Sylvie
“I’ll take you.”
“But we’re here,” he says quietly.
“To North Carolina.”
“Come on. No way.”
“Way.”
“That’s far.”
I shake my head. It’s like I have water in my ears. “Knox, please. You don’t have to go.”
“Sylvie?”
Finally I make myself look at him, and there it is—hope, in his eyes.
“You’d be doing me a favor,” I say. “Clearly I’m not—I’m not really ready to be driving on my own yet, today has definitely proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And I can’t really go home. I mean I could, it’s not like I don’t have my bedroom there and my mom didn’t kick me out but .
. . I spent all this time and all this money putting this trip together, this van, I learned how to use a circular saw, and if I went home at this point .
. . it’s a pride thing, I guess, but also some really messed-up things happened right before I left. I’d rather be out here.”
Knox is looking at me intently, like any of what I’m saying makes sense.
“And with you it’s easier,” I say. “So. I need to be driving somewhere. Let me drive you to your grandma’s. If you don’t mind stopping at my PO box in Springfield on the way down so I can pick up the replacement credit card I ordered.”
“You have a PO box?”
I love that that’s the thing he has questions about.
“Yeah. My mom’s husband is . . . kind of a sketchball.
Like the bad-check-writing kind, which is hilarious, because he has her money to play with now.
I got a PO box before I left and rerouted all my mail there so he can’t, like, lift my bank account information from something that comes to the house when I’m gone.
So we wouldn’t have to see them in Springfield.
My mom, or Brandon, I mean. We’d just have to swing by the post office.
It’d be easy. But I’m talking too much. I’m sorry, I do this when I’m nervous. You’re going to have to stop me—”
“Why are you nervous?”
“I don’t know what you’re going to say.”
“You don’t?” It’s not a challenge; he sounds genuinely surprised.
“I’ve only known you for a day,” I say meekly. “How am I supposed to—”
“Of course I want to ride with you. Of course. Like . . .” He shakes his head.
I just look at him. But he’s staring straight out the windshield at bus Terminal 3, blinking ALL ABOARD, CHICAGO.
“Are you sure?” he asks, but it’s almost like he’s asking me something more.
My hands are gripping the wheel. “I’m sure.”
When he smiles at me, I shiver.
“Okay,” he says. “So. Let’s go buy a gigantic bag of salt and vinegar chips and figure out where we’re gonna stop on the way to central Illinois.”