Jonas stood outside of Brennan’s house, pacing back and forth on his crutches.
Four hundred and eighteen W. Westmor. Six o’clock in the morning. He’d sent her the text last night at about midnight. She probably didn’t even get it. It’s a weird text. Why did you send it? He should have explained, maybe. Probably. He stopped pacing and stared at her front door, trying to decide if he should go and knock on it after all. “No, this is crazy,” he said aloud to the six-in-the-morning empty neighborhood. “You’ve officially lost it Jonas.”
Maybe he had.
That morning, the crazy had started with an argument with his mom. He’d called and left a message to reschedule his surgery last night, after Brennan had left. A couple of weeks wouldn’t hurt; he’d been dealing with the pain in his leg for this long. “What in the world were you thinking, Jonas Elliot Avery?” Jonas had almost missed “Bird,” what with the scathing way she said his first, middle, and last name. Then, judging by the way his father raised his eyebrows (his father had picked up quite a bit of Vietnamese over the years he’d been married to Jonas’s mother), she muttered what must have been some equally scathing statements in Vietnamese. Even Jonas recognized a few of the words—mostly she went on and on about his lack of consideration and how crazy he must be. She seemed most upset at the fact that, by rescheduling the surgery, Jonas would have to miss some school. At this point, Jonas didn’t care. Rhys had done so many crazy things at the beginning of his college career. Jonas figured it was about time he did something to disappoint his parents (something a little bigger than hiding in his room the majority of the past year and a half).
Not that he really wanted to disappoint them; he just knew it wasn’t realistic to make it through life without doing it at least a few times. When he’d explained to his mom why, she’d actually been a bit more understanding (after yelling at him again). That still bothers you, Bird? I’m sorry. I didn’t know.
Jonas crutch-paced a few steps back and forth in front of Gus. That was the second part of the crazy: Rhys had told him to go ahead and take Gus, because the Bus wasn’t fit for long trips (The Bus is hardly fit for trips across town, Rhys, 2015). So Jonas had gotten into the driver’s seat. He’d started the car. He’d put it in reverse (heart pounding, sweat dripping). He thought about driving to get Brennan from Road’s Edge. He thought about the fact that he had to do this thing he was going to do, and only he could do it. So he backed out and he drove (about five miles per hour under the speed limit, but still), all the way to Brennan’s house.
Jonas pulled his phone from his pocket before he could stop himself. He went to his recent calls and hit Brennan’s number. He waited. It rang. And then rang some more.
This was stupid. He knew she’d be asleep, and he should just do this himself. No use dragging her into it. Her voice mail picked up. He took a deep breath. Now, or never?
Now.
“Hey, Brennan,” he said. “I know you’ll think this is crazy. I’ve gotten a lot of that this morning. I’ve canceled my surgery. Well, rescheduled, not canceled completely. Anyway, the point is, I have something I want to do—need to do, really—before I get the surgery. And I can’t explain why I want to do it all of a sudden, but I’ve got to.” To be with you. “So I’m going to Wisconsin to find the guy who was driving the semi when, you know. Just for a couple days. I just want to tell him it wasn’t his fault and everything, because I completely refused his apology and anything to do with him back when it first happened.” I need the closure. Jonas’s fingers were tapping on his leg again, out of habit—nervous habit. “I was going to ask you to come with me, but I guess you’re probably still sleeping. So I’ll see you in a few days.”
Jonas was just getting back into the car when the front door opened and Brennan stumbled out, almost tripping over the bottoms of her too-long pajama pants. “Jonas!” she called. “Wait!”
He rolled down the window and she came up next to him. “Hey,” he said. “I figured you were asleep.”
“I woke up, but apparently not enough to manage to answer my phone in time.” Her hair was tousled and sleep disheveled, which he thought was really cute. She was studying him. “Why are you doing this now, Jonas?” she asked. “I mean, couldn’t it have been after your surgery?”
Jonas bit his lip and averted his gaze from her slightly.
“You are afraid of this surgery, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. Afraid to let myself move on. Afraid of you. No. Not of you, but of me and what you’ll think of me, what I’ll do when you want to see me and I’m too scared to let you. And he was scared of the surgery too. He had been too traumatized and out of it for his first surgery to even have the ability to feel scared. Now he was nervous. And even though the logical part of him said that everything was going to be perfectly fine, he couldn’t help but think of the risks. He’d been putting some thought into finally declaring a premed focus of study; unfortunately, his renewed interest in reading medical textbooks in his spare time was putting all the risks at the forefront of his mind. Increased pain, nerve damage, D-E-A-T-H.
Brennan sighed. Behind her eyes, he could see her brain working through this, the imaginary cogs turning in her head. “Okay,” she suddenly said. “Let me go in and pack a few things and talk to my parents.”
Jonas waited what seemed like an eternity before she came back out, a small duffel bag thrown over her shoulder. She tossed the bag in the back and got into the front seat. He watched as she strapped in and then nervously folded and unfolded her hands in her lap. He could read her well enough to tell that she was nervous.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“Fine,” she said. She laughed sheepishly. “This is just the first trip I’ve taken in a while, and with anyone other than my parents and my brother. But I trust you. So let’s get this show on the road, I guess.”
Jonas couldn’t help but smile slightly, one corner of his mouth curving up almost against his will.
He took the crumpled paper out of his pocket—an old menu sheet from the hospital. On the back, the address. He smoothed it across his thigh a bit and then used the clip-on air freshener to put it on the visor. Whitford. Wisconsin.
He went through the steps:
1. Start the car. Check.
2. Put it in drive. Check.
3. Go.
And he did, even though his heart rate still picked up and sweat still beaded on his brow. Brennan touched his arm. Comfort, without saying anything.
They headed for the interstate.
North, to Wisconsin.
They’d been on the interstate for about a half hour now. The knot in her stomach was tying itself more tightly the farther from home they got.
She hadn’t told her parents.
Here was the problem: they’d argued last night.
Her mom: “Brennan, I’m tired of having you come home from school just to be in your room the entire time. Is there something going on that you aren’t telling us? Are you taking your meds?”
Her: “It’s just that I have to have a chapter done by Friday.” She was out of reserve chapters to post and the writer’s block was still strong. Ignore the part about her meds.
Her mom: “I’m not sure I like that you’re putting all this time into an internet site that we’ve never heard of.” Because you don’t get on the internet much?
Her: “Mom, I’m eighteen. And you know me. I wouldn’t do something if I didn’t think I was safe.” Anxiety makes sure of that.
Her mom: “I know. You’re all grown up. But you still live here. We pay your bills. Doesn’t that count for something?”
Her: “Yes, Mom. I just—I have to write, Mom. I have commitments.”
Her mom: “What about your commitment to us? Your family? You can’t spend your whole life writing.” The way she said writing—something about it was jarring. “It’s fine as a hobby, but you can’t let your hobbies get in the way of your life, Brennan. I just want what’s best for you. Come downstairs and help with supper.”
She’d left then, and Brennan had shut and locked her door. She’d looked in the mirror over her dresser. She’s right. It won’t get you anywhere. You’re probably not even good. It was probably a fluke that you got featured. You put all your effort into this for what? For nothing. And her brain scoffed: Look at you, little college girl. Failing. She set the timer on her phone. She allowed herself to cry for five minutes. Then she wiped her eyes and went downstairs, where her dad was on her mom’s side.
She didn’t tell them about the feature. She didn’t tell them about thousands of followers.
She didn’t tell them she was going to Wisconsin with Jonas—they were still sleeping, so she just left a note. Remember when I told you about Ambreen and some people from the dorm going to Colorado for the weekend? Well, I’m going to Wisconsin. I’ll call you. And then, because they were still her parents, and she still loved them—I promise. I love you.
Brennan glanced sideways at Jonas. She could tell he was occupied with his own thoughts. His two-handed grip on the steering wheel was tight, and he stared straight ahead except when switching lanes.
“Jonas?” she said, wanting to voice the question that had been on her mind, mostly because she wondered if he had considered it too.
“Hmm.” He didn’t look at her, just the road. The white, dashed lines separating the slow and the fast lanes flashed by.
A semitruck started passing in the left lane and Jonas tensed. She didn’t say anything until the truck was done passing.
“What if you, you know. What if you get there and he’s not there? It’s been a little while, hasn’t it? A year and a half?”
“Two years, end of this month.”
“Two years.” Brennan adjusted her seat belt so it didn’t press so much against her neck (the pressure made her throat feel gaggy). “A lot can change. He could have moved.” She stared at the yellow hospital menu paper with the scribbled writing on the back. Paul’s name and an address in Door County, Wisconsin, stared back.
“I—I don’t know for sure,” he sighed. “I just want to try.” He laughed shortly, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “Maybe he doesn’t even remember me. Maybe he doesn’t even think about the accident anymore. I mean, he seemed like the type who would care. At the time, he was really broken up about it, my mom said. I wouldn’t even see him, of course. I was pretty rude.” He frowned. “I guess I just want to try to find him, on the slight chance that he does still think about it, or does still feel guilty, to let him know . . .” He trailed off, like he wasn’t sure what he was going to let Paul know.
The sun reflected off the road far ahead, turning the spot hazy, like water. Brennan nodded. “I get it,” she said. “You don’t have to explain it. You’re good,” she said. “You know that, right? You’re so good, Jonas. And sometimes I don’t think you even realize it.”
His fingers moved alternately between gripping the steering wheel and tapping the edge of it, anxiously. “This is a change,” Brennan said wryly. “I’m usually the nervous wreck.”
One corner of Jonas’s mouth turned up in a slight smile.
“Whatever happens, I’ll be there with you.”
He reached over to squeeze her hand, but quickly returned his hand to the steering wheel.
“And no matter how it goes, whether you get to talk to Paul or not—” Brennan paused, took a deep breath, and continued. “I just want you to know that it’s really really good of you to try.”
“Thanks, Brennan,” he said. “And really, thank you for coming with me.” He let out a breath. “You really didn’t have to. Maybe it was crazy of me to ask you.”
“Maybe not so crazy,” she whispered, leaning back against the seat’s headrest and closing her eyes. She blew out a breath. “I didn’t actually talk to my parents. I just left them a note.”
Jonas didn’t say anything, so she continued.
“They think my writing is silly. That the internet is silly and no one on there can be trusted. I used to tell them things? But I haven’t told them about being featured and stuff. Because I’m afraid that they’ll be happy, I guess.” She laughed. “It sounds so bad when I say it out loud. Basically, I’m afraid they’ll be happy, but when I increase my commitment to writing to please those followers, they’ll go back to saying writing like it’s something nasty they don’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. It’s almost worse than if they were never proud of me at all.”
She looked out the window—the grass along the highway blurring into the blue of the sky. “I haven’t told them about losing Emma, how we really haven’t had a substantial conversation since the beginning of the semester, about how having a roommate is hard for me, skipping classes, not taking meds, finding you—I mean, I’m not ashamed of you. I’m sorry if it sounds that way. They know about you, I mean, they know you’re my friend. I didn’t tell them about the fender bender though; the grocery store. About falling in love with you.”
Jonas let out a breath, a slow, small smile spreading across his face. He shifted a bit in the driver’s seat, letting some of the tension in his shoulders go now that they had been on the road for a while. “I guess I got out of some of that parental disapproval with The Accident. It’s weird. I hate what happened, but I guess there are some benefits to it.” He grinned, and she punched his shoulder lightly, laughing.
“They love me,” she said. “I know that. That’s important. I just wish, sometimes, that they could step back from their parental wisdom a bit and just be my friends. Maybe they’re trying. I guess I haven’t let them. What with the anxiety and everything, I’ve always been a needs-monitored child. Are you taking your meds? Did you get enough sleep last night? Did you do your homework?”
A semitruck passed. She watched Jonas’s hands tighten on the wheel—felt Gus swerve just the tiniest bit. Kept talking. Distract, distract, distract.
“I guess it’s just got too easy to lie about being okay.”