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chapter twenty-nine

Tuck

I headed back inside from the portable toilets I’d visited after asking Hosea to keep an eye on Emily. She and Charlie had had a fight, and he’d stormed off over to the building across the way. I itched to see if she was okay, but it was pretty obvious she wanted to be alone by the slow walk she’d been doing around the perimeter of the room when I’d ducked out of the building.

Now she was stopped and chatting with a couple of young women. By the animated way they were gesturing and Emily’s smile, I thought they might have recognized her and were expressing their appreciation for her music. I couldn’t help the admiration I felt as I watched her, noting the way she reacted with equal enthusiasm and then said something that made them laugh and bring their hands to their cheeks, like she’d just paid them a compliment in return. So many of the things Emily did reminded me of the girl she’d been. But since we’d set out on this journey, I’d also been struck by the woman she’d be come, the one I’d been unfamiliar with until recently. I hadn’t given her a fair shake when I’d first arrived at her apartment. I’d shown up on defense, expecting her to judge me and yet I’d judged her too. And I saw now how much of that judgment had been undeserved.

As if she had heard my thoughts from across the room, she glanced over at me, and I swore I saw a fleeting expression of what looked like sadness before she returned her attention to the two young women.

“Your first love is the hardest to get over, huh?”

I looked over at Hosea, who’d come up next to me. “Emily?”

“No, the hairy dude in the corner. Yeah, Emily. You told me about her in the joint, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” We’d talked about a lot as I taught him to read. The truth seemed safe there in that prison library—locked behind bars just like us. I guess I hadn’t thought about how the truth was actually inside of my heart, and there was really no leaving that behind.

I gazed at her for another moment, completely mesmerized the same way I’d always been when watching her from across a room. Talking or sitting, but especially singing. And I suddenly felt guilty for disregarding her grief at what was basically the end of her career…at least for quite some time. I felt the hollowness of yet another way the world had been robbed. “We were kids when all that started,” I said to Hosea. “And nothing ever really came of it. She’s different now. So am I.” Another if. “And then there’s Charlie,” I added.

“The dude with the nasty shoes?”

I laughed. “Yeah, him. But to be fair, we’re all pretty nasty right about now.”

“We’ll get you all some new clothes and shoes,” he said. “It’s one of the things we’ve been collecting. Good footwear, especially, is going to become very important over these next few months.”

“I know. I thought about that. I’ve been making lists in my head of what will become vital and what used to be important but isn’t anymore.”

“I bet you have. That’s one of those special skills I was talking about.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“The world’s become so damn soft,” Hosea said with a sigh. “It’s going to need folks who have already learned how to do without. All that hard living under your belt is going to serve a purpose, man. Think about it, okay?” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ve got some stuff to do so I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Do you need any help?”

“Nah. You rest your body. You might not have much more of an opportunity to do that if you’re getting back on the road in the morning.”

I met his eyes. “How many do you estimate will die?”

Hosea paused, shifting his mouth from side to side. “I’m only saying this to you because I know you can handle it. We got a guy here, real knowledgeable about politics and whatnot, who said there was a commission mandated by Congress last year who studied this exact thing.”

“The grid going down?”

“Yeah. Apparently, they put their big ’ol brains together and found that 90 percent of Americans would die under the conditions I do believe we’ve just found ourselves in.”

“We’re talking total devastation, then.”

“Maybe. No way to fact-check such a claim at the moment. Could be a load of BS. All I’m saying is there’ll be a spot for you here.”

“Thanks, Hosea. Oh hey,” I said, and Hosea turned back my way. “Those big brains who determined 90 percent of society could die off with a grid collapse, what’d they do about it?”

“Nothing, man. They didn’t do nothing.”

Hosea turned away again and I watched him go. Nothing. But I guess I hadn’t needed him to tell me that. We were all living it.

I turned back toward Emily, her grin wide as she looked over at me, our eyes meeting. Something gripped me, a protective instinct so strong it nearly brought me to my knees. Ninety percent. That can’t be true. It had to be an exaggeration or a misremembering, or something else, but either way, I vowed that the woman I was locking eyes with would not be among that statistic. I will get you to safety.

At the sight of her lingering smile, my heart did a strange dip and swerve. I swore she could see it on my face, the way she slayed me, the way she always had. Dammit. In a way, I wanted to continue feeling disdain and disappointment for who she’d become. I wanted to keep those feelings in place because underneath them was the deepest attraction I’d ever felt for any woman and the knowledge that I’d loved her my whole life, and no matter what she did or who she was with, I always would.

I turned, walking on legs that felt slightly shaky all of a sudden, and not because of the mind-boggling topic Hosea and I had been discussing—one that I hoped wasn’t true but that was terrifying all the same. I headed out the door and took in a lungful of air. There was, frankly, so much to feel shaky about. That had been true before we arrived here, and it was even more true now that I’d spoken to Hosea and learned the scope of the overall situation. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, it was meeting Em’s eyes across a room that had swept the rug out from under me. Fuck.

I wandered over to a picnic table and sat down. The night was chilly but not cold, and this spot was blocked by the side of the building, so it was comfortable. I needed the fresh air to clear my head, or my heart, or whatever it was that was making me feel so damn dazed.

“Are you hiding out here or can I join you?”

I looked up to see Emily, her coat pulled around her as she stood at the corner of the building. She glanced behind her and gestured. “I can go if—”

“No, don’t go. I was just taking a breather.”

She approached the table and sat down. “A breather. Yeah, it’s nice, isn’t it? Just a few hours where we don’t have to worry about food or safety. I almost forgot what that felt like.” She looked up at the star-filled sky. They were still clear here, but not as clear as they’d been in the unlit blackness of the places where we’d made camp along the way. She closed her eyes for a moment. “The air feels nice.”

I let my eyes linger on her profile, her skin luminous in the moonglow. After a moment she sighed, opened her eyes, and looked at me. “I’m sorry, Tuck.”

“For what?”

“For believing Charlie’s lies. For firing you when you didn’t deserve it. You asked me to trust you and I turned away.”

A lead weight dropped in my stomach, even as my heart lifted. I hadn’t expected that. “He…admitted it? About the drugs?”

“Only after I confronted him and broke it off. When we get to California, we’ll be going our separate ways.”

I didn’t want to acknowledge the swirl of happiness at that news, but there it was. “What made you realize Charlie was lying?”

“Well, let’s see, maybe the fact that you’ve gone out of your way to help people for the last week in every way you possibly could, sometimes to your own detriment, while Charlie’s first priority is obviously himself. I should have listened to you. I should have at least heard you out. I’m so, so sorry.”

I scratched at the back of my neck. Okay, yes, I was still hurt that she hadn’t believed me, even after I’d begged her to. And I could also admit that part of my hurt was that she’d chosen Charlie over me. But could I blame her completely? “I made mistakes. People are going to judge me for those. I understand. I have to carry that.”

She reached out and put her hand over mine on the table, the warmth of her skin causing my stomach to tighten. “That’s the thing, Tuck. You get to start over. You’re so needed right now, not just by me, but by so many people. I… I wouldn’t blame you if you sent me off on my own from here.”

I squinted at her. “I made a commitment to you.”

She bobbed her head and slid her hand away. I immediately missed the soft press of it on mine. “I know, but like Hosea said, this is a fluid situation and—”

“I’m getting you home, Em, and that’s that.”

Her gaze ran over my face as though searching for something. “Okay. Thank you.”

I looked over her shoulder. “Where’s Earthquake Man anyway?”

“He left to get new clothes and shoes and go to bed. I don’t think we’re going to talk a lot on the remainder of this journey.”

“Sounds awkward.”

She made a sound of agreement in the back of her throat. “You seem to have perfected the art of ignoring him, so I’ll just take your lead.”

We sat there in companionable silence for a moment before she tilted her head and looked at me, pausing for a moment before she asked, “Will you tell me about it, Tuck? What were you convicted of?”

I felt a stab of shame, stomach twisting. But she’d just humbled herself and apologized to me. It didn’t feel right not to answer her. “I did a lot of stupid shit when I moved to my uncle’s, Emily. I was grieving. My mom, the loss of Honey Hill.” You. Everything I held dear to my heart. All gone. “I wanted to lash out at anyone and everyone.”

“I remember,” she said softly, and I heard the hurt in her voice.

I met her gaze. “I never lashed out at you.”

She looked away so I couldn’t see her eyes. “No, you didn’t.”

I paused, sensing something unsaid, but then she looked back at me, her expression placid. “Anyway, none of it is any excuse, but I’m just trying to set the scene. When I moved to LA to live with my uncle, I fell in with other guys like me, ones who felt cut off from their families, or ones who had no family at all. In some ways, it was me rejecting everything I’d been before. If that life was no longer mine, then I’d make a new one—be someone completely different than the Tuck I’d always been. So, me and these guys, we banded together. We drank. We partied. We stole cars. It was a challenge to get them running in seconds.”

“You always did catch on quick. And that might be one of those special skills that Hosea mentioned coming in handy now.”

“Maybe. But even so, I regret it all. But back then…in some ways it felt like howling at the moon, screaming about the injustice I felt by pretending nothing mattered.” I shook my head. “But that was all such selfish shit. The world didn’t owe me anything. I just wish I’d learned that sooner.

“Anyway,” I went on, unexpectedly wanting to get the rest of this out, now that I’d started. In some ways, it felt like I was laying down a great weight, unloading it word by word. “I swear to you, I was growing out of it. All that, it hadn’t helped, and I felt guilty about it. I knew it wasn’t right and I just couldn’t justify it anymore. And any thrill it had originally provided was gone.”

“It wasn’t you.”

“No, it wasn’t. I still didn’t know who the hell I should be, but that wasn’t it. I’d picked up this course catalog from a local community college. First, I just tossed it on the coffee table, then I started leafing through it, then bringing it places. I think I was gathering the courage to turn down another road, but it felt so risky, you know?” I was silent for a few moments. This was the hard part, but it was also the heaviest to bear. “And then…this one night, this kid named Abel who was part of the crowd I hung with but was a few years younger than me showed up at my door and asked if I could borrow my uncle’s car to drive him to get some beer. I could see he’d already had a few and he probably didn’t need more. His girlfriend was pregnant, and he was nervous about the responsibility, and honestly, he should have been. He was only eighteen and he’d been raised in the system, didn’t know a thing about being a father and didn’t even have a GED. But he was a nice kid. Troubled, quiet, but still a good person. You know you meet some of these kids who’ve grown up in shitty situations, and with some of them, the light has just died. You can see it. You can feel it. It’s hard to explain. But not Abel…he still cared. He would have been okay. I think he would have gotten it together… I know he would have.” I pictured him standing there on my uncle’s front porch, hands in his pockets, asking me for a ride to a nearby convenience store where they didn’t give a shit about ID. It was that moment. That was the one where I could have changed everything. Prevented everything.

But I hadn’t.

“I drove him to the store. What I didn’t know was that Abel didn’t have any money for beer or anything else. What he did have was a loaded gun. And a kid coming any day.”

“Oh God. He robbed the store.”

“He tried. But the clerk had a gun too and he was a lot faster. I don’t think Abel had any plans to shoot him or anyone else. He’d never been violent before. He was just scared and desperate and had chugged some beers for liquid courage. He thought he could get a couple hundred bucks from that register and give it to his girlfriend, so she didn’t look at him like he was a worthless piece of shit.” I shook my head. “Meanwhile, I was out in the car looking through that stupid catalog when I heard the shots. Abel came staggering out, his hand on his chest… The blood. God, so much blood. The clerk was at the door, yelling and waving his gun around and I didn’t know what the fuck had just happened. All I knew was that Abel needed a hospital. I threw him in the car, and I drove like a bat out of hell, all the while Abel is just gurgling and making these awful sounds.”

“Tuck. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I was there. I drove him to the store, and I drove him to the hospital even if he was dead by the time we arrived.”

Emily grimaced, shutting her eyes briefly. “You were convicted for…what? Being the getaway car?”

“Accessory to armed robbery.”

“But you didn’t even know.”

“No one was going to believe that. After all the shit I’d already done? Even if I’d been a minor for some of it, and the rest was mostly petty crime. And I wasn’t even sure I believed it either, Em. I saw the way Abel looked when he came to my door that night. He needed help. And maybe Abel thought he needed a ride or money or whatever, but what he really needed was for someone to lean on. Someone to tell him things were going to be okay. And he came to me. I could have been that person, Emily. Instead of driving a desperate, drunk kid to the store to buy more beer, I could have invited him inside and given him some encouragement. But I was involved in my own stupid-ass plans, and I didn’t want to be bothered.” I’d done to Abel something pretty damn similar to what my father had done to me. I’d disregarded his pain because it’d been inconvenient. And yeah, I wasn’t the kid’s father, but he didn’t have one of those and I could have at least tried to steer him in a better direction, even if it meant not getting drunker that night instead of facing his fears. “I could have followed my gut and talked to him.”

“Oh, Tuck. All those could haves will do is torture you.”

“Good. Don’t I deserve that?”

“I don’t think so. But regardless of my opinion, you did your time. You paid the price that wasn’t even yours to pay.”

“There is no adequate price for that, Em. Not one set by a judge anyway. Abel’s kid is six years old now, and he doesn’t have a dad either. I’ll regret what I didn’t do that day forever.” That moment. The one where I failed. “And rightly so. I might have been the one to prevent his death, and I didn’t.”

“So you took the blame, not for him, because you couldn’t do that, but with him. You gave his girlfriend and son someone else to focus their anger on instead of only him.”

Her voicing that idea hit home even if I’d never exactly put it into words for myself. But yes, it’d brought me some kind of relief to know I could do something , no matter how small, in the aftermath of my mistake. But before I could comment, a voice came through what sounded like a bullhorn, announcing that the generator and lights were going to be shut off in twenty minutes. “I guess that’s a not-so-subtle hint to go to bed.”

I smiled. “I think you’re right.”

She studied me for a minute. “Thank you for telling me what happened.”

Our gazes held. And even though it had been hard to put the night Abel died to words for the first time, and difficult to dredge up all those emotions, I also felt unexpectedly glad that I’d not only told the story but told it to Emily. “Thank you for listening.”

She placed her palm over my knuckles and laced our fingers together. And even when we parted a few minutes later, I swore I could still feel her hand in mine.