Boarding with the Bad Boy [COMPLETE + BONUS published edition]

THE BOARDERS: 41

Lo

We glare at each other for a long moment of stalemate before I shove him away from me, ripping the flannel from his hands and marching to the passenger's side of the truck. My body is suddenly immensely cold. I pull the shirt over my shoulders as I heave myself into the vehicle, putting my keys on the center console. Sam climbs into the driver's side and adjusts the seat.

We drive in silence. My adrenaline is ebbing, and I find that I can't stop shaking. I dig my nails into my thighs, staring straight ahead without seeing anything at all. A part of me wants to curl into this seat and fall into the deepest, darkest sleep I've ever experienced. Another part roils and rages. But I'm sick of fighting everything around me so damn hard. Maybe, I think, it's just easiest to call my mom and get a flight back to California, chalking up my journey to Salisbury and Remington as a failed experiment. Who cares if that means she was right?

When Sam pulls the truck into a spot at the boarder lot, he doesn't turn off the ignition right away. I turn to find him staring out the windshield, his face set and inscrutable. I want him to say something—anything—almost as much as I want him to just stay silent, let me untangle the mess of thoughts in my own brain. Either way, I'm not ready to leave him yet, even with my recent anger so close to the surface.

I tuck my feet onto the truck seat, curling in on myself and watching him watch the boarder lot. I can see the bruises and blood clearly under the streetlamps. He's going to have one hell of a black eye tomorrow.

"I don't want to fight anymore, Somers," Sam says finally, quiet. "It's...tonight was too much."

I laugh, a little half-heartedly. "I don't think I have it in me to fight right now, even if you wanted one."

He's quiet for a long time before he turns to me, eyes a raging mix of anger and sadness. "What happens now?"

"Isn't that my line?"

His lips twitch upward. "Probably."

I sigh, untucking my legs and leaning back onto the seat, reclining it until I stare at the ceiling of my truck. The roof is rusting through, and a stain—water damage—is spreading across the fabric beneath it. I want to laugh (or is it sob?) thinking of my dad, buying this truck six weeks before my mom and I left, so excited for a project that he and I could work on together. He imagined us rebuilding the engine, lifting the body a couple inches, removing the rust. And then, when I turned sixteen, he'd hand the keys to me. He was so overjoyed about the whole thing, I didn't have the heart to admit that, at thirteen, there were few things I was less interested in than carburetors and gear boxes.

I don't know why I tell this to Sam, but I do. Watching that stupid rust stain, I tell him that, when my dad moved to California, he'd left this truck behind, tucked under a tarp in the barn of an old friend. I hadn't even thought of it until he died and the truck came my way in the will. Because I never appreciated anything about my dad enough and I never realized just how big his sacrifices were until it was too late. I can't believe it took me so long to figure it out.

Sam doesn't say anything right away, but I hear as he reclines his seat beside me.

"I think you've had a lot of people disappoint you," he says slowly. "I get that your mom let you down by doing what she did with Mr. Ott, and that Brandon turned on you without ever telling you why."

He pauses, and he's quiet for so long I think he's done. But then I hear him sigh and I can tell he's choosing his words carefully when he starts again. "You don't have to handle everything on your own. I mean...you're not ...alone. Even though sometimes it seems like you want to be."

When I stay silent, he continues haltingly. He says some things he's already said before (more or less)—that he knows things haven't been easy, that he knows he's played a part in that—but he says other things too. Important things. That the bad stuff doesn't have to define my life; that he figures I'm here to prove that, but I've only really been spinning, letting Brandon and the past loom larger and larger. He says that maybe tonight can be the start of a new chapter, that maybe (and here he pauses so long I think he's fallen asleep)—that maybe we can be in this together. I mutter that I want to just pretend tonight never happened, and he says that he understands running, but what's the point when you're only running at a wall?

When I close my eyes, I see the wall he's talking about. It holds all the shit with Brandon and my mom, the guilt of leaving Salisbury and of letting my dad die. And Sam's right. What's the point if I'm just going to keep slamming up against those things? I open my mouth to say so, but it feels weighted shut. As do my eyes. I should be panicking, but my brain is full of cotton and clouds. A deep, impenetrable exhaustion has settled, inexplicably, on my chest.

I think I reach for Sam's hand, and then I lose consciousness.