Page 11 of On the Way to You

There were always drugs in our house — the bad kind. The kind that make craters in your face and dull the life in your eyes all at once. I remember that starting around the time I was nine, too. Maybe that was just the year I grew up.

I knew they wouldn’t care the day I left, but part of me wondered if they’d argue, anyway. It was me, after all, who put groceries in our kitchen. It was me who paid half of our bills, since my dad was the only one working, and he spent most of his money on whiskey and lottery tickets. But it was after five now. Daryl was home, and he knew I was gone.

And still, my phone hadn’t rang.

My body was in a sort of numb trance, with the car engine humming beneath me and the wind whipping through my hair. The music volume hadn’t been touched again since we left Alabama, and I just watched out the window as Mississippi floated past. It reminded me of Alabama. I didn’t really mind that we never stopped.

I didn’t really mind that Emery didn’t talk, either. Once we left Alabama, I slipped out of my freakout and into a strange awareness of being. My body was in the car, but my mind was on my yoga mat, opening itself to new possibilities. I knew it was a big moment in my life, one that would alter everything, and yet I was struggling to grasp it. I almost felt numb.

It wasn’t until we crossed over into Louisiana and ran right into bumper-to-bumper traffic that Emery reached forward for the dial, the wind dying down right along with the music.

“Why do you think people deny the existence of aliens?”

His voice surprised me a little, and Kalo popped her head up in the back seat, looking at him with a cocked ear before laying back down with a sigh.

“Well, I suppose —“

“Do you think it’s because we, as humans, just need to feel like our lives are worth more than they are?”

My mouth was still open, but I popped it shut, eyes on the South Carolina license plate in front of us.

“I mean there areinfinitegalaxies — we don’t even know how many there are, and we’ve found a shit ton. The universe is just this… thismassiveplane of mass and matter and time and space and distance. And yet most of our population thinks we are the only intelligent lifeforms, that we’re like God’s only project or whatever.”

“I take it you’re not religious,” I finally said.

“Are you?”

He asked the question the same way he’d asked what made me happy, in a way that made me question the answer before it left my lips.

“I am, but not in the way you think I am.”

He laughed, switching hands on the steering wheel and leaning his elbow on the center console. “What other way is there? You either believe in a higher power or you don’t.”

I traced the lean lines of muscle in his forearm with my eyes, noting the comfortable way he gripped the wheel, the confidence that showed even through his dark sunglasses.

“I believe in the universe, and in things happening for a reason.” I paused. “And, yes, I guess I do believe in a higher spirit.”

“In God?”

“Not like the old white man with a beard and a staff but yes, I believe in God.”

“Why?”

I laughed, the sound foreign as I shrugged my shoulders and tossed my hands up. “I don’t know, what do you meanwhy? You’re telling me you don’t believe in anything greater than yourself?”

“I believe in science. And science has given me absolutely zero reason to believe there is anything or anyone watching over me, or dictating my destiny, or promising that life doesn’t just end when this—“ He thumped his chest with a fist. “Body stops working.”

“I believe in science, too. But science only goes so far sometimes, and then something else takes over.”

“God,”he mocked, the tiniest smirk on his lips as he glanced at me.

“Maybe,” I defended.

Emery shifted his weight again, hand sliding down to grip the bottom of the steering wheel as the traffic began to clear. “I think religion, in any form, is just the result of fear. Fear of dying, fear of being alone. We all want to believe that we’re special, that some man in the sky loves each and every one of us, even with our flaws.” He shrugged. “But the truth is we’re just humans. We’re just animals. And when we die, we become food for the earth and the bugs. The circle of life.”

“That’s a little morbid.”

“I think it’s comforting.”