The engine growls behind me, closer, the rednecks silent this time.
I run.
“Violet!” Eli’s voice shouts.
I stop, whirl around, and there he is. He’s driving an ancient Ford Bronco, the windows rolled down.
It might be the first time in my life I’ve been glad to see Eli Loveless. He rolls up until he’s beside me, leaning over the passenger side
“Get in,” he says.
“With you?” I ask.
My heart’s still pounding. My hands are still shaking, even though I’ve got one clenched around the strap of my purse, and even though I’m fully prepared to walk to a bar and call everyone I know for the next hour, I don’t want to show Eli any signs of weakness.
We lock eyes. He just gives me a look.
“You’re walking barefoot along main street at midnight with no shoes on like some redneck hooker because your night’s going well?”
I ignore redneck hooker and take a step toward the Bronco. My face barely comes up to the bottom of the window.
“Just get in,” he says.
“I know better than to get into cars with strange men at all hours of night.”
“Good thing it’s just me, then.”
“You’re plenty strange.”
“And you’re plenty stubborn. Get the hell in the car, Violet, you really think I’m gonna let you walk home alone at this hour? You’re not even wearing shoes.”
I clench my jaw and look away, down Main Street. He’s right and I know it, but Lord I hate admitting it.
“You know if you don’t get in, I’m still gonna follow you going two miles per hour because I can’t have your murder on my conscience, right?” he says.
I glare at Eli. He glares back. Handsomely, the most irritating way for him to glare.
Then I jerk the passenger door open and climb into the cab.
“Thank you,” he says, just a hint of humor in his voice as I buckle my seat belt.
His truck smells like like grease, leather, and old car. He wrestles the gear shift back into drive and glances over at me, the flicker of a smile on his face.
I feel that flutter in the pit of my stomach, ignore it, and double-check my seatbelt.
“This thing street legal?” I ask, looking around the inside of the car, because I really need to look at something besides him.
“Near enough,” he says, shifting back into drive with a clunk and a faint grinding noise. “Why, you worried about a few bumps?”
“If I lift up this floor mat, am I gonna be able to see straight through to the street?”
The Bronco shudders forward. From the corner of my eye, I see Eli smile. It twists my stomach again. I keep ignoring it.
“Sorry, the clutch sticks sometimes,” he says. “Actually, the clutch sticks all the time. Don’t touch that mat.”
I don’t touch the floor mat. For a few minutes we drive in silence, and I stare ahead through the windshield. There’s a long crack running half the length of it, about an inch above the dashboard, and I entertain myself by wondering what caused it.
You’re both adults, I tell myself. It’s been ages since you’ve seen each other. There’s no earthly reason that Eli should still get on your nerves like he used to. I’m sure he’s changed. You’ve both changed.
The window’s down and I lean into the wind, because my face is too hot. My whole body is too hot, the air in this ancient Bronco humming, vibrating. He shifts gears again and I try not to notice that he’s got rugged hands, scars across the back, the muscles in his forearm flexing in a way that makes me cross my ankles
“Where am I taking you?” he asks, his deep voice harmonizing with the throaty growl of the engine.
Oh, God.
I clear my throat.
“Same place, actually,” I say, forcing my nerves back down. I don’t look at his reaction.
There’s a beat of silence.
“Oh,” he finally says.
“It’s a right turn onto White Oak in about a mile and then a left at the sign,” I say.
I tense, despite myself.
Say it. Say it, I dare you.
He doesn’t say a thing. We drive out of town, his headlights swiping across tree trunks like a barcode in the forest.
“How’s your mom?” he finally asks.
I glance over, but he looks sincere. Serious. I swallow.
“Gone,” I say.
He looks over at me for a second, taking his eyes off the road.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know.”
There’s a raw note in his voice I don’t recognize, and my heart twists in my chest.
“Thanks,” I finally say. “It’s been a couple years.”
“What happened?”
“Lung cancer.”
I leave it at that. There’s more to it than she’s gone, lung cancer, but I still don’t know how to tell it. I don’t know if I ever will, but right now I sure haven’t figured out how to say now I just want another day with the mother I spent so much time resenting or sometimes I wished it would kill her faster and I still can’t forgive myself or I don’t know if I’ll ever stop blaming her.