Falling Stars (5 page)

“I don’t know if she’ll ever be nice to me again, Sean.”

“Why not?”

So I told him, starting from the moment I realized she was on the phone with him three times a day for the two weeks leading up to our departure, the moment that arrogant prick Preston Reeve started hitting on Julia right in front of my eyes on the way from the airport in Vegas, the way they crowded close together during their
multiple
meetings at the stadium.
 

“Julia would never cheat on you.”
 

“That’s not the point,” I replied.
 
“He’s a total player. She let him just…hang all over her.”

The sun was fully over the horizon now, the sky a beautiful bright blue.
 

“Truck coming,” Sean said.

Thank God.

I stepped to the side of the road. The truck was coming up behind us, a large one, and I could hear the whine of its diesel engine as it got closer and closer. I waved my arms. Even if the truck was only going part of the way to the gas station, it would be a huge help. This was taking forever. For a second, I thought the truck was going to slow down. As it got larger and larger, closer and closer, I saw a look of alarm pass across the faces of the two men in the cab. The driver had short cropped hair and blue eyes, and sneered at me. Then they accelerated, the truck tossing dust and gravel on us as it passed.

“Huh,” I said.

“Why wouldn’t they stop?” Sean asked.

“I thought they were going to,” I responded. But then I looked down at my combat boots, spiked leather jacket and torn up t-shirt. I knew why they hadn’t stopped.

My fault.

We continued on.
 
A few minutes later, Sean spoke again. “I still don’t think you make any sense about Julia. You said you know she wouldn’t cheat on you. So why were you angry?”

“Jesus, Sean. Will you drop it?”

“No.”

I rolled my eyes.
 
“Because he was like a giant dick walking around in a suit. I couldn’t breathe near him without smelling racquetball and polo shirts and expensive cologne. That guy…he’s all fucking success and WASP and shit.”

Sean raised an eyebrow. “We’re so much cooler than that.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

I shook my head. “Sean…don’t you think he’s more her type? I mean, he went to Harvard, for Christ’s sake!”

“Did she say that?”

“No!” I scoffed. She didn’t have to. “Just… Just leave it alone, all right?”

“Crank, why would I leave it alone? She’s my friend. You love her. I love her. Mom and Dad love her.”

“But she doesn’t love me anymore, Sean.”

“Why
not?”

I shook my head. Frustrated. Angry. And from the looks of it, we still had something like eighteen miles to go.
 
“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh yeah? Would that be because I have Asperger’s, Crank? Because if it is, you can shove it up your ass.”

I stopped, stunned.
 
“What?”

“You heard me. I am so sick of you treating me like I’m broken somehow.”

“Sean, you’re not broken.”

“Then stop talking to me like I am! I
do
understand. I understand that you’re messing up my relationship with my best friend.”

I exhaled, loudly.
 
Then I started walking again.
 
Then I replied.
 
“She doesn’t love me anymore because I hurt her, Sean. I got jealous and acted like an idiot. I broke her heart.”

Sean was silent.
 
For several minutes, the only sound was our footsteps on the gravel of the shoulder and the occasional gust of wind blowing through the scrub on either side. My mind kept turning back to that night, two weeks into the tour, when I looked up and saw her disappointed face. The night when I’d been so fucking angry with her because all she wanted to do was hang out with
Preston.
The night when she turned around and walked out without a word. The only words I could think of were
forgive me.
And I didn’t say them, even though I felt them.

Apparently Sean had been mulling over my words too, because one moment I was walking and the next I was sitting on my ass beside the road, and the split second in between, I was being knocked down by Sean’s fist. I didn’t even see it coming. A little cloud of dust rose around me.
 

“What the
fuck
, Sean?”

He stood above me, pointing a finger from his shaking fist.
 
“You hurt her? What did you
do?!
”

I was too busy holding my hand over my now bleeding nose to answer him.

“What did you do?” he repeated.

“I kissed a groupie.”

Sean let out a cry. Then he kicked gravel at me.
 

“Fuck!” I muttered.

He stood there, shaking, looking down at me with contempt and disappointment. He kicked rocks and dust at me one more time, then turned and walked away.

I slumped. Of course there was more to the story than that. There always was. But did the
more to the story
really matter? I didn’t think so.
 

So I scrambled to my feet and tried to catch up with my brother, who’d already moved far down the road.

I
don’t know how far they had to go
to get the gas, but it took forever. Carrie and I sat on the hood of the car, and despite the fact that we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, I was as relaxed as I’d been in a very long time. Carrie and I didn’t see each other often and it was great to get a chance to catch up. Whatever the circumstances.
 

So we spent the morning chatting. Laughing. I told her the story of Preston and Crank and our screwed up tour, and the first word out of my sister’s mouth was “Fucker.” Because that’s what sisters are for. For the first time in two months, I felt a release of stress; a lack of pressure. I felt light and happy. I
laughed.
I’d been doing precious little laughing lately.
 

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

Anyway, a couple hours later, I guess, a truck pulled off the road just ahead of us, and Crank and Sean climbed out of the back. It was instantly obvious that something was wrong. Sean was stiff…well, stiffer than usual. He wouldn’t look at Crank, and he walked back toward the car without a pause.
 

Crank came behind him. He looked tired and his nose was swollen and red like he’d been punched. My first reaction was to ask him what was wrong; I didn’t like seeing him unhappy.
 
My second reaction was to tell him to go fuck off.
 

I pondered my options and decided on a middle ground.
 
I sat down in the driver’s seat, without a word, while he poured the gas into the tank. Carrie got in the front seat beside me, which meant the guys could just suck it up in the back.

Crank raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word; he just climbed in the back seat and I cranked the engine and swung the car into a wide U-turn, raising a cloud of dust.

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled to a stop next to the gas pumps. “This is the station that was closed last night?” I asked.

Crank nodded. He climbed out, his back straight and angry, and pumped the gas. We all got coffee and snacks, used the restroom, and brushed our teeth, which made it a long stop, but finally, at near enough to eleven in the morning, we were on the road and on our way.

“You came from that direction?” I asked, pointing.
 
“From the highway?”

Crank nodded. I put the car in gear and took off, staying at a careful 55 mph, unlike my maniac boyfriend who religiously stayed 25 miles above the limit.

“I’ve been wanting to get my hands on that sound system,” Carrie said, leaning forward and turning on the stereo. She quickly scanned through the stations, finally settling on a Top 40 mix that would have Crank seething. Beyonce and Jay-Z came on the radio singing
Crazy in Love
.
 

“Um…” Crank winced as he spoke.

“I love this song!” Carrie shouted, a grin on her face.
 
I winked at her and she smiled and started to shake her shoulders with the music.
 

“Is that really—” Crank started to say again.

I reached over and turned the radio up and started singing along.
 

A glance in the rearview mirror showed an irritated Crank leaning against the sidewall, clutching a pillow on top of this head. Sean ignored the music, steadily reading his book about the top tourist sites in America.
 

Carrie raised her arms in the air, throwing her head back and singing along. Her long neck and thin arms were exposed, her skin pale, almost white.
 
My breath caught for just a second watching my baby sister, finally on her way to college, as a smile spread across her face.
 

She gave me a sly look when the song switched to 50 Cent. That was well beyond my taste too, but what the hell. I started beating my hands on the wheel as she tapped on the dashboard, and we both burst into laughter.

If I could have frozen that moment with my sister, I would have.
 

As it was, we just kept rolling.
 
Two minutes later, I saw the entrance to the highway.

Crank leaned in between the front seats. “I promise to be nice. Can I drive?”

I raised an eyebrow and looked at Carrie. She shrugged. I shrugged back, then pulled the car over. Crank launched himself over the side, landing in the gravel beside the car. Carrie started to stir, but I shook my head and climbed into the back seat.

“May I?” Crank asked Carrie politely as he climbed in the driver’s seat. He gestured to the stereo; I tried to stifle a smirk.

“Be my guest!” she said, grinning.

Thirty seconds later, the sounds of Natasha Atlas’s
Lelsama
filled the car. Hard not to dance along with that one. And honestly I wasn’t even sure what the point of all my anger and needling of Crank was. My emotions shifted suddenly from the elation I’d felt goofing off with Carrie to abrupt sadness. I loved Crank. Whenever I thought of the night I saw that kiss, I felt a gaping hole in my chest that I didn’t think I had enough tears to fill.
 
The wave of…grief—yes, it was grief—hit me so suddenly all I could do was curl up, my head on the pillow, and close my eyes.

I felt the car moving underneath me as Crank pulled out again, but I kept my eyes tightly closed. Sean was next to me in the back seat, but busy reading. Thank God. I didn’t want him to talk to me right now.

I didn’t want to feel this way. I didn’t want to be sad anymore. I didn’t want to feel this aching, dull pain in my chest every time I looked at Crank, but I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t know how to stop the tears and I didn’t know how to stop the pain.

“You really should consider slowing down,” Sean said. “Can I tell you something? Did you know that the Transport Research Library reports that for every kilometer per hour increase in speed, the accident risk increases three percent?”

“I know you’re pissing me off,” Crank replied.

“Not just that,” Sean continued.
 
“At higher speeds, injury is much more severe. When collision speed increases, the amount of kinetic energy acting on the body increases until the risk of severe injury or fatality becomes even more acute.”

“What the fuck, Sean?”

“I think he’s trying to say you’re making him nervous by driving so fast, Crank,” Carrie commented in a calm, temporizing tone.

Crank didn’t answer, but I felt the Mustang slow a little.
 
And then I felt even more confused, because it shouldn’t have taken my sister saying something to get Crank to watch out for his brother. That always came naturally.
 
Lately I felt like I didn’t even know him.

Whatever. I needed to stop worrying about it. I needed to stop thinking about it.
 

“Um… Crank?
What is that?”
 
Carrie’s voice was sharp, anxious, and my eyes snapped open.

“What’s what?” he retorted.
 

Carrie didn’t respond in words. Her sudden scream was piercing; terror shot down my spine. I sat up, just as Crank yelled, at the top of his lungs, “Oh, holy flying Jesus, what the fuck?”

The car swerved as Crank let out another shout and Carrie shrieked.
 

“Please try to maintain control of the car!” Sean shouted.
 

“Carrie, what’s wrong?” I asked.

Her face was pale, her mouth open and eyes wide. She crammed herself as tight against the door of the car as she could possibly go, and pointed.

My eyes followed her finger to the impossible sight of a gigantic, hairy, enormous spider crawling up the face of the center console. Crank continued to scream, the car weaving all over the place. Tires screeched behind us somewhere, and then I heard the sound of a siren.

“Crank, stop the car!” I screamed.