Page 119 of Boots, Bucket Lists & Bad Ideas
I turn up the A/C. He turns it off.
I roll down my window. He rolls his up.
It’s like constant whiplash. Hot and cold, opposites at every turn, and I’m so damn exhausted from it.
From us.
We’ve been this way so long, it’s easy to forget we weren’t always.
There was a year, just one, that felt like something else entirely.
Hard to believe he used to follow me to my secret places and sit quietly while I read. Harder to believe I trusted him. Called him a friend and considered him to be more.
I steal a look at him when he checks the side mirror, jaw tight.
He isn’t the smooth-faced kid I once knew. That guy’s gone. In his place sits a man with a beard and sunburned edges, who moves like someone who belongs to the land. And whether I like it or not, he looks good.
Is that why my insides burn when I remember him hauling me over his shoulder?
No. That’s the little girl in me who never got over him. The one who noticed that he put my pain above his own when he carried me away from the fire ants. And that little girl wants to believe maybe it’s because he cares, but the woman I am knows better.
He catches me staring at him. “What?”
“Nothing.” I look out the window.
The wide-open sky doesn’t quiet the ache in my chest. The warm sunlight isn’t enough to soften the cold place where I miss him. The peace of the outdoors only makes me long for the quiet we once shared.
What is wrong with me?
“No snide remark?” His thumb taps on the wheel.
“You know, you started this between us.”
He says nothing.
Exactly. What would he say? Nothing. Because he can’t defend himself—can’t defend bad actions.
I stare out the window for a long time before I wonder where we are.
Not having a phone is more painful than I ever imagined. I carry one on the ranch, so it’s easy for people to get in touch, until I ride to the remote areas where the signal is lost. I love my peaceful horseback rides disconnected from the real world.
But this, being stuck with this asshole in the middle of nowhere, I hate not having my phone to text my almost equally asshole sisters.
I grab the paper map from the dashboard and unfold it.
“What’s the last sign you saw?” I run my finger over the creased, sun-faded paper spread open on my lap.
The beast of a bus rumbles down the cracked two-lane road. Grass pokes up through the pavement. Mesquite trees are sparse, and the sun shimmers over long-forgotten stretches of fence line.
But we haven’t passed another vehicle in over an hour of twisty roads and turns.
“Somewhere back, maybe twenty miles ago. It was a rusty sign.” He names it, and I follow the map road.
“That was two counties ago.” I rub my forehead. “The highway must’ve rerouted. This thing”—I wave the map—“thisthing doesn’t even show the bypass. Unless—” My eyes snap to him. “Are you even listening to my instructions?”
“It’s hard to ignore them.”
I gasp. “Did you get us off track again? I don’t want to prolong this ride with you.”
