Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
INSTEAD OF SAYING SO LONG
“ S o I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I don’t even have a way to get home. I should have never given my car to that balloon man! And not just because I need a ride or because I’m having trader’s remorse. But I wouldn't have gotten on the show if I hadn’t given him the car. Had I not gotten on the show, I wouldn’t have gotten mashed and chased away that one girl with stomach issues. Had I not gotten mashed and chased away that one girl with the stomach issues, I never would have needed to get Zuri involved. If Zuri weren’t involved, Mick would still have a show, Thomas and I would still be mates, and Zuri would still be happy. Stupid balloon man.”
“Cannae ye juist skedaddle aff? Ye’re gaun’ae get me in trouble. Ah’m no supposit tae be oot o bit.”
Jack was astonished by little Nessa’s ancient wisdom. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right! It is better to have gone through the experience knowing heartache than to never have the experience at all, isn’t it? Wow. You’re like a genius or an oracle or something. How do you do it?”
Nessa rolled her eyes at Jack as Avi entered the room with the biggest smile he’d ever seen on her face.
“Nessa, go to bed,” she said as she sat down, grabbed Jack’s hands, and made that excited, screechy sound teenage girls make when they have secret good news. He’d never seen Avi act this way.
“What? What is this?”
“This is amazing!”
“Amazing? Avi…everything’s ruined. This is awful.”
“Of course it is. What did you expect from your third act breakup?”
“Third act breakup?”
“Jack, I’ve read hundreds…maybe thousands of books: every great love story has a third-act breakup just before the happy ending!”
“This isn’t a book, Avi. It’s my life.”
“So? My life had a third-act breakup, remember?”
“...Vaguely?”
Avi rolled her eyes and asked, “Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. She left with Thomas about ten minutes ago, so…probably somewhere between Winchester and Stratton.”
“Well, what are you waiting for!? Go after her!”
“I don’t have a car.”
Avi removed Dane’s truck keys from her pocket and threw them in Jack’s face.
“Owww!”
After Jack yelled in pain, Dane popped his head into the puzzle room and asked, “Whit happenit?”
Avi ignored her husband and shouted, “Go! Now!”
“Are you loopy? She doesn’t want anything to do with me. And she’s right not to. She deserves more than ju?—”
Slap !
“...oooooooOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!”
“Snap out of it! If everything you said to Zuri is true, then you owe it to her to do everything in your power to give her that happy ending!”
“Sorry,” Dane said, “She gets really excitit aboot happy endings.”
“I…I don’t know.”
Avi raised the back of her hand as a warning.
“Alright! I’ll go after her!”
“There we go!”
“I’m going after her,” he said to himself like he’d just realized it.
“Louder!”
“I’m going after her!” he yelled with an excited smile. “But what do I do when I catch up to her? What do I say?”
“You’ll know when you get there. Here, give her this,” Avi said as she threw him a piece of the puzzle. “Now go!”
Jack sprinted into the hallway and out into the night’s pouring rain just as lightning struck. He ran around to the gravel lot, jumped in Dane’s truck, and peeled out like he was Dominic Toretto. He blazed through Shawford faster than he’d arrived, but once he was on the M3, he set his sights on the land speed record. Unfortunately, Dane’s twelve-year-old truck didn’t have the capability. It was the slowest automobile he’d ever been in, but the wind-driven rains pattering against the roof like machine gun fire and the wipers working quadruple time created a vibe of intense speed. The only thing he needed was the greatest song in the history of the world.
He turned on the radio and began scanning through the stations. He went around the dial twice, trying to find Freeway through the Danger Place while looking in the windows of every car he passed. Nothing! Nothing on the radio. Nothing in the cars. For what felt like hours, he continued the search - pushing Dane’s truck to the limit - trying to catch up to them.
Jack sped up to pass a semi. As he did, he heard a song on the radio he wasn’t expecting to hear.
“ I feel that something in the fate of your grin… ”
It was Zuri’s favorite song. The Moxxy version! Just when he thought fate couldn’t get any more obvious, Jack spotted what he thought was Thomas’s car. He sped up to get a closer look and immediately recognized their silhouettes. Jack slowed down, pulled up just alongside them, and honked.
After rolling down his window, Jack yelled, “Hey! Pull over! I need to talk to you!”
Thomas shook his head and sped away, but Zuri complied. When her window was down, he still couldn’t quite make out what she was trying to say over the roaring engines or the torrent of rain, but he didn’t need to know. She just needed to hear what he’d come to say, and not even the monsoon waging war against his face could silence him from sing-shouting along with the radio to his new favorite song.
“ Now and again, you think, why do we fight?! The awesome seconds all fade into the night, yes! They’re blown away by the strength of the breeze! A-somethin-somethin-something?! Haunts your dreeeaaaams! Whoa!” he shouted as he felt the bumps on the highway’s shoulder, warning him to stay in his lane.
Jack straightened out the truck, looked Zuri right in the eyes, and continued singing his lungs out, “ Hear your beating heart! When he’s saying your name! Hear your beating heart! Are you freaking insane?! I don’t know why you’re leaving, but I know it’s wrong! So, hear your beating heart! Instead of saying so long!”
When the chorus was finished, Jack couldn’t tell if his ethereal vocals had caused her to cry with joy or if it was merely the rain running down her face.
“Pull over! Please, Thomas! I need to talk to you two!”
Thomas shot Jack an angry glare and sped up until he was about three or so car lengths ahead. Jack punched his steering wheel out of frustration. As soon as he did, Thomas's brake lights burned red! Jack immediately saw why. A small group of horses ran across the M3 some twenty meters ahead of Thomas’s car. Jack slammed on his brakes just as he caught a glimpse in his driver’s side mirror of the semi-truck failing to slow and barrelling down on Thomas’s car. Without thinking, Jack jerked his steering wheel, slid over the wet surface of the highway, and ended up exactly where he intended to be: between the people he cared most about and the pair of oversized headlights mere meters in front of him.