Hunter's Alpha (gxg) ✓

21. Unplanned

"Mom, where are we going?"

My mother's eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. Her trembling lips purse into a smile, and she looks back to the road. It is one in the morning, and the headlights of our car wash the empty road in front of us with sickly light.

I am thirteen. My birthday is next week.

"Go back to sleep," she says, and she turns on the radio. Static music begins to play. Just a small town girl . . . living in a lonely world . . .

I miss Louisiana. I miss our neighbourhood. I miss my dad, and my brother, and my friends, and her—

I miss her most of all. The blue-eyed girl.

My best friend.

Why can't I remember her name? Why can't I remember her?

She took the midnight train . . . going anywhere . . .

The car speeds forward, and my stomach clenches. Only twenty minutes ago, I was sleeping, the covers up tight to my chin. My mom yanked the blankets away—frantic. Wild-eyed.

"Jude," she urged. "Come on. We have to go."

"Go where?" I asked sleepily, but I followed her into the car anyway.

I don't know where we're headed. I don't know why she is driving so fast, but I'm scared. I hate our new apartment. I hate school. I hate California.

I want things to go back to the way they were. Back when we lived in Lafayette, with the gunshots outside and Jeremy whining and my dad telling my mom, Don't say the a-word! Ass is a bad word!

And I can't remember her name, but we were friends. Me and the blue-eyed girl. We did everything together—our first time on a bicycle. Our first time learning to swim. Our first sleepover.

"Mom?" I ask again. I can't let myself lean against the window and watch the city blur through the glass. "Where are we going?"

My mom's eyes are dark green. Like mine. And I will always remember this moment—the moment before we crashed.

She smiled, a faint twist of her lips, and whispered so low I could barely hear, "Go back to sleep, Jude."

With a deliberate jerk of her hands on the steering wheel, the car pitched to the side.

And I could finally see where we were. The Sunshine Bridge.

I don't know who screamed. It was probably me.

My mom was still looking ahead, sad, as though she was driving us straight towards our own funerals.

This is for the best.

I don't know if she said that, or if later, I would only imagine it when I replayed the scene in my head. But I hope she said it. I hope she had a reason. I hope she thought she was doing a good thing, because anything else is unbearable.

The car swerved dangerously sideways—the metal clanged against the side door—I saw myself unbuckling my seat belt, lunging for my mom, thinking of the blue waters below, thinking of her—