew couldn’t be good, and then pulled off the road, the steering wheel fighting me the whole time. When we were on the shoulder, I shifted into park, shut off the engine, then lifted my trembling hands from the steering wheel.

The whole thing had probably only taken thirty seconds, but I felt like I’d just run a marathon.

“What happened?” Russell asked, sounding as shaken as I felt. “What—was that?”

“I think—it was the tire,” I said slowly. That sound, the gunshot sound—I knew it. I’d heard it once before. And just like that, a memory was nudging at the corners of my mind, one I hadn’t let myself replay in a long time.

I had been seven. Gillian had been in Ashland, Oregon, for the summer, understudying in the Shakespeare festival. My dad had taken me up for the weekend, after I’d begged. That was when I still wanted to see her whenever I could; when I was still so sure that if I did everything right, and said everything right, she’d change her mind and come back to California, and me. I no longer believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the tooth fairy—I was going into second grade, after all—but at that moment in time, I still believed in my mother.

I was in the front seat, even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to be, but she didn’t have a booster seat, or seem to know about them, so I was feeling grown-up and maybe only a little bit scared as we drove to get lunch together.

She’d been reciting Masha’s monologue from Three Sisters—she told me how you always have to be ready to go on; you never know what’s going to happen—when a sound like a shot had echoed through the car. I’d screamed, but Gillian hadn’t been scared, I remembered that—at the most, she was a little annoyed as she pulled off to the shoulder. She got out to investigate, and I scrambled out after her.

“It’s a flat,” she’d announced, twisting her hair up into a knot on top of her head and pulling the end through so it stayed.

“So we—call a tow truck?” My only experience with flat tires at that point had been seeing them happen in movies or TV shows.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Of course we don’t. We change it ourselves.”

“You know how to do that?”

“Your grandfather ran a garage. He taught me everything.” She frowned, her face falling slightly. “You knew that, right?”

Before I could answer, she was walking around to the trunk.

“I’ll show you. Everyone should know how to change a tire.”

And she’d done it. In what seemed like only a few minutes, she’d removed the hubcap, loosened the lug nuts, jacked up the car, and put the spare on.

And when it was finished and we were back in the car, she looked across at me and held her hand up for a high five.

Over the whole drive back to the theater—we didn’t have time for a sit-down lunch, so we just got McDonald’s drive-thru—I played it out in my mind. How everything would be different now. Oregon was pretty close to California, after all, and I was sure I’d see her more. I didn’t know that a month later she’d move to London and I wouldn’t see her for two years. In that moment—in the car, with my mother, a bag of warm fries between us and a mission completed together—everything had been perfect.

“The tire?” Russell echoed. I focused back on him, reminding myself where we were. I wasn’t in Oregon with my mother. I was in California with Russell, and we needed to figure this out.

“I think so.”

Russell located the hazards, turned them on, and we both got out. The second we did, I was hit with a wave of heat and the rush of the wind from the cars speeding by on the freeway, dust flying up in their wake. I crossed around the hood of the car to see that I’d been right—the tire was blown out, the car already listing to one side. “I’m so sorry,” I said, my throat tight. Wylie had made it clear just how precious this car was to him—and I’d still managed to run over a rock, or whatever it had been, and damage it.

“It’s not your fault,” Russell said immediately.

“I can’t believe this.” I’d just wrecked Wylie Sanders’s beloved car, the one he hadn’t wanted us to take in the first place. Even though I was surrounded by more horizon than I had ever seen, it was like I could feel walls starting to press in on me.

We had a flat tire on the side of the highway in the middle of the desert. Not only did this strongly resemble the premise of one of Didi’s horror movies—it also meant the very thin buffer of time we had to get home before my dad was going to disappear.

Just like that, it was playing out in my mind—my dad would come back to an empty house. It wouldn’t take him long to realize I still hadn’t returned from Silverspun—which meant he would realize I’d been lying to him for multiple days now. He was going to be furious. And worse than that, he was going to be disappointed in me. And then I was going to leave. Were we going to have to say goodbye like that—in the midst of a fight? The thought made my stomach hurt.

“It’s fixable, though, right?” Russell asked. He knelt down to look at it. “People get these things fixed.”

“I’m so screwed,” I said, my voice hollow. “My dad—when he gets back ahead of me…”

“It’s okay,” Russell said, already pulling out his phone. “I’ll call AAA. My dad made me get it after I was in that accident.”

“Do you even have service?” I could hear my voice going high and panicky. Reception had been patchy the whole drive—when Russell had been driving, I’d sometimes look down at my phone and see no bars at all.

“I do,” he said, and I felt myself breathe a little bit easier. “Let me just try to find my card.”

I nodded, and Russell went back to the Bronco. Not even sure why I was doing it, I crossed around to the back of the car. I lifted out the tent and my duffel and raised up the fabric panel. And there it was—a spare tire. And inside it, a jack and lug wrench.

“Darcy?” I looked around and saw Russell holding his phone. “I got my card. And it looks like there’s a 76 station a few miles from here, and they have a garage. So I’ll call AAA, and they can tow us there. We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere, so it might take them a while to get to us, but I think it’s the best we’re going to do.”

I looked back down into the trunk for a moment. “Or,” I said, before I even knew I was going to, “we could change it.”

“We—could?” Russell stared at me. “I mean—I can’t. Have you changed a tire before?”

“I’ve seen someone do it.” I knew this wasn’t the same thing at all—and the last thing I wanted to do was mess up Wylie’s prized Bronco. But if we could do this, it would save us a lot of time. We wouldn’t have to wait for a tow truck to come and find us on the side of the highway. Maybe I’d even make it home before my dad—maybe this could all still be okay.

“I mean—if you think you can, that’s amazing,” he said. “My mom would be so impressed with you.”

“Well—I haven’t actually done it. But I know it can be done. So maybe we could find a YouTube video, just to be on the safe side?”

Russell nodded. “That I can do.”

I gave him a smile, then twisted my hair up into a knot on the top of my head and pulled the end through so it stayed.

Russell googled change tire how to video easy, and we watched it three times in a row before we even attempted it. The host was a cheerful Texan guy who made the whole thing seem simple—and even like a fun adventure.

But what had seemed so easy, watching it as a kid, was a lot harder in real life. It took both me and Russell several tries with the wrench to even get the lug nuts to loosen a little. The longer everything took, the more I was starting to feel myself getting nervous. I was hot, and dusty, and wondering if this was just a huge mistake. “Let me try again,” I said, reaching for the wrench. The sweat was beading on my forehead and dripping down my back, and I couldn’t stop myself from pulling out my phone to check the time on the map, once again. As I looked, my stomach clenched. I could see just how much time had been added to our arrival—and we weren’t even on the road yet.

Russell wasn’t saying anything, but what if I’d messed this up? What if we had to call AAA now, and had to wait all this time for them to come? If I hadn’t suggested this—would we have already been to a garage by now with the tire halfway to getting fixed by a professional?

“I think I’ve almost… got it…” Russell said, putting all his weight on the wrench—and finally, I saw the last lug nut grudgingly turn. “Okay,” he said, smiling up at me. “According to the video, now we jack up the car.”

“I’ll get it,” I said as I hurried to the trunk. I was doing the math in my head—if we could get the tire on and get on the road, maybe we could get there in time. I had just reached for the jack when my phone started to ring. It was “Fun, Fun, Fun”—my dad’s ringtone. “Fuck,” I muttered as I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. My heart was pounding as I slid my finger across the screen. “Hi, Dad! I’m just driving,” I said quickly, knowing he’d be able to hear the sound of the cars. “Near home. Good old 134.” My voice was too high and shrill, and I had a feeling he’d be able to tell something was wrong.

Russell glanced over at me, his eyes going wide, and I knew he’d just had the same thought I had—that I was in trouble.

“Darcy,” my dad said. “So—”

“Are you home?” I asked, my words tumbling out. “I mean, where are you?” There might still be a chance we could make it back—unless he was already there, in which case, there was no chance and I was screwed.

“No, that’s the thing.” I straightened up, clocking his tone. I wasn’t in trouble, I could tell that much. But something else was happening.

“What’s wrong?”

“So I got on the road this morning, and hadn’t gone far before the check-engine light went on.”

“So you left late?” I held my phone away from my ear for a moment to see the time, trying to do the calculations.

“I’m still at Uncle Jeff’s.” My dad’s voice was resigned. “I can’t get the car into a shop until tomorrow morning.”

I felt an immediate, giddy surge of happiness. I’d get away with this! My dad wouldn’t have to know about the fact that I was currently on the side of the highway with a flat, that I’d still not made it back, that I’d almost gotten arrested. At least, he wouldn’t have to know about any of it right now. I was pretty sure I was going to have to tell him at some point, but that day would not have to be today. Relief washed over me like a cool wave. I could stop panicking. I could stop doing the time math. I was home free.

But then a second later, with a crash of disappointment, I realized what this actually meant.

“So you’re not—coming home tonight.”

“I’m so sorry, honey,” my dad said, and I could hear in his voice that he really was. “I asked your uncle if I could use his car, but he needs it for work. And—”

“It’s fine,” I said quickly, trying to ignore the pit that felt like it had just formed in my stomach. “Really. I can get myself to the airport. I’ll get an Uber. It’s not a big deal.”

Russell straightened up, his eyes on me, giving me a sympathetic wince.

“It is, though,” my dad said, and I could hear how frustrated he was. “We had our whole plan—pizza and milkshakes and then short-term parking and the discreet corner where I’d sob while you went off to start your life without me.”

“I know we did.” In all my worry about my dad getting home before me, I’d never once entertained the thought that he wouldn’t be there. I had wanted to get away with this—I’d wanted there to be some way I’d get home before my dad, undetected. And now I was getting my wish, but in a terrible monkey’s-paw way. I took a few steps away and rubbed my sandal over the crumbling asphalt.

“I’m so sorry, kiddo.”

“It’s not your fault.” Mechanical problems happened, after all. Mechanical problems were the whole reason I was standing here right now, and the whole reason Russell and I had even met in the first place.

“I’m still sorry. Why don’t you call me at the airport and I’ll give you the speech I prepared?”

I laughed in spite of myself. “You did not write a speech.”

“I did so! So just FaceTime me and I’ll tell it to you.”

“It’s a plan.”

“So how was the festival? I want to hear all about it.”

“Well.” I started to try to organize my thoughts, then gave up when I realized there was no simple way to even start doing this. “It was really—different than I expected. But good.”

“Okay, I’ll have to get the whole story later.”

“For sure.”

I heard my dad take a breath and let it out. “I love you, kid.”

I smiled. “I love you, too.”

“We’ll talk tonight, okay? When you’re at the gate.”

“Sounds good.”

I hung up and just stood there for a moment, breathing in the dust and gasoline fumes, trying to push down the disappointment and sadness that was threating to bubble up.

Or, you know,Didi suggested. You could just let yourself feel it.

That works too!Katy chimed in.

“That really sucks.” Russell’s voice was soft. I turned around and saw he was standing in front of me, his sunglasses pushed on top of his head.

“It’s really okay. I’ll get an Uber to the airport.”

“I’m sorry, Darcy.”

“It’s fine.” I said this automatically, but then a second later, wondered if it really was. “It’s just a stupid rite of passage, you know? Saying goodbye at the airport. And it’s probably not that important. I think I’ve just seen too many movies about it, so I was attaching all this meaning to it.”

“But maybe we have these rites of passage for a reason. It was important to you.”

I shrugged even as I nodded. “I’ll FaceTime with my dad at the gate, and we’ll just do it remotely. If it’s really important that the person who drives me to the airport is sad to see me go, I can really try to dazzle my Uber driver or something.” Russell laughed at that, but when I followed the thought to its logical end—that I would be hauling my suitcase out of a stranger’s car myself, heading off to college without anyone to hug me and tell me they’d miss me—I felt a lump in my throat.

And for once, I didn’t try to just push the feeling away.

Finally,Katy cheered.

About time,Didi added.

“But it does suck,” I agreed with a sigh. “Like—I know things sometimes don’t turn out the way you expected, but I thought I would get this, at least. Before everything else started, you know?” I felt my chin tremble, and I pressed my lips together.

Russell took a step closer to me. He closed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms. I leaned against him, my cheek resting on the soft fabric of his yellow shirt, warmed by the sun. I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath, and he ran his hand over my hair, stroking it gently.

After a few moments, I straightened up again. Even though it felt like I could have stayed there for a lot longer, I knew we needed to finish this. “We better get moving. We don’t have a minute to spare.”

Russell took a step back himself and smiled at me. “The puns have returned, I see.”

“I mean, doing this ourselves is better than getting a professional. They’d just jack up the prices.”

“Very nice.”

“You’re not tire-d of them?”

“Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “That might have been a bridge too far.”

“I knew it would fall flat.” He groaned, and I smiled at him, even though my heart wasn’t quite in it. With the help of Russell’s video, we got the car jacked up and the spare on. When we’d tightened the lug nuts and put the hubcap back on, we looked at each other in silent amazement.

“Did we just—do that?” Russell asked.

“I think we did.” I was still sweaty, and my back was sore, but we’d changed a tire.

And in that moment, the only person I wanted to tell was Gillian.

“Go team,” Russell said, holding up his hand.

“Go team,” I said, laughing as I slapped his palm.

Russell drove us—very slowly, hazards on—to the 76 with the garage that he’d found. We didn’t play any music, or even talk—both of us were sitting very still, listening for any signs of trouble, or indications that the tire had been put back on wrong and was currently detaching itself and rolling down the highway.

I didn’t start to breathe easier until we pulled into the garage part of the gas station and Russell cut the engine. Even if we’d done things wrong, we’d made it this far.

Russell went to the garage, to see if he could find a mechanic to look at the tire and check if we’d done it okay, and I headed into the mini-mart, enjoying the blast of air-conditioning that hit me as I stepped inside. I used the bathroom and washed my hands for much longer than usual, trying to get the grease off them.

When I came back out, I could see Russell still in the garage area, talking to a 76 employee in coveralls. Feeling like I needed to stretch my legs, I walked in the opposite direction, toward the parking lot, and just beyond it, the highway. I pulled out my phone to check the time on the map, automatically—before I remembered there was no need for this. We didn’t have to hurry anymore. I was definitely going to get home before my dad now. Because I wasn’t going to see him before I went to college. I had to draw in a breath as a wave of sadness walloped me.

To have to do this on my own, on both ends, suddenly felt really unfair, and the tears that had been lurking behind my eyes edged closer to falling.

Gillian did offer to pick you up,Katy reminded me, her voice gentle. You shut it down.

I had shut it down. Because I hadn’t wanted to—what? Give her the… satisfaction of helping me? It seemed so stupid now, and so childish.

All at once, my thoughts were racing, going as fast as the cars tearing down the highway. Images and flashes of memories were flooding my mind. Gillian smiling across the car at me, McDonald’s bag between us. Chloe, looking impossibly young, picking up her daughter. Wylie in the morning sunlight, talking about dashed dreams. And Andy, running away and not being able to find his way home again.

Something that Didi and Katy had said was echoing in my mind—

Darcy.

You know we’re not actually here, right?

That we’ve never been here?

That there’s actually nobody here but you?

I took a breath, then let it out.

Of course I knew this—I’d always known it. I wasn’t disassociating or anything. Didi was at Colgate, in upstate New York. Katy was at Scripps in Claremont. I hadn’t talked to either of them—neither one had any idea about anything that had happened over the course of the last day. They’d never even heard of Russell. It had just seemed easier—less lonely—to imagine what they would say in this situation.

But it had been me, this whole time.

Which meant I actually knew what I wanted to do, even if I needed to pretend to be my best friends in order to hear it.

I unlocked my phone, my hand hesitating over the screen for only a moment.

Then I pressed the button to call my mother.