The Fast Lane

Chapter 39

Harry woke me up the next morning with breakfast.  He had never done that before and I wanted to eat, but I couldn’t force myself to.  I threw up multiple times before we had to leave.  Harry rushed into the bathroom when he heard a nasty gag before I hurled up nothing but air.  My stomach was literally completely empty. 

"Love, are you alright?" Harry asked as he rushed over to me, sliding across the hard tiles on his knees. He wrapped his arms around me as best as he could all the while my head was still in the toilet bowl. I gagged again and Harry backed up a little bit. 

I reached for his hand with my own shaky one.  ”I’m so nervous…” I began, my lip jutting out and tears beginning to run down my face as I sat up. 

"Oh gosh, Tris," Harry said quietly, stroking my hair and rubbing my back.  "You’re thinking about this too much. You’re going to do fine.  Remember when you got away from those guys when we were with Joel at the hospital?" 

"That was different," I whined. "This is like, all or nothing. I win everything or I lose everything. This isn’t like one of your little races where you win a few thousand or go home." 

Harry continued to rub my back but didn’t say a word. It suddenly hit me just how bitchy what I had just said sounded.  I was horrified with myself. How could I ever say something like that to him? I turned to look at him, guilty and sorry. “Haz, you know I didn’t mean-“ 

"No, no, no. It’s okay," He said, smiling weakly at me. I could tell he was hurt and I felt worse.  The last thing I would ever want to do was put him down. I started to speak, but he lifted his hand as to silence me. "I guess I just didn’t think about it.  I just had so much confidence in you.  I thought you were so good that I wasn’t worried for either of us.  I guess it was wrong for me to think that." 

I watched as he rubbed his hands on his thighs, looking around at the floor, and then stood up.  He avoided my gaze. 

I wanted to apologize.  I felt terrible. “Haz-“

"We’ll leave in 15 minutes.  I’ll grab your bags once they’re packed," He said, is voice low.  He turned to walk out of the room without looking at me once. 

We all piled into Caleb’s SUV and headed for Tampa.  Joel and Caleb took turns driving as Harry and I sprawled out in the back.  He wouldn’t look at me. I laid down and put my head on his lap, taking his hand and slowly bringing his arm around me, but he simply let it hang there.  Harry fell asleep and began to slowly tilt towards me, but as soon as his head began to rest on my shoulder he jolted upward and stared out the window.  We didn’t talk except for when we stopped for lunch and he asked what I wanted to eat. As we neared Tampa, I began to feel more and more sick, and Harry didn’t even look at me as I threw up my lunch into the plastic walmart bag. 

It was around 5 o’clock when we got to Tampa.  I was drained from not eating much that day and throwing up whatever I did eat.  It was worse that Harry wasn’t talking to me or even looking at me. Not talking to anyone was giving me more time to think about all of the things that could go wrong today. Caleb plugged the address into his phone and began to follow the directions to 757 Thompson Road.  We weaved our way through the city and then began to head West into the more rural parts of the area. “Turn left onto Thompson Road,” the phone said.  Immediately I sat up and looked around. 

I didn’t recognize anything for a good five minutes.  We drove along the road through trees and fields, past small houses and white fences until the phone broke the tense silence with, “You have arrived at your destination.” Suddenly I realized just why Thompson Road was familiar to me. 

Cooper’s father’s old farm spread out in front of us.  I scanned the dead fields as we drove up the rocky driveway. Memories of the races that Sam, Cooper, Thomas, and I used to have blew across the fields with the dirt that swirled around in the wind.  A ghostly-looking car flew across the driveway in front of us, and Sam’s wild laughter filled my mind.  I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and began to breathe quickly.  A few tears gushed down my face and I grabbed Harry’s wrist, squeezing it tightly.