17 - Ethan
Ethan
My eyes kept roaming over the parking lot, which was still too empty.
I fought reality sinking in. My brain kept trying to fill in the bus that should’ve been there.
To find the rusted side panels, the stupid roach logo, and the back window that was duct-taped into compliance.
But there was absolutely nothing there besides asphalt.
Elizabeth eventually stopped pacing, but I took two more steps before the absence fully registered.
I turned slowly, half expecting a magician to jump out and reveal his trick, but that never happened.
The bus was really gone. I thought it might’ve rolled forward, or that we’d parked further down and I just misremembered.
So I scanned left and right one more time.
Unfortunately, there was still nothing but sun glare and a dented sedan filling up at pump three.
“They wouldn’t,” I muttered as my brain still refused to accept what had happened.
Elizabeth didn’t answer. She just stood there and looked at me as if I had grown an extra head.
“They wouldn’t leave without us,” I said, unsure of who I was trying to convince.
Elizabeth took a few steps forward and looked around like the bus might’ve been hiding behind something and we hadn’t noticed. My pulse kicked up hard and fast. This couldn’t be happening.
“This is stupid,” I scoffed. “It must be some kind of sick joke.”
“It isn’t,” Elizabeth said quietly.
Now it was my turn to pace. The gravel bit into the soles of my shoes while little stones shattered, but that wasn’t enough to distract me, so I started counting. Twelve steps… It was exactly twelve steps to the edge of the parking lot and the same number of steps coming back.
“They know we got off!” I snapped. “Why would they just take off without checking that we were back?”
“They obviously thought we were on the bus with everyone else,” Elizabeth offered.
“For this long? Someone must’ve picked up on it by now. Why haven’t they turned around and come back for us?”
She didn’t have an answer for me. She just crossed her arms over her chest and waited for me to figure it out on my own.
I ran both hands over my face. “We’re over an hour out.”
Elizabeth threw her bag on the ground and started rummaging through it. “Phone. Where is my damn phone?”
For a split second, I froze, but then started checking my pockets. It was an automatic response, but I already knew exactly where my phone was, and it wasn’t on me. I cursed under my breath.
“Tell me you have yours,” I said hopefully.
She held up her empty hands and gave me a disappointed look. Damn… that made two of us.
I let out a short, sharp laugh. “Unbelievable.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth said, and I could basically see the gears turning in her head. “Every company has a phone. This gas station will be no different. All we’ve got to do is call someone and tell them what happened.”
“Great plan,” I said sarcastically. “Who are we going to call?”
She hesitated, and it told me everything I needed to know.
“You don’t know anyone’s number,” I said.
She shook her head. “Not by heart. How about you?”
The silence that settled between us was overwhelming.
I tried my absolute best to pull up a mental picture of my contact list, and that part worked well.
I saw the names clearly: Coach Harris, backup quarterback, Mom…
The problem was that the numbers were nothing but static.
I shook my head as my disappointment reached the next level.
“This is just great,” I muttered. “We must be the biggest idiots on the planet.”
She ignored my comment completely. “Okay. Think. They’ll notice eventually.”
“When?” I cut in. “When they’re halfway to Fitchburg and it’s too late to do anything?”
Her jaw tightened slightly, and for just a moment I saw the demon she released when she confronted the bullies on the bleachers.
“They’ll turn around,” she said.
“No, they won’t,” I replied with a bitter chuckle.
“They have to.”
“They’ll assume we’re in the back. It’s loud on the bus, and no one will do a head count until they get close to the destination. It’s how things always worked, and it won’t change now.”
Even though it sounded incredibly cruel, I knew I was right, and the truth of our situation hit harder than a freight train. My chest tightened, and I realized we were in a far worse position than I wanted to believe.
“I’m the starting quarterback,” I mumbled, staring down the empty stretch of road. “I can’t miss this game.”
Her expression softened. “We won’t miss it.”
“We already are.” I sank down on the sidewalk.
“The only way we’re missing this game is if it’s parading over my dead body.”
That was very sweet, and I desperately wanted to believe her. But I also had to be realistic and understand that we were stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere.
“It’s over an hour’s drive away. If they turn around right now—”
“There’s time,” she added.
“We’d still be late.”
A car roared past us, sending a gust of wind slamming into my back. That same gust also reached Elizabeth, and it blew her hair back in the most beautiful way. It made her look more vicious, too. I dragged a shaky hand through my hair as I tried to regain control of my thoughts.
“This was already going to be bad,” I said. “Now it’s going to be a disaster.”
Her head snapped toward me. “Don’t you dare start with that bullshit.”
“It’s Fitchburg.” I couldn’t look at her. “They’re stacked, and we barely scraped by last week. We need to face the facts.”
“And?” She looked at me like she was waiting for the punchline.
I sat there quietly for a moment and tried to figure out where she was going with this.
“And… we aren’t the favorites.”
She took a step closer to me. “So what?”
“So we stood little chance to begin with. If I’m not there…”
She stared at me, letting me know that I had said something offensive, and it was scary. The last time I felt this way was when I was called to the principal’s office in elementary school.
“That,” she said slowly. “That's exactly why people don’t take you guys seriously.”
I turned to face her. “Excuse me?”
“You have this attitude before a game even starts. How do you expect people to believe in you?”
“I’m just being realistic.”
She let out an exaggerated sigh and pinned me with a killer gaze that was a mix between a warning and a threat.
“All you’re doing is quitting before you get started.”
“I’m not quitting!”
“It sure sounds like you are.”
I let out a frustrated breath. “You don’t get it.”
Her fists clenched, and if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve sworn she was getting ready to punch me right in the face.
“Then explain it to me,” she said.
I gestured vaguely toward the highway. “It matters if I’m not there. We’re done.”
She stepped forward and grabbed my wrist before I could get up and start pacing again.
“Look at me,” she said, and I complied. “It matters that you are here, but it’s also important to believe it before you get to this point.”
I pulled my hand free. “This isn’t the time for an inspirational lecture.”
“Good, because I’m not being inspirational. I’m being practical. If you walk into every tough game convinced you’re going to lose, then congratulations, you just handed it to the other team.”
I looked away. “It’s not that simple.”
She was acting as if winning a game was as easy as changing a mindset. If that were really the case, a lot more people would’ve gotten what they’d wanted out of life.
“No,” she said. “It’s not simple. It’s stubborn.”
I glanced at her. “Stubborn?”
“Yes! All you have to do is refuse to accept that you’ve lost until someone physically proves you wrong.”
“That’s not how probability works.”
She rolled her eyes how you would if you were trying to explain something simple to a stubborn two-year-old who refused to grasp the concept.
“You’re such a quarterback.”
I thought that was meant to be an insult. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You live in percentages and risk assessment, but those things rarely take real-world situations into account.”
“It’s strategy.”
“No, that’s fear dressed up as strategy,” she said, refusing to budge.
I opened my mouth to protest, but couldn’t find anything to say, so I just closed it again.
She took a breath and spoke slower this time. “You care, so you try to brace for the worst.”
Heat pressed down around us as a truck sped past. Still, I didn’t respond, so she looked down the road and then back at me.
“Sitting here isn’t helping,” she said.
“What do you want to do? Teleport?”
She slipped her arm through mine before I could protest.
“We walk,” she said casually.
“That’s not a plan.”
“It takes us forward, and each step we take brings us a little closer to our destination.”
I hesitated, but she tugged, and I ended up giving in. The shoulder of the road was narrow, and the gravel shifted under our shoes. Cars were passing way too close to us, and the wind whipped her hair into her face. After a minute, she nudged me.
“So…” she said to get my attention. “Where does this rank?”
“In what?”
“Your top ten personal disasters.”
Despite everything we’d gone through, my mouth twitched. She just had a way of turning situations in her favor.
“You’re assuming this isn’t number one?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a smile. “I’ve seen some of your catastrophes and they were absolutely legendary.”
I let out a quiet laugh. “In sophomore year, I had four interceptions in one half of a game.”
She winced. “Ouch.”
She was trying her best not to laugh at my pain, but I couldn’t really blame her. For a long time, it was the most embarrassing part of my life, but after a while I even laughed about it.
“The student section eventually started chanting the backup’s name,” I added.
“That’s brutal,” she snickered. “What did you do? Trip over your own lineman?”
I blinked at her. “How did you know?”
Her eyes lit up. “You didn’t.”
The sight was enough to make my legs go weak. It was nice to see that side of her, and I liked the idea that she was reserving it especially for me.
“It happened when I was in middle school,” I said, acting all defensive. “He stepped back, and I stepped forward. It was just good, old-fashioned physics.”
“You face-planted?”
“I did no such thing! It was a strategic ground inspection.”
She laughed. It was full, bright, and completely unbothered by the fact that we were stranded on the side of the highway. Another car flew by without slowing down, but Elizabeth stuck her thumb out dramatically anyway. The driver didn’t even tap on the brakes.
“Rude,” she muttered.
“Do you realize how insane this is?” I asked.
“Totally.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
I had wanted to touch on the topic since we left, but I didn’t want her to get mad at me again.
She shrugged. “Panicking wasn’t helping you.”
“I wasn’t panicking.”
She stopped walking, but I took a few steps before I noticed she wasn’t next to me anymore.
“You’re right. You weren’t panicking. You were spiraling out of control.”
“I was just… assessing the situation.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t get to decide that you’ve lost before the game even begins. It’s bad luck, and that isn’t fair to the rest of the team.”
She started walking again and lightly brushed her shoulder against mine. I just stared at the endless stretch of road ahead.
“Where does it rank for you?” I finally asked.
“Oh, I have a whole list,” she said without hesitation.
“That tracks.”
“In freshman year, I locked myself out of my dorm. I was stuck outside wearing only my pajamas. Oh, and it happened during a fire drill.”
I could actually picture the scene playing out, and it was way too funny for me to control my laughter.
“Please tell me it was winter,” I said while trying to get some air.
“It was the middle of November. Campus Security gave me a blanket and a lecture.”
“I would’ve laughed,” I admitted.
“You would’ve been completely useless,” she mocked.
I nodded eagerly, and she nudged me again.
That was when I realized that somewhere between the arguing, laughing, and cars rushing past us, the pressure in my chest had eased.
I wasn’t counting the minutes anymore. I wasn’t replaying the worst-case scenarios.
We were just walking, and I couldn’t remember the last time I enjoyed something this much.
“This must be the weirdest pre-game ritual I have ever had.”
She grinned. “It’s iconic.”
I shook my head in amusement, and for just a moment, I completely forgot about the kickoff.
Then a truck slowed down beside us. The engine rumbled low as the passenger window rolled down.
“Do you two need a ride?” the driver called.