Dead Ends (23 page)

I staggered backward, splashing through the street.

“What the—”

“You lied to me!”

“I didn't—”

“You said you would help me, but you lied. You're a liar!” Billy was still crying, but he sounded more angry than hurt.

I lifted my hands to my forehead, to shield my face from the rain. It was pointless.

“Where's the fire, man?”

“What?” Billy D. stopped raging for a second to give me a confused look.

“It means … what's the hurry? Let's figure this out—plan it. Maybe we can go next weekend or—”

“No. Tonight.”

“Billy D., what's the difference? If he's really there, he'll be there still in a few days—”

“What if
I
won't be here in a few days?” Billy stomped as he said it, throwing up a huge spray of water.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I might not be here,” he repeated.

“Is this about the cops? It's not like you're going to jail tomorrow or something—”

“I could
die
!” Billy exploded.

“You could
what
?”

“I have … I have …” Billy fidgeted, twisting his hands together and swaying back and forth. “I have a broken heart.”

I rolled my eyes. That was overdramatic, even for Billy.

“Dude,” I said, “I get that you're upset, but—”

“No! I have a
broken
heart.” He pointed to his chest. “I need a new one. Mine is broken, and I might die, Dane. I might
die
.”

I dropped my hands and let the full force of the wind and rain slap me across the face.

“You what?”

“I might die.”

“Die?” I echoed the word but didn't feel its meaning. It was a nonsense word—empty on my lips.

Billy nodded emphatically, little drops of rain flying off his head. He didn't seem upset about this bombshell—only excited that he'd maybe broken through to me.

“Yeah, so see, Dane? See? We have to go now.”

I shook my head, trying to understand what Billy had just said—or maybe trying to erase it.

“I think we should go inside and talk about—”

“No. We have to go.”

“Go where? Go
how
?” I thundered. The storm backed me up with a thunder roll of its own. “We don't have a ride! We don't even know how to get there!”

“Fine. Don't come. Liar.” Billy started to turn away, but I grabbed his elbow.

“I didn't say I wouldn't go. I just said let's go inside for a second.”

Billy's eyes grew as wide as possible. He looked up at me, his face all tears and raindrops. “You'll go with me?”

“Yeah, fine. Fine!” I shouted, dragging him back toward my house. “I'll go with you, okay?”

I must be out of my damn mind.

It always came down to the wheels. Ever since I'd turned sixteen, my whole life had been divided into car or no car, drive to school or walk, get a ride to the party or take the bus. You could either afford a car or you couldn't, and Billy and I definitely fell into the second category.

I convinced him not to call Seely. I knew she wouldn't go for it, and on top of that—she'd probably tell on us.

Hell,
I
should probably tell on us.

But I knew I couldn't stall Billy long enough for our moms to get home. He'd already stomped off into the night once. If I tried to keep him in the house much longer, he'd have a fit, and then he'd be gone. Who knew what he'd do—where he'd go? The kid could catch a bus; that much I knew. I tried to imagine Billy sharing the bus with the thugs who rode it down
to the park at night. We'd seen them show up a few times, when we'd stayed and sparred a little too late. They were bigger and tougher than the boys Billy had run into in the park during the day. He definitely couldn't take them if they messed with him, and on a bus there was nowhere to run.

“We can't take my mom's car,” I said, pacing the kitchen. “She won't be home with it for hours, and then she'll be here and know something's up. We'll never get out of here.”

Billy sat at the kitchen table, his chubby hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate. It was all I could think to give him to calm him down for a second so I could think. Mostly I'd tried to think of ways to get out of this, but short of tying Billy to a chair, I couldn't come up with a way to stop him from going. And I wasn't letting him go anywhere without me.

“I have a car,” Billy said quietly. “I know where Mom keeps the keys.”

A low roll of thunder rattled the windows, but it was much tamer than before.

I stopped pacing and leaned on the back of a chair. “Oh yeah, Billy? And how do you think we're going to steal your mom's car without her knowing?”

“She won't know, because she's not home. She's on a
date
.” Billy spit out the last word like it tasted bad.

I sat in the chair across from Billy. “A date?”

“Yeah. She said she was going to a movie with a friend. But it was that guy—the one we saw before—and he picked her up in his car, just like boys pick up girls in the movies, so I know it's a date.”

I sighed and put my head in my hands. “Dude, is that what this is about? That your mom is on a date?”

“No!” Billy jerked, causing some hot chocolate to splash out of his mug. “I told you. It's because of my heart.”

There it was again—the heart thing. I had already asked Billy more about it, but he blew me off with vague statements about kids with Down syndrome and holes in the heart. A heart with holes in it sounded pretty fucking serious to me, but Billy was too impatient to get on the road to answer my questions. When he stood up and threatened to leave again, I stopped asking.

I didn't know anything about hearts or Down, but I had seen Billy work himself breathless in our fight sessions and get so fired up about something, his whole head turned red. And yet he lived. So I just couldn't process this new information. I couldn't figure out why the trip couldn't wait a week. Billy didn't look any more likely to die before next Saturday than he did
last
Saturday.

But Billy seemed to believe it—believed it enough to go stomping out into a storm in the middle of the night to find his dad before that broken heart exploded or whatever. I had a feeling if I didn't go with him he'd
walk
to Kentucky if he had to. I thought of what little old ladies said about “catching your death of cold,” and I shivered. If there was any chance Billy was right about his short life span, the least I could do is make sure he had a ride.

“Fine, we take your mom's car. But what about money?”

It always came down to money, too.

“I have my emergency credit card,” Billy said.

I shook my head. “Credit cards can be traced. Haven't those lame crime shows you watch taught you anything? We need
cash
.”

“Why?”

I pounded the table. “We need gas; we need food; shit, we probably need a hotel, because there's no way we're finding your dad before morning.”

Billy pushed his mug aside. “Can we just go now?”

“And then we'll probably need money to bail my mom out of jail when she tries to
kill
me. …”

“Dane!” Billy snapped me out of it.

I stared hard at Billy, trying to come up with an answer for him. Then my eyes slid above his head and landed on the answer—right in front of me the whole time. I let out a long breath, resolved.

“You get the keys, Billy D. I've got the money.”

• • • X • • •

As soon as Billy was out the door, I stood in front of the wall of lottery tickets, summoning courage. Mom and I were about as close as a mom and a son could get, but her temper was something to be feared. And this thing I was about to do—this betrayal—would blow the lid off that volcano. It might even be unforgivable.

My hand reached for the largest frame—the king of all kitchen lotto tickets—five thousand dollars, but I froze halfway there. How was I going to redeem a ticket that big on a Sunday
night? Even if a lottery office was open, I had to be eighteen to cash it in, and I doubted the fake ID stuffed in the bottom of my underwear drawer would be convincing. I needed to redeem the ticket somewhere they'd only glance at the fake license—or better yet, not even card me.

My eyes crawled over the other tickets on the wall—a hundred here, fifty there. I could cash in those smaller winners at a gas station, and maybe taking those but leaving the golden ticket would give Mom some room to forgive me.

I hesitated only a minute before pulling five tickets free. I left the empty frames on the table next to a hastily scrawled note.

Don't panic. Weren't robbed.
Took tickets. With Billy D.
Explain later. —Dane

It wasn't much, but it was all I had time for.

• • • X • • •

Billy knew how to start the car, and he had it all warmed up when I hopped into the driver's seat.

I fiddled with the headlights and windshield wipers, which we barely needed now, the rain had let up so much. I adjusted my seat and the mirrors, feeling my way all around the car.

“Atlas?” I asked.

“Got it.” Billy held up the big blue book with the shredded lining. Man, how I wished I had never picked that scab.

“Snacks?”

Billy produced a grocery bag full of goodies.

“Drinks?”

He dropped a bottle of diet green tea in the cup holder next to me.

I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

“That's all we had.” Billy gave an apologetic shrug.

“It's okay. We'll restock on the road.”

There, behind the wheel, with the warm car vibrating under my feet, a friend in the passenger seat, a bag of road-trip food, and full control of the radio, I forgot for a moment where we were going or why. I just felt the total freedom of having wheels.

• • • X • • •

The rainstorm had left the night cool, but I was still sweating under my jacket as we pulled up to the first gas station. What if this didn't work? I'd had the fake ID for years, thanks to a guy from the alternative school who sold them on the cheap, but I'd only ever needed it twice—once to get into a bar where Marjorie knew the bouncer anyway and once to buy a case of beer from a liquor store clerk who was half asleep.

“This might be a bad idea,” I said, more to myself than to Billy.

“Why?”

“Because it looks suspicious, cashing in a lot of tickets at one time. They'll think I stole them, or maybe they'll look closer at my ID or—I don't know. Shit.” I rubbed a hand over my face.

Billy thought for a moment.

“Why can't you cash in one ticket at a lot of places?” It was so innocent the way he said it. He was just anxious to leave—to
say anything to keep me from changing my mind—and he didn't even realize he'd hit on something brilliant.

I gripped his shoulder. “You're a genius!”

Billy's face cracked open in a grin. “I know.”

My hands were shaking a little as I passed the first ticket to the first clerk, but by the time we hit the third gas station, I felt like a pro. I even cashed one in at the Buy & Bag customer-service counter, just to change things up. I only got carded once, and the ID did its job.

I used the last ticket to fill up the gas tank and buy us some better drinks; then I counted up our spoils—more than three hundred dollars.

Billy watched me stuff the bills into the glove compartment, and for the first time, when he spoke, he sounded less than excited.

“Will your mom be mad?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Because it's stealing?”

I shook my head. “It's different when you steal from family.”

“Why?”

I laughed, but it was a grumpy, uncertain laugh.

“Because your family probably won't press charges.”

Billy bit his lip.

“Anyway,” I said. “It's done. No turning back.”

Even as I said it, I somehow knew it was true. It was time to make good on my promise. Even if Billy's dad wasn't waiting for him in Kentucky, I could still say I helped—still took him as far down this path as it could go. So we turned off our cell phones to avoid the inevitable calls and hit the road.

It was after eight o'clock by the time we got on the freeway, but at least the rain had stopped, replaced by the sweet smell of wet grass. We rolled down the windows and flew through the dark, leaving Columbia, Missouri, and all my doubts behind.

Billy hung his head out the window for a while, looking as free as I felt.

When he finally settled back in his seat, he couldn't stop talking about Monkey's Eyebrow and his dad and how sure he was that this was right.

“And after we find my dad,” he said, “we'll come back and find yours.”

I leaned into the wheel, peering through the windshield at the long, dark road ahead.

“You know what, Billy D.? I'm not sure if dads are really worth all this trouble.”

“Is it an animal?” Billy asked.

“No, it's not an animal.”

“Is it a vegetable?”

“No, not a vegetable.”

“Is it bigger than a bread box?”

“What the fuck is a bread box?”

Billy shrugged. “I don't know. That's what my mom always asks. She says it's this big.” He made a square with his hands.

“Yeah, it's bigger than that,” I said.

“Is it bigger than an elephant?”

This game was getting old. The pure thrill of rolling down the open road with the radio blasting and the engine roaring had worn off after about an hour. Now Billy was trying to keep me entertained by pulling out every road game his mom had
taught him on their trip from Oregon to Missouri. It made me want to fall asleep at the wheel. At least a car crash would be more exciting than playing Twenty Questions.