“My chariot awaits,” I say with a shrug.
“Good luck,” Henry mumbles under his breath. “And try to be nice to her, will ya? She hasn’t had the easiest life. If you think she’s crazy, you should meet her mother.”
I give him a nod and hand him my keys before turning to leave.
I jump into the passenger side of the only other vehicle besides Henry’s and mine, but she doesn’t speak, or even look at me. I take her in, really looking at her for the first time. Long, wild, dark hair. Porcelain skin. Tiny frame. Her big, innocent, hazel eyes betray her caustic front. I haven’t spent more than five minutes with this girl, but I can already tell she’s the type of crazy I need to stay far away from. This morning, she was all sunshine and rainbows when she came into the shop, but it didn’t take much for her true colors to come out.
“You gonna tell me where to go or…?”
Right. She doesn’t know where I live.
“Go left, then left at the light.”
She does.
We drive in silence for a long while. No music, because we can’t even get a radio station to come in clearly up here. I notice that she’s shivering with only a thin flannel to keep her warm. If she’s already this cold, she’s in for a rude awakening in another month or so.
I lean forward to turn the heat o
n, but her fingers land on mine for a brief second, intercepting me before turning it back off.
“Heat doesn’t work. And it smells.”
“Might want to have your dad fix that or you’re going to need a thicker coat in a couple weeks.”
She scoffs, like that’s out of the question, but doesn’t respond.
“How far am I taking you? I didn’t realize this was going to be a road trip.”
“I live outside of town. A few more miles.”
“You live alone?”
“Yep.”
“Not a fan of people?”
“Nope.”
She gives me a sidelong glance, and she’s silent for a beat. Assessing. Then she speaks.
“It must be nice to live on your own.”
It’s small talk, which doesn’t seem like something this girl does often. Her words are intentional. So, I play along.
“You don’t?”
She shakes her head. “Never have. Staying with Henry for the time being.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one,” she says defensively.
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” I’m surprised by her age, though I shouldn’t be. She looks young, but something about her feels much older.
“My mom was never home. By the time I was old enough to move out, my brother was just starting high school, and I knew if I left, there’d be no chance of him graduating.” Logan looks over at me with wide eyes, probably hating that she just divulged so much about herself. I know that look because I have the same aversion to sharing.
“I pissed the bed until I was twelve,” I blurt out in an attempt to even the score. Tell her something embarrassing about me to get the focus off her. And it works, because her expression goes from horrified to surprised, and then her cheeks puff out as she tries to hold back from laughing. She loses the battle and something between a laugh and a snort slips out, and even I can’t help but chuckle.