Page 17 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
“Only in the truck,” he admits, finally.
I want to tell him he’s actually pretty good, but the flimsy subject change he rushes for is for his own benefit this time.
“I think I went to a watch party at this place when I was like eighteen.”
A strategically placed sports reference to combat his falsetto, no doubt. Still, I let him have it.
“Yay, sports,” I say, with an accompanyingrah-rahfist pump.
He laughs again, but now that I’m better prepared, I manage to keep my own face flat, even as his sparkles.
“Back then, it was more like,yay bartenders who don’t check IDs,” he says, turning onto the main drag. “I’ve never been that into sports.”
My frantic texts to Liv are stuck on read, and I swear, if she leaves for her train before I even get there, I’m never leaving the house again. The house, where Zola and Mom are waiting for me. Ready to continue judgingmylife andmyfailings, while also expecting me to help them sort out theirs.
I mutter an absent-minded response to him about howeveryone has their thingbut I’m too distracted by the traffic to say anything more. Maybe I should’ve had him drop me at a charge station after all. At least then, if I miss Liv, I could’ve just gone home.
“What’s your thing?” he asks. “Are you in school?”
“Just graduated,” is all I offer, as another minute slips away.
His smile deepens. “Oh, that’s dope. What’s your degree in?”
I shift in my seat at the turn the conversation’s taking and say only: “Education.”
I’m so not in the mood forget to know yous.
“That’s what’s up. Out there shaping the future.”
His genuine excitement about a career I have no interest in pursuing brings on a familiar stomach drop. Like being on a roller coaster, bottoming out. Because, no, I’m not going to be shaping “the future.” I don’t even know how I’m going to shape my own.
I know this is where I should be all,where’d you go to school, what’d you study, did you like it?But I can’t force any of it out past the tightness forming in my chest. I sink my teeth into my dread and my cheek. Wishing both the traffic and the conversation away.
When his words break though my thoughts once more, I very seriously consider how badly hurt I’d be if I tucked and rolled my way out of this.
“I did a few years at UConn, before…”
And I’m still biting my cheek to keep quiet, but I must not be biting down hard enough.
“Mm-hmm.” The sound comes out more deliberate and harsher than I’d meant for it to. Stalling the conversation cold.
“Sorry,” I say, hating myself a little more with each passing moment I’m in this truck. “My head’s just somewhere else.”
This time, there’s no question he gets the message, because all he says as he flips on his blinker to turn into the Speckled Pig lot is: “Understood.”
He doesn’t put the truck in park when he pulls up to the restaurant, but at this point, I’m just grateful he comes to a complete stop.
“Well, thanks for the ride,” I say, because I’m not a complete asshole. “And the tow.”
“No problem, Kaia. Have a good night.”
Those parting words play on repeat as I watch him drive out of sight. My name, a challenge he doesn’t explain.
No problem, Kaia.
But then I understand, and once I do, no walk has ever felt more shameful than the one I make to the bar’s entrance. Because, it never even occurred to me to ask his name.
Turns out, Iama complete asshole after all.
