Page 56 of Doomsdate

I stand back, chest crumpling in. “I wasn’t going to skewer you.”

“Yeah, well, excuse me for taking a blade aimed at my throat as evidence to the contrary.” His mouth forms a thin, grim line. “If all it takes is a few minutes of you misunderstanding to turn on me, I’m the one who’s been wrong to trust you.”

My mouth opens and closes, but no words are forthcoming. Am I the untrustworthy person here? I think back to the last twenty-four hours. The inconsistency, the wild swings of my own behavior, my feelings, the very real machete I was pointing at him very seriously a few minutes ago.

I am untrustworthy. I look up as Everett stomps inside. “I’m really sorry!” When he doesn’t turn around, I yell tentatively, “Where are you going now?”

“To get Chicken, who I’d also never abandon.”

Oh.

The drive to D.C. is filled with an awkward, heavy silence. I grimace at the barren highway ahead, alternating between bursts of righteous indignation and feeling like a total ass. Empirically, people are awful, and I don’t trust them as a rule—why should Everett be any different? Just because he’s kind and funny and thoughtful and a very proficient sex professor doesn’t mean he gets a free pass straight to Trust Town.

My eyes flicker over to Everett’s face, sadder and more serious now than it’s been since we saw Sandeep zombified in the window. Okay, so he didn’t try to steal my car. My bad. Was it so crazy to think that he might? The sharp little thought knifes me again, just like it has ever since I saw his empty room this morning.

He wants to get away from me.

That was all I could think when I saw him there, in my driver’s seat, the car all packed and ready to go. I’ve scared him before. He’s run from me before. When I came after him with a machete, I didn’t mean to hurt him with my suspicions. It just seemed like he was already hurting me. Again. But after I discovered the truth, I did apologize. Because even if he’s dying to get away from me, he didn’t betray me, and he didn’t deserve to be treated like he had.

I wish I could take it all back.

Everett takes Chicken out of her carrier and holds her in his lap. When she crosses over to try and sit on mine instead, Everett sighs loudly and brings her back to his. I’m secretly glad for these last bits of her attention. I wasn’t lying to Gramps, I will miss Chicken. Probably not as much as I’ll miss Everett, but it’s close.

Oh, god. I’m going to miss them both a lot, aren’t I? More than a lot. We’re thirty miles from our exit, the clock ticking down the final minutes we have together, and my heart feels so swollen with regret, it’s about to burst.

“Listen, Everett, I…want to apologize again. For earlier.” My voice comes out rusty and thick, and I turn to wipe away the lone tear trickling down my cheek. Not that Everett will see. He won’t even look at me.

“It’s okay,” he says, the words now rote from how many times he’s said them. And yet once again, I don’t feel forgiven.

“Can we not spend our remaining time together like this?”

“Like what?” Everett peers out his window. “Like two people who don’t trust each other?”

“No. Like one person that doesn’t understand how the other person’s never had a friend in real life.”

“Just enemies, right?”

I give him a hard look. “You need to be patient with me, Everett. I spent the first twenty years of my life conditioned to believe that other people are threats to my existence and the last ten years trying to figure out when that’s actually true.” I swallow, hating the tightness in my throat. “I don’t have a lot of practice becoming someone’s friend. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to feel like, or how you know when you can trust someone.” I avert my eyes from him this time, not wanting him to see me like this.

Vulnerable, Mom whispers in my head, like a curse. Like a death sentence.

When I dare look his way, Everett’s watching me, his mouth dimpled into a soft, sad expression. “You scared me, Maisie.”

My eyes well up against my will. “I know. I’m sorry.”

He closes his eyes, as if seeing my tears hurts him even more. “Just—could you please explain what I did to make you think I’d ever betray you like that?”

I swipe at my eyes viciously with one hand, but the stupid tears won’t stop. “Well, you’ve run from me before, and I—I just thought you were, you know, desperate to get away from me again.”

Everett’s eyebrows pinch together as he realizes what I’m saying. “Desperate? Oh, Maisie, no. I wasn’t trying to get away from you.”

“That’s…what it seemed like.”

“Pull over.”

I do what he says without arguing, the tears falling harder now and making it too difficult to drive anyway. Once safely parked in the emergency lane, I turn the car off and squeeze my fingers around the steering wheel, hard.

He sighs and lifts his arms toward me, like a zombie.