Chapter 5
Five
SAM
Petra Harbor inherited The Funnel Cloud from her uncle.
Before we were old enough to drink, we were in that seedy bar watching people at least twenty years older than us make bad decisions.
It gained a reputation in Muncie, TX as a place where weather chasers congregated after the chase, which was all I needed to make it my favorite place in the world.
It’s the very place I met Brooks Carlisle when I was twenty-two and still under the impression that I’d experienced true love thanks to a boy by the name of Mark Sutton.
Mark had been eighteen, and I’d been seventeen, and his form of romance was impressing me with his ability to buy beer underage and play guitar badly.
I’d gladly handed him my virginity in the back room of his sister’s house, certain that our first time would simply be the worst and he’d get better at it eventually.
He didn’t.
Before I’d met Brooks, I was certain that’s how love went. A quick wash of interest followed by a steep hill that led to disappointment.
Then he walked into the bar. I’m a Ramblin’ Man by Waylon Jennings was playing. I made a note never to forget that because, just like when a supercell makes that first hard right turn, I knew that man was gonna change my life forever, whether I wanted him to or not.
I didn’t know yet that he was an amateur storm chaser. That would have been too much for my brain to comprehend all at once. I just knew that looking at him made me feel alive.
When I arrive at The Funnel Cloud, it’s too early for the neon sign to be lit.
I drove through the night, calling her on the way and probably sounding so lost that I made little sense.
But Petra has been interpreting my chaotic gibberish since we were in fifth grade and flunking math together as if we’d made a pact.
She doesn’t even give me time to knock on the door. Just opens the door, pulls me in, and locks it behind us.
Then I’m in her arms with her hand rubbing slow circles on my back.
“You scared the hell out of me on that phone,” she says, and that’s all it takes. The sobs that follow are the kind that would break anyone’s heart. Luckily, mine’s already gone.
Petra just holds me, murmurings of I’ve got you and Just let it out breaking the quiet. When the crying finally stops and my throat is raw, she guides me over to one of the scratched booths in the back.
“Guest room’s already made up,” she says. “You can shower, then sleep. Later, we can figure out how to make him miserable, but for now, shower and sleep. Then food.”
She doesn’t ask for the full story yet, which is good because I don’t think I could stand telling her. Don’t think I could stand repeating those words.
I don’t want you in that truck with me! Is that what you want to hear, Sam? I’d rather it be Luci in the truck with me!
I close my eyes, as if that can exorcise the memory of those words from my mind. When I open them, Petra’s watching me with that all-too-knowing look. I’d say it was her Mom stare, but she’s always been able to look right through me.
“Tom at school?” I ask, because I’ve got nothing better to talk about.
“He has one month before summer break. Then he’s out. You know he’s going to pepper you with storm questions.”
“I can’t wait. It’d be nice to have someone who actually wants to listen to what I have to say.”
Petra’s mouth pulls in that little tight way it does when she wants to say something but is thinking better of it.
“Well, he’ll give you plenty of room.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I should ignore it.
I don’t.
Petra watches me pull it out, but she doesn’t try to stop me from reading the text.
Brooks:
We need to talk.
One sentence that could mean so many things. We need to talk about you leaving. We need to talk about what we’re going to do with your stuff now that you’re gone.
The phone buzzes again.
Brooks:
Leaving like this isn’t going to fix it.
I huff and toss the phone onto the table. I want to be mad. Instead, I’m just hurt.
Petra, never having a sense of boundaries when it comes to me, picks up the phone and reads the texts.
“Bold choice. But can’t say unexpected coming from a man with two working brain cells and both of them on vacation.”
The temptation to pick up the phone and text him, to fix it, is right there, like an itch that if I could just reach it…
“I need something to do,” I say, interrupting the thought before it can make me do something stupid.
“Shower. Sleep. Eat.”
“Fine,” I agree, knowing she isn’t going to let go of those three. “But after the showering, sleeping, and eating. Put me to work.”
“Here?”
“No. At McDonald’s. Yes, here, Petra. I need something to keep my brain off…”
I wave my hand around as if that explains everything.
She sighs. It’s all I need.
“Fine. You can work tonight. Clean off the tables. Deliver drinks. Look cute. Get tips.”
By nine, The Funnel Cloud is hopping. Calling it a dive bar at this point seems generous since more reputable establishments have apparently co-opted the term. It isn’t that The Cloud is seedy. It’s just old and set in its ways. No one is going to do a TikTok spotlight on this place any time soon.
Truckers come in from God knows where. Linemen take up space near the back of the room, tracking mud on the floor.
A couple of ranch hands stand near the back end of the bar arguing about cattle prices.
Two off-duty sheriff deputies try to look imposing at a table near the front, but only manage to look like part of the scenery.
The TV above the bar is tuned into weather coverage. In a few months, it’ll be sports, but right now, the action is in the sky.
A severe thunderstorm warning crawls across the bottom of the screen. I absentmindedly wipe down a table while watching the graphic.
The weather team on screen switches to the radar. Yellow polygons. Several counties north of us under the gun, which isn’t unusual for the Texas panhandle. And a little hook is making an effort to make something of its short life along the edge of the cell.
No doubt, back in Oklahoma, the team is getting ready to roll out. The sponsors and money don’t ask whether or not Brooks’s arm is suited for driving. Maybe Hershel will take the wheel.
Maybe Luci will.
I clamp my teeth together.
“Will it go tornadic?”
I turn and look at a boy who has shot up at least half a foot since I last saw him. He has Petra’s brown eyes and a serious expression that makes him look older than his fourteen years.
Petra had warned me that he would be peppering me with questions. I hadn’t expected him to open with one, but I welcome it.
I glance back at the television. “Not tonight. There’s too much cold air undercutting it. It may get a little nasty, but I’d be surprised to see it drop a funnel close by.”
Tom’s mouth curves into a knowing smile. “That’s what I told Mom. I told her you’d say the same thing. Brooks Carlisle said on stream last May that you have the best storm sense of anyone he’s ever met.”
There’s no warning that my chest is going to feel like I’ve just been punched. And Tom, looking at the situation with the flat, emotionless logic of a raw radar feed, has no clue he just sent me reeling.
“He said that, did he?”
Tom nods, completely unaware of the minefield he’s stepping into. Petra once described Tom as “more perceptive than God, except when it comes to stepping in horseshit.”
“On a clip from May 14th. Mesocyclone near Dumas. One of the clips without the bracelet.”
I don’t grip the chair next to me because that’s the type of tell Tom would pick up on.
The bracelet. He stopped wearing that bracelet after the accident. I never had the heart to ask why. I’d given him that bracelet for his birthday, not long after we started dating. Something to keep me with you.
When he stopped wearing it, I was afraid of what that meant, so I never asked.
But my mind always filled in the details regardless.
He blames you, Sam.
He thinks you should have stayed at home.
He’ll never forgive you.
I wasn’t supposed to go out with them that day. As much as I wanted to blame pregnancy hormones, I knew the risks of getting on the road at four months.
The storms had looked almost benign. Another thing I tried to chalk up to hormones, because usually I would’ve felt that tell-tale twitch in my gut warning me that the sky was lying.
“I don’t know, Sam,” he’d said, and looked down at my belly. I’d just started to pop a little. “I know it looks like a small one, and I know you want to go, but maybe sit this one out? Not that I don’t want you there…”
And what had he said last night?
I don’t want you in that truck with me.
“That Dumas storm was a crazy one, wasn’t it?” I say to Tom. Anything to get out of the hell loop I’m stuck inside.
Tom watches me. Damn. Caught. He blinks, no doubt cataloging whatever he just noticed for later.
“Velocity couplet on this one is messy. Not tight enough,” he says, moving past the awkwardness.
“Good eye, Tom.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I reach for it and look down.
Brooks:
Can I call you?
I put the phone away and look back to Tom. His eyes travel from my phone to my face, all too knowing.
He picks up the tray from the table I’ve neglected. “I’ll take these to the kitchen and then get upstairs. Mom doesn’t like it when I stay down here too long.”
“Thanks, Tom.”
The phone buzzes again.
Brooks:
I just need to talk to you.
Not I love you. Not I’m sorry.
I wipe down the table until it shines.
By the time midnight rolls around, my feet hurt enough to make me almost forget my phone. Almost.
The phone has stopped buzzing. That should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. It just gets my curiosity up.
Which is bad news for my mental health.
The first thing I do is pull up the socials because why not go straight for the hurt?
Right at the top is a tagged clip from one of the fan accounts.
It’s a picture of Brooks’s damaged truck. It sits angled near the shoulder, one side crumpled from debris. Beyond it, winter wheat spreads out like a sea of green, breaking the photo up into thirds.