Chapter 15

“YOU CUT YOUR HAIR.”

We’re halfway across the parking lot, and it’s apparently the first time Zahira noticed. But I guess I can’t blame her. She did spend all morning squinting and moping like being awake is the hardest thing in the world, and I did shove my cap over my hair the moment I was done with it.

She unlocks her car and says, “Why?”

“I just wanted to.” I crawl onto my seat with a shudder. It isn’t raining anymore, but the air still feels wet. And cold. It’s a cold that feels like it’s drilling into every pore in my skin. And my hoodie still isn’t dry. I guess that has something to do with it.

Zahira eyes me as she pulls on her seatbelt. “Don’t you have a jacket?”

“I lost it.” That’s not true. Shoving it in the trash was very purposeful. I couldn’t keep wearing it. People might have questions about the hole and the burns and the…everything.

“Are you cold?”

I’m very obviously shivering, but I say, “I’m fine.”

Zahira squints in a way that says I don’t believe you as she starts up the engine. The soft rock station blares on. In the engine’s rumble, there’s a weird gurgling. I can’t remember if it was there last night. It might have been. I was too busy failing to stay awake to notice. I didn’t realize just how old the car was last night, either, but that one’s not on me. It was all dark and rainy and I couldn’t see very well. But now that it’s daytime, I can the rust on the edges of the engine hood, and the grimy cloudiness of the side mirrors, and the soggy leaves stuck at the bottom of the windshield, and the bald spots in the pink paint. When we clip the curb on the way out of the parking lot, the gurgling gets conspicuously worse.

“Is that normal?” I say.

“Is what normal?”

There’s no way she doesn’t hear it. But when I give her a pointed look, she just cuts me a scowl.

I say, “I think your car is dying, dude.”

“Put on your seatbelt.”

I do her the courtesy of shutting up and sitting back. We leave the suburbs and pass a long strip mall, and then we’re out on the highway. It’s all farmlands at first, all empty and grey and muddy, but then it turns into some kind of industrial district, and we’re joined by a posse of trucks. I stare out the windshield, watching trucks go the opposite way on the other side of the highway, and start counting them.

One.

Three.

Seven.

Barely a minute later, I’ve already hit double digits, and the game is getting boring. I try to guess what each truck is carrying instead. It’s a game that I used to play with—well, it’s a game I used to play all the time. Sometimes it’s obvious: wood planks, metal bars, logs. One carries a backhoe that looks dangerously close to falling off. Other times I have to look at the pictures on the side, or really pay attention to the company name. Emmy’s Farm with its big red juicy tomato logo is probably carrying fresh fruits and vegetables. Warren’s Moving Company is obviously furniture and boxes. It’s the plain white ones with their LTD's and INC's and CO's that are hard to guess. All I picture are plain cement blocks.

On the other side of the highway, one of those long tow trucks whizzes by, and its double decker flatbed is filled to the tail with pickup trucks. Filled. I go back to my truck-counting game just to have the satisfaction of having the number jump up by ten. 

The industrial area turns into more farmland, and the farmland turns into a farmer’s market, and then we’re in the next town. The truck population gets low. I spot two red ones and one black one before Zahira slows to perform the worst parallel parking I’ve ever seen.

“Got it,” she says with satisfaction, turning off the engine, and I get the feeling this is one of her better attempts, and that honestly makes me a little concerned. “Get off. Let’s be quick.”

I slam the door shut and join her on the curb. I haven’t really been paying attention to where we are, and I was expecting some kind of convenience store or gas station where we can buy a map, but when I look up at the store, I scowl.

“You’re going to buy a map from a thrift store?”

Zahira is already halfway through the door. I hurry after her.

“I said,” I hiss, quieter because there are other customers here, “you’re going to buy a map from the thrift store?”

“No,” she says lightly, picking through the racks of trousers. “We’re buying you a jacket.”

It takes everything not to stamp my feet like a baby. “I don’t need a jacket.”

“And I suppose you were just shivering from excitement in the car?” I open my mouth, but she doesn’t give me the chance to answer. “You need a jacket, and you need a new pair of shoes. Go find something so we can get out of here and have some brunch.”

I don’t know what brunch is. But I know the only way to get Zahira off my case is to just pick a jacket and a pair of shoes, so I spin around angrily and trudge to the children’s section.

But if I have to be honest, I do need a jacket. And I really do need a new pair of shoes. My left one is officially dead. The duct tape got lost somewhere in the motel parking lot, and now the sole flaps open every time I lift my foot.

I just hate that Zahira is right.

The size-five options all suck though, so I round the aisle to the size sixes and pick out a pair of white sneakers. I shove my hand inside one of them. Good. Arch support. Then I can walk longer without my feet hurting.

“Nice shoes.” Zahira is peeking around the aisle, a basket in hand and a corduroy jacket slung over her shoulder. It’s bright green.

“They’re three dollars,” I say, and scrunch my nose at the jacket. “I hope that’s not for me.”

“This?” She gives it a little jiggle. “Don’t worry. It’s for me.”

“Good,” I say, and head to the outerwear section.

Browsing through the jackets is harder than the shoes. They’ll all jammed together onto a single rod, and if I pull one out to look at it, it’s impossible to shove back in. It’s a hell of a workout. Five jackets in, and my arms are already complaining. So instead of looking, I close my eyes and walk my fingers along the hangers until fate tells me to stop.

But the thing about fate is that it has no taste. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have made me stop on the ugliest leopard-print jacket I’ve ever seen.

I try again and land on a red and blue puffy jacket. I’m about to unhook it from the rack when, a few hangers away, I see a trench coat.

I haven’t cried since the bathroom incident. The trick is to never think about Marisa. Look out the car window. Pick a thing. Count. Think. Fill my brain with anything, as long as it isn’t her. I thought I was doing pretty well.

But here, seeing this random trench coat in a random thrift store, it feels like a punch straight to my guts. Marisa always wore a brown coat like that. To pick me up at school. To go shopping. Every day of our run until we almost got caught at the stadium. Then she got rid of it, stashing it in the first trash bin we saw. Too recognizable, she said. I should have gotten rid of it a long time ago.

I tried arguing with her that she could still keep it. She just doesn’t have to wear it. But she said it wasn’t worth lugging around in our backpacks. It’s just a coat.

When we drove away from the trash bin, I tried to remember how many turns and stops we made, the street names, any recognizable buildings, just in case I ever had the chance to go back and get it.

I never got the chance to go back.

And I can’t even remember where it is.

“Dany?”

I don’t know when Zahira appeared beside me. I look away so she won’t see the tears welling in my eyes.

“Dany,” she says again, slowly. “Are you okay?”

I nod, which is a bad idea because it nearly makes my tears fall.

She sighs through her nose and takes a long time considering what to say. “Well. I found this over there.” She drapes a maroon hoodie on the rack. “It kind of looks like yours. I thought you’d like to have it.”

I blink until my eyes are dry enough and glance at the hoodie. It does look like mine.

“And you chose this jacket, right?” She pulls it out of the rack for me and pats the wrinkles out of it. “Looks nice. Very fashionable. Only five dollars. Sure you want this one?”

I don’t want to wipe my nose because it would give away that I’m crying, but at some point it’s just impossible to sniff it all back up, so I rub my sleeve under my nose and pretend it’s just itchy. I don’t trust myself to say anything without bursting into tears, so I just nod.

Zahira takes me to the pants section, where she helps me pick out some grey jeans because she noticed mine are still damp with rainwater, and then I follow her to the counter and watch her slide our stuff to the cashier. My coat. My sneakers. My pants. Her disturbingly green jacket. And a strange little ceramic dog. It’s not even one those novelty saltshakers you find in gift shops. It’s just a straight up haunted statue that does nothing but stare into your soul with its scratched-up little eyes.

Everything rings up to seventeen dollars. Zahira tries to pay with her card, but it gets declined. As she grumbles and digs for her cash, I watch the cashier wrap the cursed dog in newspaper. Very, very slowly, like she has all the time in the world, which I guess she does because there’s no one else in line.

And horribly, the newspaper she’s using is the giant frontpage headline about The Motel Incident.

Even worse, under that giant frontpage headline is a giant picture of the messed-up motel parking lot, and in the corner of that are giant photos of Marisa and me.

I glance at the cashier. She’s too busy searching for some tape.

I glance at Zahira. She’s too busy counting out coins from her wallet.

When the cashier finishes the wrap job and places everything in a crumply gift bag, I take it before either of them can get a good look at the paper. Zahira pays, and on the way back to the car, I turn the wrapped statue around so the picture of me is face-down.