Sadie(43)

After an eternity, Cat says, “Maybe we should stop for a while.”

“Y-yeah,” I say, when I can finally unclench my teeth. I straighten the car and get us back on the right side of the road, facing the right direction.

We find a place to park about ten miles away and even if I don’t know how to handle a car when it skids, I’m at least smart enough to know not to park on the shoulder with my lights off. We end up next to a field that’s turning into a lake. Cat’s calmed some and she’s trying to explain to me what to do if I ever find myself in that kind of situation again and it’s pissing me off because I know. I know about easing on the brakes and turning with the swerve. I just didn’t remember it in the moment because it’s different in the moment. I close my eyes to her and she finally senses she’s pushing it because she says so: “I’m not helping.”

I open my eyes. “Yeah.”

She leans into her window, nose to glass.

“I wonder when it’ll stop.”

“D-dunno.”

“You can let go of the wheel, you know.”

I flush and uncurl my fingers from their death grip on the wheel and then I try to rub some life back into them. Cat leans forward and grabs her bag from the floor. She pulls out some of her things—a wet map, a roll of plastic bags and a swollen notebook and sets them on the dash. Says, “Might as well dry some of my shit out.”

I point at the notebook. “What’s th-that?”

“Journal.” She flashes a smile at me and then grabs it, flips it open and offers me the briefest glimpse. All I see is ink, a lot of it bleeding now. Some of the pages have scrap paper, tickets and other things taped to them.

“I keep records. Places I’ve been, people I’ve met. What I think of them.”

“What are y-you g-gonna p-put in there for me?”

“Haven’t decided yet.” She opens the book and lays it out on the dash, cover side up. “I’m a runaway, I guess. Been one for a couple of years now.”

“I can s-see it.”

“What’s it look like?”

I shrug. “Y-you.”

She smiles a small smile. She turns back to the window, looking out at the field. There’s a barn in the distance. It looks like it’s dissolving. I blink heavily, shake my head.

I say, “M-my sister ran away once.”

“Yeah?”

“J-just once.”

The skin prickles on the back of my neck and I glance over my shoulder just to make sure the backseat is empty.

“Little hell-raiser, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Teenagers.”

“She w-was an ingrate, actually,” I say. “Sh-she always p-pulled all k-kinds of shit. Never once c-cut me a break. She was always t-trying to get away from m-me.”

Being tired is worse than being drunk. Things you never wanted to say coming out of your mouth and you can’t stop it and by the time you realize you shouldn’t have said it, it’s too late. It feels like a betrayal. I want to take every word of it back, even if it’s true because I don’t talk about Mattie like this to anyone else. I might think it but you don’t talk about your family like that to anyone. I would die for Mattie, I want to say, because that’s the part I want Cat to know, if she has to know anything. Not all the times Mattie pissed me off because she was thirteen years old and that’s what thirteen-year-olds are supposed to do.

“Maybe you two can talk it out.”

“Don’t y-you have anyone?” I ask her, because I want something from her for everything of mine I didn’t mean to give her.

“What do you mean?”

“P-parents?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You like th-them?”

“They’re fine.”

“Th-then why r-run away?”

“Because it was the right thing to do.”

“Why?”

“My dad’s an asshole.”

“Y-you j-just said they were fine.”

“Yeah, well.” She laughs. “I don’t owe everybody my life’s story … then again, what are you gonna do with it? My dad’s a corporate asshole and I got tired of being his punching bag, that’s all. It got ugly. My mom picked the wrong side. Blah, blah.”

“Th-that’s sad,” I say and she shrugs. “I d-don’t have a dad.”

“No?”

“My m-mom had a lot of sh-shitty boyfriends.”

“At least that way you get breaks in between ’em.”

“N-not the way she slept around.”

“Respect, Sadie’s mom. A woman’s got needs.” Cat cackles. I don’t. She searches my face. “How many boyfriends? Who was the worst?”

I shrug.

“Come on.”

“—” I don’t owe anybody my life’s story but like she said, what’s she going to do with it? I keep one hand on the wheel and lift my hair from the back of my neck with the other, trying to feel out the cigarette scar. Once I have it, I tell Cat to look. I say, “Th-that one.”

“Shit. He just put it on you?”

“S-something l-like that.”

She reaches over, running her fingertip on the raised, puckered skin and leaves it there a long time. I shiver at that pinprick of warmth. It’s the only time I’ll ever like the way that scar feels.