FONTANA/MOUNT VERNON
Polly and her dad rolled past the auto track. That put them minutes away from the motel. She wished she could reach back in time to stop herself from calling for help. She pressed her face against the window. The cool of it let her know she was burning.
“We’ll sleep late,” he said. “Then we’ll go to L.A. in the morning.”
He put a hand on the top of her head, rough fingers against her scalp. A wave of acid crested at the back of her throat.
“Stop,” she said. “Stop the car, stop it, stop it please.”
“We’re two minutes from the motel. Just hold the fuck on.”
She felt whales roll inside her stomach.
“Stop the car, stop the car!”
“Polly—”
A noise came from deep inside her, a burp and a moan all in one. She got the window down. She dumped her stomach out into the night. She painted the side of the car nacho-cheese orange. She fell back into her seat. Tears and snot and sick cooled on her face.
“Don’t go back to the motel,” she said through tears. “You can’t go back. Please don’t go back. Please. Please don’t make me tell you why.”
He turned the car onto a side street and parked on a dark spot of the road. He turned off the headlights. She wiped her face on her shirt. She fought for her breath.
“Now you listen to me,” he said. “If there’s something I need to know, you got to tell me.”
The confession came out of her the same speed her dinner had.
“I called the police. While you were gone. There’s a policeman and he said he could help and I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to go away again. I don’t want to be alone. I just got scared. Please, I’m sorry.”
He wiped his face with his hands. He pressed his palms into his eyes. He kept them there while he talked.
“I don’t know what I’m doing either,” he said. “Hell, a week ago I got told when to sleep and when to eat and when to piss. And now I’ve got the whole world in front of me with no map, and the only little part of it that don’t feel like it’s trying to kill me is you and that damn bear.”
He took his hands off his eyes and looked at her. She held his gaze, though it made her heart beat all the way down to the roots of her teeth.
“I never gave you a choice. You’re just a kid, but even a kid has to have a choice. So here it is. You want, I’ll let you off a block from the motel. You find the policeman, you tell them to keep you safe. Hell, maybe they can.”
She opened her mouth to answer. He shushed her with his hand.
“The other choice is you come with me. It could get scary. Even dangerous. But if you’re with me . . . well, at least you’ll be with me, and I’ll do what I can. And going with the cops, it might not be safe either. There’s folk who want us dead. And they’re not going to stop. Could be they could get to you in a group home, or juvenile, or even out on the street.
“If it was up to me, you’d come along with me. We’ll get out of here for a while. Head over to L.A. Then we do something to make ourselves safe. I don’t want it to be up to me if you come or not. I want it to be up to you. So you got to choose.”
She felt every inch of skin all over her body at once. She nodded like yes. Then she felt like that wasn’t good enough. For a thing like this you had to say it. So she did.
“I want to stay with you.”
He turned his face away from her. When he talked, his voice was rough and low.
“Well all right then.”
He put the car in gear. He pulled a U-turn. They headed west.