28. #4
Nothing had happened in the car.
There was no reason to be afraid of it.
My hand tightened around the keys.
I unlocked the car.
The familiar scent of the interior greeted me when I climbed inside, and I set the snacks on the passenger seat before placing my water bottle in the cup holder.
Grant had adjusted the seat the last time he drove it, so I spent another minute moving everything back to where I liked it.
By the time I pressed the button to start the engine, some of the discomfort had already begun to fade beneath the familiarity of the routine.
My phone connected automatically.
I considered music, scrolled through three different playlists without finding one that matched whatever mood I was in, then finally chose one I'd made years ago and lowered the volume until it became background noise.
There was no destination waiting in the navigation system.
That was the point.
I backed out of the driveway and drove.
For the first fifteen minutes, I stayed on roads I knew. Familiar intersections passed beneath streetlights while businesses became less frequent the farther I traveled from the busier parts of the city.
At the next light, I went left simply because I'd normally gone right.
The road eventually fed me toward the highway, and I merged into the nearly empty lanes with one hand resting loosely against the steering wheel.
Buildings passed in the distance, their lights scattered against the darkness, and the farther I drove, the more I understood why Grant had remembered this about me when I'd forgotten it myself.
Driving had always given my thoughts somewhere to go.
At home, they stayed trapped in the same room with me. I could close the curtains and turn off the lights and bury myself beneath blankets, but everything I was trying not to think about remained there waiting. In the car, the world kept changing around me.
I felt a little less trapped.
I drove for another half hour without checking the time.
Eventually the highway became unfamiliar enough that I couldn't have named the nearest neighborhood if somebody asked. That used to be my favorite part. I'd find my way back eventually. There was something comforting about knowing that getting temporarily lost didn't mean I was actually lost.
My fingers began tapping against the steering wheel without my permission, and when I noticed, I let them.
My dashboard suddenly changed.
REESE — INCOMING CALL
My hand stopped against the steering wheel.
"Absolutely not."
I declined it without considering otherwise.
The silence returned.
I exhaled through my nose and kept driving, although the calm I'd managed to find had already been disturbed.
Reese hadn't contacted me directly since showing up at Grant's house.
There had been messages afterward—apologies, requests to talk, promises that there was more to what happened—but I'd stopped reading them closely enough to remember the exact wording.
My phone had remained on Do Not Disturb most days anyway.
I wasn't ready.
The dashboard changed again.
REESE — INCOMING CALL
I stared at it long enough that the car drifted slightly toward the lane marker. I corrected the wheel immediately and declined the call a second time.
Thirty seconds later, her name appeared again.
REESE — INCOMING CALL
"Christ, Reese."
I declined it harder than necessary, as though the amount of pressure I put against the steering-wheel control could communicate anything to her.
The fourth call came and that was enough.
I checked my mirrors, moved into the right lane and took the first exit I saw. A gas station sat near the intersection at the bottom of the ramp, mostly empty except for two cars parked near the convenience store. I pulled into the far end of the lot and shifted into park.
The phone continued ringing through the speakers.
I watched Reese's name on the screen.
I could turn the car off.
I could block her number.
I could drive back and tell Grant she'd called four times, and he'd probably remind me that I didn't owe her a conversation simply because she wanted one.
But that wasn't what I wanted either.
For two weeks, Reese had existed in this horrible space where I knew enough to be hurt but not enough to understand exactly what she'd done.
I'd spent hours filling the gaps myself, creating explanations and then dismantling them.
Some ended with Reese knowingly handing me to Rodney.
Others ended with Rodney manipulating her the same way he'd manipulated practically everyone around him.
Every version left me with another question.
Maybe answering wouldn't give me anything useful.
At least I'd stop wondering what she wanted to say.
My finger hovered over the control until the final seconds of the call.
Then I answered.
"Hello?"
Reese's voice filled the car immediately, rushed enough that I could tell she'd expected me to decline again.
I didn't respond.
"Hello? Naomi?"
I stared through the windshield at the gas station. A man stepped out carrying a plastic bag, crossed toward one of the cars and drove away without ever knowing that twenty feet from him, one of the most important friendships of my adult life might be ending through the speakers of a parked car.
"Naomi, are you there?"
"Yes."
The relief in Reese's exhale was audible.
"Okay." She paused. "Okay. Thank you for answering."
I didn't tell her she was welcome.
Neither of us spoke for several seconds, and I realized she might actually be waiting for me to say something. I had nothing. She'd called me four times. Whatever needed to be said belonged to her.
"How are you?" she finally asked.
The question irritated me more than it should have.
How was I?
I'd lost ten pounds because eating felt like work. I'd missed two weeks of school after fighting so hard to get there. I'd spent most of the last few days asleep.
"I'm okay."
The lie sounded ridiculous even to me.
Reese didn't challenge it.
"I know I'm probably the last person you want to talk to right now."
I leaned my head against the headrest.
"I'm sorry. I know saying that isn't enough, but I need you to hear what actually happened before you decide that I intentionally did this to you."
My grip tightened around the bottom of the steering wheel. "I'm listening."
Reese took another breath.
"Rodney cornered me."
I sat straighter.
"He didn't know where you were. I swear to you, Naomi, I didn't tell him where you were because I didn't know. I didn't even know you weren't staying at the White House until he started asking me questions about you."
"What questions?"
"Where you'd been. Whether I'd talked to you. If I knew who you were staying with." Her words came faster as she continued. "I told him I didn't know anything, because I didn't. You and I weren't exactly talking, remember? I knew you were upset with me, but I didn't know any of this was happening."
I looked toward the dark road beyond the gas station.
"He knew you could get me to the house."
Reese went quiet for a second. "Yeah."
Reese had been one of the few people Rodney knew could get a response from me even when I was withdrawing from everyone else. He'd watched our friendship for years. He knew Reese had access to parts of me most people didn't.
"He told me he needed to talk to you," she continued. "He said you were refusing to come home and ignoring him, and he wanted me to help get you there. That's it. I thought he just wanted to talk."
"You know how Rodney is."
"I know."
"So why would you send me there without telling me he was waiting?"
Her breath caught. "I don't know."
I closed my eyes.
"I was scared, Naomi."
Something in her voice changed when she said it. The defensiveness disappeared, leaving something smaller behind.
"He wasn't asking me like a normal person asks for a favor. He kept making it clear that he could make things difficult for me if I didn't help him and I panicked." Reese paused long enough that I could hear her breathing through the speakers.
I rubbed my thumb slowly across the stitching on the steering wheel.
Even if every word she said was true, that was the part I couldn't move around.
She'd known.
Maybe Rodney frightened her. I believed that easily. Rodney could make an ordinary conversation feel like a threat without ever raising his voice. I'd watched him do it to senators, employees, staff members and people who technically had enough power that they shouldn't have been afraid of him.
But Reese knew him differently.
Reese knew what happened after the doors closed.
She knew what he did to me.
And she'd still let me walk into that house blind.
There was another question sitting underneath everything else, one I'd been afraid to ask because once it existed between us, there would be no pretending I hadn't suspected it.
I opened my eyes.
"Are you sleeping with Rodney?"
Reese answered so quickly that the final syllable of his name had barely left my mouth.
"God, no."
I didn't say anything.
"No, Naomi. Jesus Christ." Her voice sounded genuinely horrified. "I'm terrified of that man. You think after everything you've told me, I would willingly put myself anywhere near him like that?"
The answer should've settled me immediately.
Instead, I watched a car turn into the gas station and tried to decide what relief was supposed to feel like.