The Reckless Oath We Made(92)

Throwing things out should have felt like I was lightening the load, but nothing could do that. I was pretty sure I would be carrying the feeling of leaving Gentry and Edrard behind for the rest of fucking forever.

We didn’t stop until the big truck stop north of Smithville. I cleaned up there, and bought new clothes to replace Dirk’s bloody ones. Cheap sweatpants and a truck-stop GOD BLESS AMERICA JESUS T-shirt.

“What happened?” I said, while he changed in the parking lot. I didn’t want to know, but I had to. It was my doing.

“I was down by the road, keeping watch like Gentry said, and that guy came at me.”

“Did you shoot first or did he?”

“It happened so damn fast, I don’t know,” Dirk said. “He was shooting at me, I was shooting at him, and then he didn’t shoot back. That’s how I knew I’d killed him. I never killed nobody before.”

“Did you shoot the other guy? At the trucks?”

“Yeah, but it was too late. He’d already shot Edrard before I got there.”

I didn’t ask anything else, because Dirk sniffled like he was trying not to cry.

We cut across the northwest corner of Arkansas, through a town called Siloam Springs, heading back toward Missouri. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning, and Dirk was asleep beside me, when I saw the sign: GENTRY 9 MILES.

I would have driven a hundred miles out of my way to avoid passing through a town called Gentry, if I’d known it was there, but I was driving without a map. I didn’t know where to turn off, and I didn’t dare turn back.

Nine miles later: GENTRY CITY LIMITS.

I felt so shaky I pulled off into the parking lot of a grocery store on the main street of Gentry, Arkansas. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel, trying to convince myself that raw feeling behind my eyes was just tiredness. Only sleep couldn’t undo the horrible, stupid thing I’d talked Gentry into doing. That was all I could think of: Gentry surrounded by cops, with a bullet in his leg, and covered in Edrard’s blood.

After ten minutes, I got back on the road. Half an hour further, I stopped for gas and bought a tub of disinfectant wipes. While the tank filled, I wiped down the inside of the truck, trying to get rid of any physical evidence of the horrible, stupid thing.

By the time we pulled up to the motel, I knew what to do. Dirk would get in his truck and go home. I would go into the room, pack up anything we’d left, and wipe everything down. Part of that was paranoia, but the cops were going to come around, and the less there was for them to find, the better.

In the daylight, Dirk’s wound looked a lot worse, scabbed in black and deeper than I’d thought.

“Fucked if I’m going to the hospital,” he said. “That’s how you get arrested.”

“Why don’t you go home, and after I pack up, I’ll bring some bandages and stuff out to the house?”

Dirk nodded and opened the truck door, but didn’t get out. After a minute, he said, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out how we figured.”

“Me, too.”

As he walked across to his truck, he held his left arm close to his body, so I knew it must hurt.

I braced myself for how I’d feel when I saw Gentry and Edrard’s stuff, but I’d forgotten one big thing. I didn’t brace myself at all for the possibility that when I opened the motel room door, I would hear the shower running. Rhys was still there, because we’d left him there. Because Edrard was his ride home. If I’d had anything in my stomach, I would have puked it up right there. Not that it would have been a new experience for that motel carpet. I’d thought I would have ten or fifteen minutes to be alone and lose my shit, but now I was going to have to deal with Rhys.

He’d slept in the bed closest to the bathroom, the one I’d slept in the night before. Gentry had pulled the bedspread up over the pillows on the other bed. His big rucksack was propped against the headboard, with all of our phones zipped into the side pocket. I needed to start making phone calls, but first, I peeled back the bedspread and leaned down to sniff the pillow. Of course, it didn’t smell woodsy like Gentry, because he’d barely slept there the night before. It didn’t even smell like sex, even though we’d used that bed. Like all motel sheets, it smelled like bleach.

I unzipped the pocket and took out our phones. Dirk’s I stuck in my back pocket, still powered off. I turned mine on and waited for it to catch up. A few texts: Julia at the restaurant, a few people I sold to, Toby, who said, You didn’t go and do something stupid did you, Red? There were voicemails from Emma and Mom’s doctor, but I didn’t listen to them.

When I looked at Gentry’s phone, I almost cried. His home screen picture was of him and Trang and Edrard in armor. He was so trusting he didn’t even have a passcode to keep anyone out. There were two missed calls, both from his parents’ house the night before, and texts from Trang and Carlees, checking on him.

I left those, but I deleted his text threads with Rhys and Edrard. I knew the cops could find out when texts were sent, but maybe not what was in them, and the texts with Rhys and Edrard had just a little too much information. Even in Gentry’s phone I was Lady Zhorzha Trego, and I didn’t only delete the text thread between us, I deleted myself.

I knew I ought to call Charlene—I owed her that—but when I scrolled through RECENT CALLS, it was Carlees’ number that I hit. Carlees, who had smoked pot with Gentry when they were teenagers. Carlees, whose last text to Gentry was Bruh how mad is Mom?