Hurricane Kiss (6 page)

River looks at his dad like he's a complete idiot. “I'm not going with you.”

“River …”

“You're dead if you stay in the car. How can you not see that?”

“And on foot? Where are you going to go? Where are you going to find food or water? You going to loot a supermarket? And then what, you get busted again, sent back?”

River seems to recoil.

“I know the traffic is insane,” Harlan says, slightly softening his tone, “but it'll pick up. We have time, Austin's not that far.”

River snorts. “In this traffic? I'll give it one hour. If we don't start moving by then, I'm gone.”

He gives up on the bathroom line and goes behind a bush. But not me. I wait my turn and finally go, sliding the metal bolt to lock the door. The seat is wet, gross. It smells horrible in this dark, airless space. I rest my head in my hands, massaging my throbbing scalp, willing the right answer to come to me. I press my fingers against my eyes, creating a black field as though I'm in outer space.

“C'mon, let's go,” someone yells from outside, rattling the doorknob.

“OK!” No soap, no toilet paper, no towels, and the dryer doesn't work. I find a used tissue in my pocket. I rinse my hands and throw cold water on my face before heading out and wedging myself back into the car. Harlan starts the engine.

And I start praying.

13 HOURS TO LANDFALL

RIVER

Text from Ryan, the only guy from school who hasn't cut me loose. The only one who had a life off the field.

Praying you're safe. Riding it out at home.


He's in deeper shit than us. They live in a trailer home, and his dad is in a wheelchair. Ryan bikes to school. If they even have a car, it's some old piece of garbage.
Get to a brick building, somewhere safe,
I text back.
Get the hell out of your house, man. It'll blow.

My first days in school, he was one of the few guys who offered to show me around. After I joined the team, he pulled me aside and warned me about Briggs.

“Don't screw around with him,” he said. “Football is his life.”

Ryan knew Briggs too well. If you didn't pledge yourself to him with your life, you paid the price. And Briggs knew how to push everyone's buttons. He was a vengeful prick, and you didn't dare cross him, no matter what he did. I reach down and feel for my knife.

I do want to kill him, I wish I had. It's all his fault.

I glance at Jillian through the rearview mirror and for the briefest moment, our eyes meet. I look away.

I can't help thinking of the picnic again.

Ryan told me about that too. “They call it the full-moon picnic because there was one the first year they had it. And there's this tradition.”

“What kind?” I asked, grinning.

“Like the kiss under the mistletoe, you have to kiss someone under the moonlit sky, or the imagined moonlit sky. It can be anyone. Someone you're seeing, someone you want to be seeing, or just a friend.”

It sounded like something from the sixties. I expected DJs spinning vinyls. I thought of Carla, a would-be actress, my last girlfriend in LA. She would have enjoyed dressing the part.

“It starts at sundown,” Ryan said, “and goes until nine thirty or ten, unless …”

“Unless what?”

“Someone's parents are away. Then it can last all night.”

The high-school picnic, an innocent night of fun. It turned out to be anything but. It was more of an earthquake. First losing myself with Jillian. Then getting the crap knocked out of me in the fight. And if that wasn't enough, being stupid enough to let myself be led into a sick relationship with Lexie.

There was no full moon that night to put the blame on. The sky was dark. I should have had my eyes open. I should have seen what I was doing. But the star football player got sidelined by want and need. My head was someplace else, so I fumbled and dropped the ball. And from there everything went downhill.

Chapter 9

JILLIAN

Text from Aidan.
How's it going?


Um … too slow!


Yeah, this sucks.


I think back to my last night with Aidan. Dinner at Tío Pepe. Then we drove around, stopping on a dark street near a playground. He leaned toward me with a serious look in his eyes.

“What if we never see each other again?” he said, running his fingers under the edge of my sleeveless blouse, sliding my bra strap down over my shoulder.

“Don't say that. We'll see each other.”

He leaned over and started kissing me so hard that the seat jerked down under me. I pulled away to take a breath. “Aidan …”

“I love you,” he said, pulling me toward him and then straddling me, his jeans rough against the skin of my thighs. “You know that, right?”

I kissed him back in answer, letting him open my blouse and finally reach under my skirt. He'd only done that once before. It wasn't that I wanted him to. It was just that I couldn't think of a reason to make him stop, especially the night before we'd be leaving—separately—not knowing what would happen. If I stopped him we'd break up, and I wasn't ready to do anything that required making a real decision.

I wasn't good at making decisions. I didn't have much practice. My mom made them for me. She always knew best. Supermom did everything for me and Ethan because there was no dad to turn to.

But you grow up. Or you're supposed to. You think for yourself and figure out what's right for you. I opened my eyes and stared at Aidan.

Having sex right then would say something about how we felt about each other, with everything ahead. Only my mind kept stalling out, focusing on how I was sweating with the AC off, my armpits stinging with wetness. I was almost faint.

“We should just do it,” Aidan whispered in a husky voice. “Before we go.”

“Did you bring something?”

“I'll be careful, I swear.”

“Aidan, you know we—”

“—we said we'd do it, Jill. You know you want to—”

Instead of answering, I kissed him back, hating myself for not feeling what I was supposed to, for getting crazed by voices in my head shouting
This is a huge deal, you have to want this,
and a moment later,
It isn't. Stop being a baby and grow up!

But no matter how hard I tried to feel something, I couldn't get beyond this anger at myself. All I could think of was the distance between us I couldn't cross. Did I resent Aidan for putting me in that position, or myself for not knowing what to do? The more we kissed, the more strung out I felt.

Then I went into a free fall, trying in just the few seconds left as he tugged at my panties and his breathing got ragged, to figure out whether I felt anything for Aidan or whether I was acting like a mindless robot.

“Aidan,” my voice said, coming out pleading and unrecognizable. He was breathing faster and harder and he leaned away from me for a minute to open his belt buckle and unzip his jeans, his face glistening. I watched him as droplets of sweat ran down the sides of his face, dripping onto mine, seeing him like a stranger, trying to figure out what he meant to me. What made it worse was he wasn't seeing me at all because he was so caught up in his own need, like sex was all about him.

Just as he tugged his jeans down over his hips, his face caught fire.

“What the hell?” he said, looking up suddenly, his breathless voice filled with panic.

A brilliant, flashing light pierced the windshield, lighting us up like lovers on a movie-set with giant floods.

“Holy shit,” he said, scrunching down in his seat, yanking up his jeans as I grabbed at the sides of my shirt to button it. What idiots we were not to have known. What were we thinking? After dark the cops patrolled the park. We should have watched for them. We should have thought of that. But we didn't think about anything except ourselves.

The cop who was driving got out of the car and walked toward us, his partner behind him, their headlights focused on their targets. The first cop was young, maybe twenty-five. Even though his right hand was resting back lightly on the handle of his gun, he seemed more amused than anything.

“You can't park here,” he said, a smirk on his face. His partner came around to my side and stared at us through the window.

“Sorry,” Aidan said, “we'll leave now.”

“I could take you in … or get your names,” he shook his head, “but I'm a nice guy, so consider this a warning. If I see you here again, I'll take you in.” They walked back to their car and turned off their lights. It gave us the time we needed.

“Shit,” Aidan said, buckling his belt. “Who the hell thought—”

“—We didn't,” I said, turning away. Hot tears filled my eyes. I stared out the window so he couldn't see. Why was I crying like a baby? I buttoned my blouse and straightened my skirt, then wiped my eyes. If he noticed, he didn't say anything. He started the car and pulled away slowly. Through the rearview mirror, I saw their headlights go on. They drove away after we did.

“What do you want to do now?”

I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding. “Go home, what do you think?”

He lifted his hands off the wheel, holding them out helplessly. “So now you're mad at me?”

“I'm tired, Aidan.” But I was mad. Or scared. Or something. Everything felt like it was his fault, or at least I wanted it to be.

Chapter 10

RIVER

The people in the car next to us are eating hamburgers. I think back to the two times that Briggs took the team out for steak dinners. It was always quid pro quo with him. You scored, you won, the beast fed you. And they weren't just dinners, they were over the top, like everything Briggs did.

We went to the most expensive restaurants in town, all of us dressed up like goons in jackets and ties, even though it was nearly a hundred degrees outside. We ordered up everything on the damn menu, starting with those towers of cold seafood, then lettuce wedges with blue cheese dressing, Caesar salads, rib eyes, filet mignons, onion rings, baked potatoes, and fries. Briggs must have spent half a year's salary on each dinner, but I doubt he cared. He probably didn't have anything else to do with his money anyway. No wife, as far as any of us knew. No anyone. He was alone. Always alone. I couldn't imagine him having friends. Who the hell would choose to hang out with him? I don't think he ever cracked a smile or laughed, unless it was in a derogatory way, to crush someone.

I remember those dinners because despite the food, I never forgot that bite by bite, I was entering into an implied bargain. The meal was a payoff for the games we played, but it was also our promise to continue to win. And if we didn't? He'd demand his pound of flesh. There was no such thing as a free meal, especially when Briggs was footing the bill.

JILLIAN

Sometimes I can still glimpse the River I used to know, before he changed 180 degrees. The one who wrote a play that he absentmindedly left on a desk in the drama room because he hoped to join the drama club, not realizing that snoopy me would pick it up and read it. I can't forget the title:
Hypocrite
.

I'm haunted by whatever happened to him. I watch his face, his expressions. There's so much anger and frustration inside him now. He's going to bolt from the car, I know it. There's no way he'll stay here.

The question is what do I do? Can I trust him? How can I know if he's right?

I text my mom.

River thinks we'll never get to Austin. Harlan thinks traffic will start moving. What to do?


Stay with Harlan
, she answers, almost instantaneously.
You won't get anywhere on foot. You're in a car, and you have food and water. Listen to him.


Before I can blink, my phone rings.

“What the hell are you thinking, J?”

My mom must have speed-dialed Ethan because there is no way he would have called on his own. Proof that she's freaking. I don't answer.

“Jill,” he says, “what are you planning?”

“Who is this?”

“Haha,” he says. “There's a hurricane coming, if you haven't heard, little sister. So as the only sane member of the family, I hope you'll listen to me and stay with Harlan instead of that head-freak son of his.”

Ethan likes River. They've played guitar together, even hung out together.

“I'm touched by your concern. Where are you?”

“Near La Grange.”

“La Grange?” I kick myself for not insisting on going with them. They were halfway to Austin. No doubt they'd make it.

“We stayed off 290 and took crapola side streets,” Ethan says. “I guess we got lucky.”

“So Mom told you to call me?”

“No …”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

“OK, she did, but for what it's worth, this is one of the few times I think she's right, and Jill …” There's a long pause. “I love you, little sister,” he says, his voice breaking. “So just listen to me, OK, for once in your pathetic life?”

I try to answer, but the words catch in my throat. In my entire life, I don't think Ethan has ever said that. “I'll think about it.”

“OK.”

“And Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“Love you too, lowlife.”

Chapter 11

RIVER

I stare at the sky. Who's your first victim, Danielle, the pathetic little kid in the car next to us playing with his puppy? His mom? I see visions of myself when I was his age and then I try to forget them and sleep, but I'm drowning in sweat. Small favors, traffic starts moving again. Drivers get back into their seats and engines start. Windows close and the air kicks in. But I know this is bullshit. It's a tease, so we'll lower our defenses.

We cruise along at the breakneck speed of 15 miles an hour—as far as you can get from the empty roads in West Texas where you can hit 110 without getting pulled over, not that there's anything out there you want to rush to get to.

We slow to a stop after less than three miles. I study my dad's face. He has to sense me looking, but he focuses straight ahead, his expression blank. Is he thinking about my mom and what she would do if she were here?

Backseat. Jillian's texting. Does she think her friends know more than she does? Near us a couple and two kids get out of their car. They stretch and stare ahead, waving at people in a car ahead of them. The driver of the other car takes out a camera and films them. Right man, make a movie of this. Put it on YouTube. I look at my phone. Forty-five minutes since we stopped at the gas station. Fifteen more, then screw it, I'm out of here.

JILLIAN

My insides tighten as I watch River checking the time on his phone. What if he does get out and start to run? Should I go with him? Or stay? Will Harlan even let him go? What can he do to stop him?

No one expected a traffic jam like this. If my mom had, would she have let me go? She must have picked up my vibes because my phone rings.

“How are you doing?”

“We're gridlocked.”

“How's Harlan doing?”

Freaking out only he can't show us that he is. “OK … I guess.”

“I heard that the tie-up is close to Austin,” she says. “But they're going to open up more contraflow lanes.”

“What's that?”

“They're going to turn more traffic lanes that usually go into Houston into lanes going out. That should help.”

“But the storm … isn't it going to hit us sooner?”

She hesitates. “Maybe.” She's working on acting calm, but I know my mom.

“River wants to bail,” I whisper, even though I know he can hear me.

“What?”

“Hide out somewhere. He doesn't think we're going to make it to Austin.”

“Hide out?” she says, her voice rising. “You're in the middle of 290.”

“Not here on the highway, back in Houston.”

“What's he going to do, go running back?” she says, not waiting for an answer. “When it hits there will be downed power lines, trees falling, flooding, wind gusts.” I hear panic in her voice. “Jillian, you can't be outside. You have no idea what it's like to be in a hurricane. Running back on foot is crazy. Didn't Harlan tell him that?”

“But suffocating in the car is OK?” I don't know which one of us is crazier, or what makes sense or doesn't or if it makes any difference at all. This is pick-your-poison time.

It reminds me of the “would you rather” games we used to play when we had sleepovers. That seems like a lifetime ago, when Sari, Kelly, and I had our Friday night pajama parties. When we were tucked into our safe little beds, we enjoyed scaring ourselves by imagining all the horrible scenarios we might face and then asking ourselves which one was worse and how we'd choose to die.

Would you rather die in an airplane crash or a car crash?

Would you rather get chewed to death by a mountain lion or bitten by a black widow spider?

Never did I imagine that one day in the real world I'd be asking myself,
Would you rather die from a hurricane in a car on the freeway or outside running for shelter?

River turns, x-raying my head. What does he hope to find out? I feel like the fly on the wall, listening to myself as if I'm hearing a stranger. Am I agreeing with him? I'm not sure when that happened.

“Stay with Harlan,” she says in an exaggeratedly calm voice, like she's talking to an idiot. “I have to speak to New York, but call me back and give me an update.”

She wants to hang up so she can talk to the office, a friend, anyone. She's out of arguments and needs to regroup. She's probably frantically checking on the traffic to see if we're doomed either way.

Harlan's eyes meet mine briefly in the mirror. He doesn't know me at all. Am I like his son? He needs an ally here. He can't think of any arguments to keep us where we are though. Even if he agreed with River, what would he do, make a U-turn and fast track it back to Houston? Ditch his car and try to make it somewhere on foot? I've never seen him running, like some of the neighbors. I've never seen him anywhere except behind the wheel, or in his yard with a drink in his hand.

River springs into action, stuffing things into his backpack—water, power bars, beef jerky, bug spray—then his socks and running shoes.

“What are you doing?” Harlan says.

“What does it look like?”

“You're out of your mind.”

River ignores him, turning to me. “You wearing socks and running shoes?”

I nod.

“Take water, whatever food you have.”

I sit there, unable to move.

“Jillian,” he says, like a warning.

Harlan runs a hand through his hair. “River …” He's losing it.

“This is your last chance to turn around,” River says. He looks at his dad levelly. “We can make it back to Houston in less than fifteen minutes.”

“I'm not turning around. I'm not going back.”

River flings open the car door. “Let's
go
, Jillian!”

I freeze.

River climbs out of the front seat. Harlan watches me through the rearview mirror.

“Good girl.”

Good? More like lame. Zombie. All I'm capable of is not deciding, my life on hold. Thanks, Mom, for telling me to think for myself, but always making decisions for me.

But right now being with Harlan feels safer than leaving, so as usual, I do nothing.

River leans against the car and pulls on socks and ties his running shoes. He looks back at me searchingly as he slips his arms through the straps of his backpack. I'm out of time.

Decide. Decide. Decide.

I grab the plastic handle over the door and squeeze so hard it should splinter in my sweaty hand.

“Stay where you are.” My mom's words echo in my head. She'll be furious if I go. I stare back at River. He shakes his head, giving up on me, and breaks into a run.

Something explodes inside me when he leaves, my whole body vibrating inside, like I'm in overdrive. Am I panicking for him running off on his own, or me staying behind? Is he wrong to go? Am I wrong to stay? I've never had to make a decision like this. There's no one to call, no search engine with answers to help me make a decision that could kill me or keep me alive. What do I do? Where do I go for help?

I sit still. The car doesn't move. Time is suspended. We are locked in the middle of a major highway with nothing around us except shuttered commercial buildings and now-vacant warehouses on empty streets. How safe is it to be stuck in a car? High winds can shatter glass and even lift the SUV and send it flying. There are giant road signs. What if the wind tears them down and sends them soaring like missiles across the freeway, slicing us up like giant blades? Do we just sit still and wait to be hit?

I think of the pictures in the Houston Science Museum of the figures in ancient Pompeii covered in volcanic ash. What would it feel like to be buried alive? One second your everyday life was in motion, everyone around you was alive, and things happened as usual. A nanosecond later, without warning, Mount Vesuvius erupted and the world turned into a diorama of the dead, buried underneath a shroud of volcanic ash.

My whole body is pumping out sweat, and it's not just the heat in the car. I try to breathe deeply, to take myself to a calmer place, but I can't. I can't. I feel like I have a blown-up heart pounding in my chest. My head is foggy, blood rushing in my ears.

I stare at Harlan through the mirror. I thought he'd get out of the car to see which way River ran, but he didn't. He sits there defiant, staring ahead, neck muscles taut. Doesn't he care? “Do you want to move up front?”

His voice startles me. “Sure.” I open the back door and get out to study the unending panorama of cars in rows, everything still, like we're all frozen in time. I get into the front seat and slam the door. Harlan nods his head in approval.

The weather isn't holding still. The air is thick and heavy as if the rain above us is enclosed in a massive swollen cloud, waiting for a preordained moment to burst and come cascading down.

“Do you want a snack or something to drink?” he asks.

“No … thanks.”

I look down at my hands. They're trembling. Does he see? He doesn't seem to.

“It'll start moving,” he says, stiffly.

I don't answer.

From somewhere inside, I hear myself say, “I … I can't stay.”

“What?”

In the distance, I can still see River running. “I can't stay. I think he's right. We're going to die if we stay here. It's wrong. It's a mistake.”

He sits there, not answering.

“You should turn around, go back. There's still time.” I wait for him to answer, but he doesn't. He just shakes his head back and forth, staring in front of him.

I tie my running shoes and then pull out my phone and text River, pushing the car door open.

“
Wait!
”