10.
“He asked with the eyes more than the lips . . .”
—“LOVE AND A QUESTION,” 1913
By the time we finally hear an engine heading our way, the sun is high and the mud on our clothes is nearly dry, and I’m grimly resigned to the fact that I probably won’t be leaving my house for anything but school for the rest of the year. It doesn’t matter though. This turned out to be such a bad idea, I don’t even care.
And then I do care. Because when our rescue car rounds the turn, I can see it’s actually a silver Suburban—one that I know well. I look at Kat and shake my head without saying anything.
“What?” she asks innocently, but her smile says she knows exactly what.
“You called Trevor Collins to come get us?” I wipe at my face, try to smooth my mud-caked hair. “That’s your idea of a knight in shining armor?”
Kat just smiles, proud of herself, then shrugs. “Don’t be so surprised. Who did you think I was gonna call? I knew he’d come if I told him I was with you. Turns out I was right. Just like always.”
The Suburban stops, then does a three-point turn before backing up to Kat’s bumper. When Trevor gets out, it’s with a smug grin on his face, one that’s aimed right at me. “You could’ve just called me and said you wanted to hang out, Frost. No need to go to all this trouble.”
“Well, you know,” I say rubbing at a patch of mud on my forearm. “I figure when you’re up against such a long list of people vying for your attention, it’s better to take a different approach.”
“Took you long enough,” Kat says.
Trevor walks around to the back of his car and opens the door, leans in, and comes back out with a rope. “I would’ve come sooner if I’d known mochas and baristos were code for mud-wrestling.” He squats down to the truck and, with hands that look sure and strong, knots the rope around Kat’s bumper and then his own. Then without another word, he hops back in his car, hits the gas, and pops Kat’s truck out of the mud like it’s nothing.
Kat nudges me with her elbow. “He’s taking you home.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She smiles through her teeth, then hooks an arm through mine and drags me over to the bumpers, where Trevor is now untying the rope. “Yay, thank you!” She gushes. “We owe you big-time for that.” She pauses, and I realize a second too late I should’ve probably added something.
“It’s fine,” he smiles. “Any excuse to get out of sixth period.” He holds one end of the rope and quickly loops the rest of it around his elbow. “What were you guys doing out here, anyway?”
“Nothing,” I say, right at the same time Kat practically shoves me forward.
“Parker can tell you all about it on the way home. You don’t mind giving her a ride, do you?”
“Sure. No problem.” Trevor looks from Kat to me. “You ready?”
Kat smiles sweetly at me, and I’m left powerless against her.
“Um . . . let me just go get my bag.” And a little courage, and maybe a spritz of perfume and a mint or something. I’m sure I smell awesome after my mud bath.
When I get in, the inside of Trevor’s car does smell awesome. And it’s immaculate—not an empty gum wrapper or stray penny anywhere, which makes me all the more conscious of my muddy clothes sitting in the front seat. And of how close we are. And of how awkwardly quiet it is all of a sudden as we work our way back to the main highway. It’s easy to quip back and forth in the hall with Kat around, but alone together in his car is a different story. I am quipless. But he is too, it seems.
I clear my throat. “Thanks. That was really nice of you to drive all the way out there for us. We would’ve been stuck out there forever otherwise.”
“No problem.” He glances over at me. “So . . . do I get to know what you guys were doing out there?”
“I was looking for something.”
“Oh. That’s specific.”
“It was stupid. You don’t wanna know what it was.”
“No, now I don’t at all,” he says.
We drive in silence for thirty seconds that feels like it’s stretched out into thirty minutes. “Okay,” I say, unable to handle the quiet any longer. “You know Shane Cruz and Julianna Farnetti?”
“You mean them?” He points, and I look up in time to see the billboard coming up on the shoulder. I hadn’t thought of it for a long time before yesterday. I don’t think most people do anymore. That’s just how it goes with the things you see every day. Eventually they start to fade into the background. But now that her journal is in my backpack, and the snow has melted, their pictures are visible again beneath the foggy plexiglass. I see them in a whole new light.
“Yes, them,” I say. I keep my eyes on Julianna as we get closer, can’t take them off of her, actually. In my memory she’s older, and much more grown up than me. But in her senior picture on the billboard, she looks young, like she could be anyone in my class. And she could’ve. I’m the same age as she was when she died. The same age as she was when she wrote on those pages of the journal that’s sitting in my backpack on the floor of Trevor’s car right now. I keep my eyes on her even as we pass by, sad for her all of a sudden because I think again of that first line on that first page. The place where I’m at in life, that feels like the beginning of everything, was the end for her. For a moment it makes me sadder than it should.
“What about them?” Trevor asks, pulling me back.
“Oh—I, um, I heard somewhere that their initials are carved into one of the trees out there, and I wanted to go find them. I don’t know why. It’s stupid.”
Trevor shrugs. “It’s not that stupid. They’re kind of like cult figures around here. Town history. I get it.”
“I’ve never thought of them as cult figures, but I guess it’s true, in a way. I think because everyone remembers when they disappeared.” We pass the billboard and I watch the road. “My dad was on the search party that went out for them the day after they crashed, and I have this vivid memory of him coming home after. He was standing in the kitchen, telling my mom the whole thing about how they found the Jeep upside down at the bottom of the ravine near the river and how the bodies must’ve gotten swept right into Summit Lake. I didn’t know what bodies they were talking about until the next day, when everyone knew, and there was the candlelight vigil, and . . .” I realize the car has slowed way down and Trevor seems to be only half listening. “I’m sorry. You probably didn’t need to hear the entire story.” God, why can I not just have a normal conversation with him?
“No, it’s fine,” he says. “That’s the most you’ve ever said to me, so I was gonna let you keep going.” He smiles over at me. “I was just trying to figure out where you want me to take you. It’s still seventh period, so . . .” He looks me over, and I feel his eyes on every mud-covered inch of me. “You probably wanna go home though, right? To shower?”
“Yeah, that’d be good.” I pinch my crusty shirt away from my chest and a few flecks of mud fall off onto my legs. I see Trevor see them. “Oh, crap, I’m sorry. I’m totally getting your car dirty.”
He smirks, but doesn’t say anything.
“What?” I fight the urge to check the mirror. Do I still have dirt in my teeth? Mud stuck in my nose?
“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” His eyes slide over to me for a second before they bounce back to the road and he shakes his head. “I wasn’t looking at the mud, Frost.”