It took me several weeks to find my footing again, almost a month since the crash had claimed Devin’s life. Jordan had stopped trying to call me, had stopped trying to contact me altogether. I supposed I owed the lack of Jordan’s presence to Aiden. Whatever had happened between them outside the shop, their conversation after the confrontation, they’d both moved on from it.
The continuation of their friendship came with strings, Aiden told me at one point. I figured those strings were all about me, so I let it lie. I didn’t want to know about much of anything, it hurt too much to think about Jordan.
Life was moving on. I was finding that while painful, I had the ability to move on from Jordan. I was still in love with him, I always would be, but I could find peace without him. I still thought often about Devin. I’d already visited his grave. He wasn’t there, but spending time with the polished stone helped me feel closer to him.
I no longer blamed him for being angry with me.
I had learned to stop blaming myself too, somewhere along the way. In doing so, I began to like myself again. I’d liked who I was before Caleb and before Jordan. I found that girl again, I embraced her.
Late one Saturday night, I found myself sitting on the tailgate of my sister’s truck, eating fries, and watching the first street races since The Street King Showdown, since Devin died. I cheered for those I considered friends. Inside, I cheered a little bit for all of us.
Bree didn’t hide her enthusiasm, shouting and cheering as she always had, like nothing else had happened. I didn’t begrudge her that. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us. My sister deserved to find happiness again. I swung my legs and watched the festivities happily, laughing as Breanna jumped on Rascal’s back
celebrating a win for Vic.
When it was Jordan’s turn to race, I found it didn’t hurt to smile. As long as I didn’t do too much thinking about what had happened between us, I didn’t feel all the pain of the past.
I was surprised that the ʼ65 sat at the start line in place of the Malibu. The old red truck led from the start, never backing down, winning with a gap between cars.
“Whoo!” Breanna shouted before giving me a sheepish look.
I shook my head. “It’s okay, Bree, really.”
She smiled as she did a wiggling boogie all the way back to me. “I love you, Raelynn.” She placed a kiss to the top of my head. Breanna and I had been closer than ever in the weeks since the crash.
“What’s he doing?” This from Rascal, as the car Jordan had run against made its way back to the start line. I followed his gaze to the opposite end of the street where Jordan’s truck sat idling, barely visible save for the red glow of the taillights.
I was walking before I had time to question it, moving before I could stop myself. I’d moved on, at least that’s what I tried to convince myself. Yet, I’d read his messages repeatedly. I never had the heart to delete them.
I’d replayed the heartbreaking words he’d said to me, during the fight with Hunter, thousands of times.
Inside, I was at war with myself. “Raelynn?” Breanna called after me.
I gestured for my sister to stay where she was and broke into a jog. My chest was tight. Something was very wrong, the atmosphere crackled with a tension I couldn’t place.
I was scared for the first time in a long time.
When I got to the driver’s window, Jordan was staring out into the night. He was breathing, his eyes were open and focused ahead of him. Which eased my fear. I hadn’t spoken to him in weeks, but that didn’t mean I wished any harm to him.
If something happened to Jordan…I didn’t know what I would do.
“Jordan?” I reached for him through the window but pulled my hand back as if I might get burned.
“Years ago,” he started, “I took Devin to one of these for his first time. We rode our bikes out to the canning factory. Took forever to get there, peddling the whole way. Our lungs and legs burned, but man, it was worth it.”
I could see them clearly, young and gangly, riding their bikes in the middle of the night without a second’s consideration to how much danger they could get themselves into.
“I keep thinking that if I wanted to go out, I’d want to go out like that…like he did…” The pain in his voice was gut wrenching.
“I don’t like the way you are talking.” My voice was barely audible over the rumble of the big block engine.
He took the hat off and rubbed the stubble on his head before putting it back. Then he continued as if I hadn’t said a word. “I get a thrill when I drive, it’s like being in another world, on another plane of existence. For those four or five seconds? Nothing else exists. I thought I could find that tonight.”
“Did you?” My voice cracked.
“No.” He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. “I owe you an apology, Raelynn. I owe you a lot of them.”
Over my shoulder, behind us, several backlit forms were moving up the street. No doubt thinking the truck broke.
Jordan’s voice brought my face around again. This time he was looking right at me. “When you left with him after the funeral, I died a little.”
“Jordan.” I dropped my forehead to the cool metal of the truck door. The pain I’d fought so hard to free myself of was creeping back in. “You wouldn’t even look at me. I couldn’t stand to be there anymore. Hunter was an easy way out.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation, Raelynn.” He cut me off, his voice sad and weary.
“I know I don’t. But it’s the truth.” When I looked up I found that his face was as tired as his voice.
“Get in.” He hitched a shoulder toward the passenger side. The silhouettes that approached were close enough for me to make out Vic and Aiden.
My chest tightened for a different reason now. It would be far too easy to climb in, to forgive him, to forget everything that happened between us. I couldn’t look away from those dark eyes that had always called to me.
He wouldn’t beg, but he wouldn’t break either. The decision was mine and mine alone.
My body was piloted by someone else as I pushed off the truck and jogged around the front to climb in.
As soon as I was seated he took off like rocket, I looked back once to see a crowd of people standing not far from where the truck had been. My brother and sister were there, both of them looking as confused as everyone else.
Nobody would come after us though. My phone wouldn’t blow up with worried messages. I was with Jordan, I was safe. He’d always take care of me.
We drove for a long time in the dark, in the quiet, for so long I wasn’t even sure where we were. Not that it mattered. A sense of calm had settled over me, as if being with him made everything okay again. I’d only thought my world had righted itself without Jordan.
“Are you cold?” he asked me as we pulled up to the gas pumps at a brightly lit truck stop. I was vaguely aware of where we were, right about thirty miles out of town on the highway.
“Yeah,” I trembled with chill. “I didn’t even notice until you said something.”
He handed me the hooded sweatshirt from the seat between us as he climbed out of the truck. “You were shivering. I need a soda. You?”
“Yeah.” I rolled up the passenger window and pulled on the hoody as he crossed the parking lot and disappeared into the glass doors, covered with beer ads. The hooded sweatshirt was warm and smelled like him. I’d be lying if I said the latter didn’t make me shiver in a different way.
“It swallows you whole.” He grinned for a second when he returned and handed me a soda from inside the store.
What was he thinking? As he pumped gas, his body was coiled like a snake ready to strike, all tight muscle and clenched jaw. Did he not find the peace I had found? Or had I become one of the demons that haunted him, another scar for him to bear?
“What are we running from?” I asked him when he slid into the driver’s seat.
“Everything.” He wrapped and then unwrapped his fingers around the steering wheel before starting the engine.
“Then let me drive.” I turned sideways in the seat as he fired up the engine and we hit the highway. I couldn’t handle the melancholy, couldn’t battle his demons for him. In the silence, that became all too apparent. “Let me chase the sunrise.”
In the east, the sky had already started to brighten. I waited, allowing myself the caress of eager anticipation, for his answer.
“Do you want to drive or make a pass?” The look on his face was the closest thing to my Jordan, the man he’d been before the crash, that I’d seen in weeks.
My smile widened, tendrils of excited energy whipping through my body and showing on my face. “Both.”
He shook his head but the corners of his mouth turned up a little bit.
“There it is,” I sighed.
“What’s that?”
“I lost you there for a while, but you’re back now.” I turned his words on him. Jordan had been gone, lost in in a bottomless pit of self-loathing and guilt.
He was quiet in apparent contemplation as he slowed the truck on a stretch of blacktop in the middle of nowhere. “Haven’t had much to smile about, to feel good about, lately.”
There was so much unsaid, so many hurt feelings, that I didn’t know how to respond or if I even should.
He must have seen the indecision on my face. “I don’t want anything from you, Raelynn. I’m not asking you for anything. It’s that—I’m tired of being alone with myself. It’s not fair for me to make you be here, to make you stay with me tonight.”
“There’s another apology I owe you.”
“You didn’t make me do anything.” I slid from the passenger seat and jogged around to the driver’s side. Jordan had already popped the door open when I got there.
He slid out and caught my face in his hands. I had to close my eyes to keep away the emotions the warm touch of his fingers wrought in me. I swayed a little on my feet when he pressed his forehead against mine, his breath kissing my skin.
“I never deserved you. I never will.” His coarse whisper was barely audible over the rumbling of the truck’s engine.