Side Trip(94)

The song ends and Dylan whispers, “I love you, Joy.”

“I love you, too,” she whispers back. She’ll treasure the ten days she had with Dylan, but there isn’t anything left for her in Ludlow. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she buckles her seat belt and reverses from her parking slot. But before she merges onto the highway, she stops. A sad smile curves her lips.

Rooting through her purse, Joy gets out the Joyride CD. She inserts the disc and dials up the volume. Trace’s voice fills the car and her smile broadens. Turning west, Joy merges onto the highway, back to the California coast, and chases the sunset.





CHAPTER 33





NOW


Joy





JFK


A strange phenomenon occurs when the body is in peril, when the brain continues to function as other parts freeze up or fail. A person’s life flashes before her eyes. The events don’t always play back chronologically, but they are the more emotional moments experienced during a lifetime. These memory markers play in review in full color and explicit detail, and they elicit every emotion that was previously experienced in real time. It feels like an eternity when it happens but, in actuality, is over and done with in a matter of seconds.

On the day her sister died, at the instant Joy swerved the Plymouth to avoid the oncoming car and drove off the highway, Joy’s life flashed before her eyes.

She tasted the Kermit-green Popsicle Taryn shared with her the day they met. She felt Judy’s silliness when she made it fun to eat broccoli. She felt her parents’ frustration when she rebelled against the rules. She also tasted her own fear as she sat behind the wheel of Judy’s car, scared witless to drive, but more afraid of her punishment should they not get home before their parents.

Joy isn’t in a life-threatening situation and she didn’t have a near-death experience. But her life flashed before her eyes again when Dylan walked into the airport terminal and the glass doors closed behind him. Only this time she didn’t see her past. She saw her future: her wedding with Mark, their anniversaries, and the miscarriages that would follow. She saw years of heartache and unhappiness because she’d been determined to fulfill Judy’s goals and live out her sister’s dreams before her own. And she saw Dylan, the pain of his demise palpable.

Joy didn’t like anything she saw.

I don’t want that life.

With the scenes still at the forefront of her mind, Joy trembles with emotion from events that have yet to happen. Her knees almost buckle onto the concrete sidewalk outside the airport terminal because that future feels so real.

In the first vignette that flashed in her head, she’d seen herself getting into her car and driving away from JFK. Dylan had just left for his flight to London, and she already desperately missed him, regretting the decision she’d made. Hating the deal they’d struck in the heat of the moment—meet at the diner in ten years—a deal she suspects will affect every decision she makes going forward. It will ripple through her future, wreaking havoc with her relationships, influencing her choices because she will never learn to let go of the past until it’s too late.

Joy fists her hands, willing her body to stop shaking. Determination and resolve flow through her veins, igniting a fresh fire. No more regrets. No more overanalyzing the past. No more living someone else’s life.

She needs to live her best life.

She doesn’t want to move to New York. She doesn’t want to work in a lab making products she doesn’t believe in. And while she loves Mark, he’ll make a fabulous husband and devoted father to a wonderful woman who’ll love him back in kind. That woman isn’t her.

Joy’s best life is back in California. And the person she wants in that life just walked out of it.

Do something spontaneous.

The last item on Judy’s Route 66 Bucket List rips through her head.

She isn’t on Route 66, but right now, Joy couldn’t care less.

Her car is running. Both doors are wide open. She forgets all that and everything else but finding Dylan. A shrill whistle blows behind her. She ignores it and bolts into the terminal.

Boarding announcements blare through the speakers overhead. People move about, talking on their phones, tugging their roller luggage. A baby cries. Another child screams shrilly. He wants to go home.

So does Joy. But not until she finds Dylan.

She runs to the security line and shouts his name. She calls for him again, and again.

“Yo!” a guy in a black leather jacket shouts. He waves at her. “I’m Dylan.”

She spares him a glance. Not the Dylan she’s looking for.

She turns a full circle, eyes scanning, chest heaving. Has he made it to his gate? Is she too late?

Impossible. The security line is too long to make it through that fast, and they agreed to their last deal no more than five minutes ago.

He already has his boarding pass. Where is he? She’s buzzing with so much nervous energy that she can’t think straight. Think, think, think. Baggage check-in! His duffel is too big for a carry-on. Same with his guitar.

Joy sprints to the British Airways aisle. She hollers his name as she runs down the aisle, passing one check-in line after another. Damn, this airport is busy. Where is he? He couldn’t have gone far.

“Dylan!” she shouts his name.

“Joy?”