Jake breathing on the other line, like he’s been jogging. He used to run everywhere; people always talked about it. He could go for days. Now it sounds like a rattling engine ready to die.
“Jake. What do you need?” I have no idea how to make my voice sound normal with him on the phone. “Why are you calling me?”
“Do you realize how fucking stupid you’re being right now?”
“Tell Dad I’ll be home soon.”
“I’m not at home,” he says, as if he can’t believe I’d make that assumption. The heavy breathing, the background noise: it sounds like he’s in the middle of the interstate.
“Where are you?”
“At the bridge.”
“What bridge?”
“River Road. I want you to meet me here.”
There was a time when this call would’ve been everything. Jake wanting me to meet him anywhere. Now my entire body fills with panic, erasing any embarrassment I feel about what happened with Mallory. She fades away as I talk slowly.
“What are you doing at the bridge?”
He curses, spits, and then says, “I just need to talk to you before you leave.”
“Are you okay?”
He pauses, only a second or two, but it feels like my entire life is passing by. Then he says, “Can you be here soon? We need to do this now.”
I want to know what, why, but the longer I stay on the phone, the longer he’ll be out there waiting.
“Yeah, fine. I need to drop off Mallory first. But I’ll be there.”
He doesn’t say anything, just hangs up—there one minute and gone the next.
I hold the phone in my hand, unsure of where to start with Mallory. “I need to go,” I say. “Jake’s out on River Road, at the bridge.”
She doesn’t move, doesn’t speak.
“I can drop you off before I go.”
Still nothing. I take a step toward her, expecting she’ll just follow me wordlessly to the truck. We’ll share an awkward ride back to her house, and I’ll live with the guilt of ruining this once again for—how long? Months? Years? However long, I have the undeniable sense that I’ve finally ended everything between us.
But the anxiety about Jake climbs up my neck and breathes in my ear, trumping everything else.
“Either way, I need to go.”
She spins around and faces me. “You can’t do that again,” she says. “Promise me you aren’t going to do that again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry; just promise you’re not going to do that again. I have a boyfriend, and it’s bad enough that I lost the ring, that I’m out with you instead of him. Plus, that isn’t what tonight is about. It’s not what we’re about, Thomas. So you have to promise me right now that you’re never going to do that again.”
“I know, Mallory. I promise. And I am sorry.”
She still looks a little angry when she says, “And I’m not going home. So stop being stupid.”
“I don’t know if you should come,” I say carefully. I’ve already told her about Jake, but seeing him, having him focus on her with those empty eyes, is another story.
“Well, I don’t care what you want right now, so shut up about it already. What I want is to go to River Road to see why in the hell your brother feels the need to further screw up my graduation night with all his crazy.”
It stings, and she sees how I flinch immediately.
“Now I’m sorry,” she says quietly. And then we stand there, unable to deny how weird it’s become. But I don’t have time for awkwardness, not now.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
River Road is long, cutting across four counties and eventually getting swallowed by Highway 10 before they both spill into the interstate. The bridge, an old metal structure that crosses the river, soon to be the Specialist Jake Bennett Bridge, sits exactly in the middle of the county. I’ve known this place since birth, but every turn feels like a surprise as I try to get to Jake.
“Any idea what he wants?” Mallory says, her voice still noticeably tentative. “Does he go out to the bridge a lot? That’s a pretty long walk from your house.”
She rubs her wrist as she talks, both feet on the dashboard. Trying so hard to be casual. The truth is, I have no idea what Jake does when I’m not around. This phone call was the most animated he’s been in months. If he’s not watching a movie or eating, he’s in a mobile catatonic state. Moving only enough to remind you that he still exists.
I fantasize about miracles, that