that he didn’t want to play in the major leagues—and his dad had surprised him by supporting his decision. So he changed his major to business, and planned to work for Miller Logistics when he graduated. He had his eye on their hub in Las Vegas.
Dad ran a finger across his mustache. “He’s a good boy. Just don’t get too attached, Ellie. You don’t know where he’ll end up.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re going be late for work.” I moved forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t suck,” I said.
“It’s a promise.” He winked and headed out.
I grabbed my new phone off the desk and texted Ripley.
Me: It’s SOOO HOTTT HEEEERE
Ripley: I’m at school. Please stop obstructing my education.
Me: Turn your phone off during class then.
Ripley: Can’t. I’m recording this lecture on the history of screen printing. Did you know it dates back to the Song Dynasty in China?
Me: Zzz
Ripley: You’re a dick. Talk later?
Me: Can’t. I have a HOTTT date.
Ripley: Have fun. I’ll call you after Alateen. [Inebriated unicorn Bitmoji]
Me: Is it really healthy taking that Alateen stuff so lightly?
Ripley: Ugh. You’re so smug since you started therapy again.
I laughed and set down the phone. Ripley and I had been “crisis buddies”—his term—for so long that it felt weird to have normal conversations. Not that my life was perfect—my psychiatrist and I were still dialing in the right dosage. And anyway, it wasn’t a thing that would ever go away completely. There was no cure, only treatments. Drugs. Therapy. Meditation. Forever and ever, amen.
Ripley still had drama, too: Heather was out of their lives, which was hard, but their mom had left again, which he counted as a win. His dad was back in Narcotics Anonymous, and even though Jude had upgraded to cannabis, at least he was going to meetings. Ripley had plans to come visit for Labor Day. And if worse came to worst and he couldn’t make the drive, we’d both go to our local McDonald’s and video-chat over Sausage McGriddles. It was becoming a weekend tradition.
Liam would be here soon, but instead of getting ready I pulled my old wooden box out of its drawer. I opened the lid and stared at the only thing left inside: an Arizona driver’s license with the number 23 written on the back in Sharpie. The small portrait showed a bespectacled guy with a thick brown beard. The text said he was Michael Boslaugh, and that he lived at 17 Primrose Drive in Scottsdale, Arizona—roughly two hundred miles from where Dad and I left our broken trailer. We hadn’t gone back for it; somehow, it represented our old life, a life we never wanted to revisit.
I flipped Michael Boslaugh’s license through my fingers like a playing card, wondering why I hadn’t returned it; I only owed him twenty-three bucks.
I grabbed my phone and searched until I found his Instagram. It was mostly pictures of him at concerts or cuddling his French bulldog, but the latest one showed him with his arms around a petite brunette girl with a long curtain of dark brown hair. It seemed that since our encounter at the mall, Beard Boy had gotten himself a girlfriend. I felt a pang of jealousy; it was stupid, but there it was.
I wondered how differently things would’ve turned out if I had given his wallet back. Would he have turned me in? Would he have helped me? Would it be Michael driving to Las Vegas to see me instead of Liam?
I did that a lot now that I wasn’t preoccupied with trying to survive—thinking about all the what-ifs. Thinking about my life as just one possible route through a system of crisscrossing streets and highways. At any time, I might choose a different path, make a U-turn, pull off at the next exit. Michael Boslaugh might have been a road to a different life—but instead, he’d been a detour. And now that way was blocked.
I glanced at the stack of envelopes on my desk, thinking I should stuff twenty-three bucks and his driver’s license into one of them and drop it in the mail. Instead, I replaced the license and put the wooden box back in the drawer.
I felt a momentary heaviness, a muscle memory of the lead vest that seemed to settle on my chest when things got bad. I walked to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. There on the top shelf sat a little orange bottle with my name on the label. I picked it up and rattled the pills inside. It was disorienting to think that two hundred milligrams of something could so drastically alter my experience of life, my personality, my self. That my humanity came down to one missing chemical compound thanks to a string of bad code copied from my mother’s defective genes. But then I would remind myself that it only took one burned wire to run an RV off the road. An RV was not a wire, and I was not my sickness.
I replaced the bottle and closed the mirrored cabinet. I was caught by surprise again at the sight of my chin-length hair in the mirror. But the real difference in my reflection was my eyes; they were bright and clear and showed no sign of those red rings. I put on some makeup, and then Liam rang the doorbell.
He held my hand as we tore west on Tropicana with the top down, my hair flying as we drove into the twilight. Behind us, away from the surreal glow of the Strip, a three-quarter moon hung in the sky. Above it, Jupiter shone, a yellow pinprick above the velvety teeth of the mountains, which stretched out in every direction as if guarding the horizon against our escape.
As we drove toward them, I thought about how any place ringed by mountains was, by definition, a valley—and that I had moved to one, more or less permanently. But mountains were also a promise of something beyond, somewhere to climb, peaks to break up the low-lying landscape. Maybe just the knowledge that those heights existed, that they could be reached, was enough.
Liam glanced at me and shouted above the sound of wind rushing past. “What’s so funny?”
I hadn’t realized I’d been laughing.
“Me,” I said. He smiled quizzically. Cue the dimple.
A big rig pulled in front of us, with Idaho plates and girls on the mud flaps. Liam made a face and waved away invisible fumes, but I inhaled the comforting, familiar scent of diesel and laughed again. I remembered worrying that I would miss the highs if I went back on meds. But the way I felt now was better—light, but grounded. Up, but without the frenetic buzz that threatened to overwhelm my nervous system. I stood on a peak with a view, but there was a railing here, and I had less fear of falling.
When we were coming up on Las Vegas Boulevard, Liam said, “Which way do I turn?”
“Go straight.”
“Where are you taking me, anyway?”
I pointed toward the darkening sky. “To meet my mom.”
I reached over and turned on the radio, twisting the old-fashioned dial through the stations in search of something upbeat. A familiar drum loop caught my attention, and I let go of the dial and shifted in my seat, unsticking my thighs from the hot upholstery. A synth patch came in, and then the voice of Jay-Z introduced “Little Miss Sunshine.” It was Rihanna, singing “Umbrella,” and I realized I hadn’t even thought of the song in weeks.