How to Save a Life(61)

The sun had just pulled itself completely over the flat horizon, and there was nothing to see on all sides but miles of flat land, sparsely dotted with greenery. Evan drove the truck on the mostly-empty road, its engine the only sound for a long stretch. The silence felt as heavy as the heat. I started to make a comment about how hot it was already, then bit off a curse instead.

Evan glanced at me. “You okay?”

“I don’t want to make small talk with you.”

He grinned. “Then don’t.”

“My catalog of topics is pretty limited, and none of them good.”

“What happened after that night I was arrested? Did you graduate? I think you told me you did in your letters.”

“Yeah, I did,” I said. “It was a minor miracle, given all the shit that went down. But my English teacher had mercy on me, I guess. I wrote a poem and…”

My skin suddenly flushed red, and a strange combo of grief and longing flooded me, remembering “I Never Told You.”

I took back my words, and turned my head to the flat vistas around us.

“Yeah? What was the poem about?” Evan asked after a minute.

“Nothing.” Jesus, I was too flustered to even lie. “So, uh, do you still hold your breath?”

Smooth, Josephine. Real smooth.

But Evan broke out in a laugh. “Yeah, I do. Not underwater. No pools in prison, but I had lots of time to kill in my cell, to say the least.”

“How long?”

“Almost six minutes.”

My eyes widened. “No shit?”

“No shit.”

“That’s…really long.”

“It’s okay.”

I frowned. “How long does it need to be?”

“Eleven minutes,” he said, deadly serious, eyes forward.

“That was a rhetorical question.”

He shrugged. “That’s the actual answer.”

I stared at him a minute more, then laughed. “Weirdo.”

Evan laughed too, and shook his head. “I missed you, Jo.”

My laughter died a swift death, as my heart kicked it into high gear. “I missed you too,” I said faintly.

Evan was shaking his head. “No, that’s not right. I more than missed you. I felt like a piece of myself broke off and I’ve been spending the last four years trying to get used to living without it. Like a phantom limb, you hear about. It’s gone, but you can still feel it, and feeling it just makes you want it back more and more.”

I looked away, shame coloring my skin now. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay in touch. I tried…”

“Don’t do that, Jo,” Evan said, his blue eyes like hard chips of glass. “It’s not your fault.”

“Isn’t it? It just was all so f*cked up, how they treated you. And what Shane said to put you away…” I shook my head, my hand balling into fist. “I couldn’t do a damn thing. No one would listen to me.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

“Not remotely. But I tried. I really did. But life…just got in the way. It sounds like a pathetic excuse, but it’s true.”

“What happened?” Evan asked quietly.

“After your sentencing, Gerry told me wasn’t going to cut me loose after all. I was a mess. I guess he felt sorry for me, or was worried about me.”

“I remember that from your letters,” Evan said. “I was so glad to hear you weren’t on your own.”

“For a glorious six months. But then Gerry died. Pulmonary embolism. Too much sitting and too much trucker food. After that, I…struggled.” I fixed my gaze on the flat horizon, plucked a thread on the hem of my t-shirt. “I was homeless for a while, living out of my car. This was in Arkansas, now.”

“You were homeless?”

“That’s why my letters stopped. I didn’t have an address. Or if I did, it didn’t last. I wound up heading south, met Lee, and the rest, as they say, is history.” I smirked. “Or a true crime story. One of the two.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry, Jo.”

“For what?” I asked bitterly. “I made a mess of my life, and it was already f*cked up to begin with.”

“I wasn’t there for you. I should have been there for you.”

“I should have been there for you. We were…torn apart.”

He looked about to reply, but stopped short, his eyes narrowing at a sign coming up: Exit 51 77N toward Turner Falls Area.

And below that, Davis, Oklahoma, pop. 2743

We’d crossed into Oklahoma, steady on the 35N, but now Evan took that exit, heading east.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Uh, Davis,” Evan replied after a minute. “Are you hungry? Let’s get some breakfast.”

“Sure,” I said slowly.

It was true, I could eat, but that’s not why Evan had veered off the 35. Whatever inner compass guided him had changed our course. I was sure of it.





We stopped at the Boomerang Diner. I ordered the Big Ham Country Breakfast: eggs, hash browns, biscuits and gravy, a side of fruit and coffee. And I ate the whole damn thing. Apparently, being a fugitive from the law did wonders for the appetite. Food tasted good again. Diner coffee tasted as a million times better than the swill at Lee and Patty’s diner. Even the pale, unripe honeydew tasted amazing.