Page 17 of Road Trip

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

JACOB

2728 miles to go

San Diego, CA, to Goose Run, VA

M att slept for about an hour, leaving me nothing to do but sit at the little table and jiggle my knee while I watched him. I also watched my phone screen, hoping Mom and Dad would come through with a text message full of advice that would make everything magically better. That was what parents did, right? At least, that was what my parents did.

My chest hurt when I looked at Matt.

Matt’s parents weren’t like mine. His mom was okay, I guessed, but she worked a lot of long hours, and sometimes it was like she was his roommate instead of his mom. I’d thought that was pretty cool, the way Matt could do pretty much whatever the hell he wanted because his mom barely noticed. I didn’t think it was cool now. His mom was hardly ever there for him, but it turned out she was Carol fucking Brady compared to his dad.

Who the fuck didn’t want to see their own kid? Sure, it had probably been a shock when Matt turned up, but the guy hadn’t even recognized him. And when he’d found out who he was, he’d been desperate to get rid of him—like Matt was an embarrassment, a relic of a past life that he wanted to keep hidden. He hadn’t even hugged him, too busy chasing us off the property before the neighbors saw. He hadn’t wanted to know him.

The ache in my chest grew.

Matt was awesome, and sometimes it felt like I was just about the only person who knew that because he was also a weirdo who got a kick out of acting like an asshole, but you know who else should have known how amazing he was? His parents.

I checked my phone again, but there was nothing.

Funny.

When I’d decided to come on this road trip with Matt, I’d told myself that my parents couldn’t really stop me since I was an adult. I didn’t feel much like an adult right now, sitting here waiting for Mom and Dad to tell me what to do. But shit, at least I had them to fall back on. Who did Matt have?

The pinging notification of a text message made me jolt and check my phone, but there was still nothing. It had to be Matt’s phone then, which was sitting on top of his open backpack. I grabbed it in case it was important.

The preview screen showed a message from his mom. For a split second, I had a glimmer of hope that maybe she was going to be there for Matt after all, but then I read the screen.

Your father just called me. What the hell were you thinking?

That seemed like something I didn’t need to see, so I set the phone back down. As I did, my fingers brushed against the cover of the sketchbook Matt always carried, and I saw that the new elastic band he’d gotten to keep it closed was missing. I lifted the book out and discovered it wasn’t missing at all. It had snapped, just like the first one, and gotten caught in the wire spiral of the spine. I pulled it out, turning the book over as I did, and the pages fell open.

A couple of menus and the postcard from Goose Run and some receipts fell out. I barely noticed them. I was too busy looking at a sketch of myself, and it was incredible. I wasn’t sure if the invasion of privacy here was mine, for looking in his book, or his, for stealing what must have been a thousand glances at me that I hadn’t noticed. Back when I’d thought I was straight—somehow only a few days but also a whole lifetime ago—he’d been watching me. And this wasn’t one of his funny doodles. This was…

I didn’t really have the word for it, except that it hurt a little to look at it. To look at me, as he must have seen me, totally fucking oblivious when it was so fucking clear that he was in love with me.

I turned the pages and found more pictures of me interspersed with Matt’s doodles and rough sketches. There was a cartoon of me being chased by a skunk and another one of me asleep in the passenger seat with my mouth open with a row of zzzz s. They were cute, and it was obvious that Matt was an expert at sketching me. None of those drawings was as much of a love letter as that portrait was, though. I closed the sketchbook, my heart pounding fast and my breath catching in my throat.

“It’s just messing around,” Matt said, his voice raspy from sleep, and I jolted and dropped the book.

I straightened up and threw him a wary look, unsure how he’d react. “They’re really good. The skunk one is funny.”

His mouth twisted, and he sat up and stretched. “Maybe I’ll be one of those guys who does caricatures of tourists at the beach or something.”

I stared at him. “In Cape Charles?”

“What?”

“You’d do caricatures at the beach in Cape Charles,” I said and Matt looked away. My stomach tied itself in a knot. “Matt, you’re coming back to Virginia with me.”

I didn’t know if it was a statement or a question.

“Why the hell should I?” He jutted his chin out, but there was none of the usual fire in his expression. “Zeke’s lease is up soon. He’s probably already moving his shit into my room. ”

“At least you have a room in Cape Charles, even if it’s full of Zeke’s shit,” I said. “You don’t have one here!”

Matt narrowed his eyes. “I’ll figure something out.”

He was so fucking stubborn. But so was I, when I needed to be. “Matty, think about it. You’re starting college soon. You can’t just stay here.”

He rolled his eyes. “I was never going to go to community college in Melfa! I wasn’t going to go home!”

“Yeah, I get that now, but you’re still enrolled there, right? You could still go. And you have stuff going on back home that you don’t have here. Like…like me .”

Matt looked like he was about to argue but couldn’t quite think of what to say, so I took advantage of the silence.

“I could cope with you being here when I thought you’d be happy, you know? Like, if you wanted to live with your dad, who was I to stop you? But knowing you’re here alone? I’ll spend all my time worrying that you’re getting into fights or, I dunno, having your kidneys stolen.”

Matt’s mouth dropped open. “My kidneys ?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never lived on the West Coast. There could be a roaring trade in body parts!”

“Oh my god. You’re an idiot.” Matt rolled his eyes, but I caught the first traces of a smile.

“Maybe, but I’m an idiot who loves you.”

His eyes widened, like maybe those words were shocking, but why would they be? I’d loved Matt for years, and that had never changed. The rest—the kissing, the touching, the flutter in my stomach when I thought of the kissing and touching—that was new, but it was laid over a foundation that had been unshakable for over half my life.

“You’re my best friend. Even before anything else, I love you. And—and now you’re my boyfriend too. I love you both ways now, I guess.” His wide-eyed look scared the shit out of me. “I’m saying it wrong. Am I saying it wrong? ”

He opened his mouth and closed it again, like for once in his life he didn’t have a smartass answer.

“Matty.” I closed the space between us, the sketchbook still clutched in my hands, and knelt on the floor beside the bed. “This—I don’t even have words for this drawing. And not because it’s me, but because it’s you . It’s your feelings in this. Please don’t make me leave you here when I love you.” I leaned over and grabbed the sketchbook and flipped it open to the portrait he’d drawn. “And this says you love me too.”

He reached out and took the sketchbook from me, tracing his fingers over the page. “But I can’t just…go back.”

And there it was. Matt hated when people laughed at him or looked down on him. Sometimes they weren’t even doing those things, but he thought they were anyway. Matt didn’t just have a chip on his shoulder. He had a whole potato.

Or maybe that was the wrong sort of chip. My point still stood, though.

I leaned over and shoved his shoulder. “Why not? As far as anyone knows, we went on a road trip and now we’re back. And they’ll be so busy gawking at the fact you snagged yourself a hot boyfriend they won’t care about anything else.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you think you’re hot?”

I gestured to the sketch. “I mean, I look pretty hot there. And you drew it, so you must think so too.”

That got me a reluctant smile. “You’re kinda cute I guess.”

“Come home, Matt. I only just figured out I love you, and I’m not ready to leave you behind when there’s no reason for you to stay.”

He opened his mouth but nothing came out, so he tried again. “You really want me to come home?” he asked, voice small.

“I need you to.” I caught his hands in mine, hating how his fingers shook. “Please.”

Matt’s gaze held mine for a moment before he ducked his head and his dark hair curtained his face. “How come you’re the only person in the world who wants me?” His voice cracked. “My mom barely gives a shit. Even my dad?—”

But however he’d been going to end that bitter sentence, I had no idea, because he wrenched his hands out of mine and covered his face as his shoulders began to shake with sobs.

So I climbed up on the bed with him, put my arms around him, and waited out the storm. Because what the hell else was there to do?

E gg McMuffins. Not exactly the breakfast of champions, but I wanted something I could eat as I drove. The sooner we got the fuck on the road, the better. Even though Matt had said he’d come back with me last night, I was still half-convinced he’d change his mind. So I packed our shit, packed the car, shoved him in the passenger seat, and drove across the road to the drive-thru at McDonalds and breakfast on the go.

Matt wasn’t talking much this morning, just like he hadn’t talked much last night. Okay, so he wasn’t usually very talkative, but he could say a million things with a glare alone. This morning he wasn’t even glaring at his McMuffin. He just looked tired and wrung out.

“Put some music on,” I said, nodding at where my phone was sitting in the cup holder on the center console. “Road trip music. Pick something good.”

He picked up my phone and fiddled with it, and soon the sounds of Twenty One Pilots’s “Stressed Out” filled the car. Matt did glare then, like he expected me to tell him to put something more upbeat on, but honestly, it was fitting. I was stressed out not knowing what was going to happen with Matt’s living situation, so I couldn’t imagine how he felt—although I had some idea, given how his shoulders had sagged when he’d agreed coming home was the best choice .

He perked up some after he ate, just like I’d known he would. He wasn’t back to his usual self—he wouldn’t be for a while probably—but he gave me shit about my lane changes and stole half my hash browns, and I took it as a good sign. When I’d spoken to my mom last night, she’d just said, “Come home, Jacob”—like I was planning to do anything else. I’d only been half-joking about the stolen kidneys. I just had to hope his mom wasn’t as stubborn as Matt and would take him back.

It was weird. When we were driving to California, everything was new and a little intimidating. It was our big road trip. Our first time doing something without our parents—well, my parents—breathing over our shoulders. But somehow going home was scarier because it felt even more unknown than our road trip had.

I read somewhere once that the first time you take a trip, it feels like it takes a long time because your brain has to map it all from scratch. And when you go back, it doesn’t seem to take as long because you’re using less memory this time around. In theory, going home to Cape Charles should have felt quicker because we weren't being bombarded by entirely new sensory information. In practice, it felt like a couple hundred years. We were tired, and Matt was unhappy, and at least twice a day I was tempted to turn around, drive all the way back to San Diego, and run over his asshole father so many times that he was just a smear on the asphalt.

That probably wasn’t in keeping with my dad’s rule of driving safely, though.

We stayed in motels instead of campsites, and my college fund suffered because of it. But it was easier than putting up the tent every night and having to buy food before we got there. We picked motels with fast food places nearby and cuddled at night. It was the only good part of the trip.

By the time we pulled into Goose Run Gas, my stomach was so full of greasy food I could have eaten an apple and shit out fritters, but Matt wanted a Mountain Dew and I could do with stretching my legs .

It was mid-afternoon. We could be in Cape Charles in around three hours, though we’d hit peak rush hour in Norfolk and that wouldn’t be much fun. It would be worth it, though, just to get home tonight.

“Did you talk to your mom yet?” I asked him as we got out of the car at the gas station.

“Nope,” he said and slammed the door. He crossed the sunbaked ground, heading for the store.

I hurried to catch up as the automatic doors rattled open and blasted us with cold air, then headed straight for the fridges to grab a water and Matt’s Mountain Dew. I was standing there when I heard Matt’s laugh—a sound I hadn’t heard in days. My skin prickled with a sense of déjà vu, and I turned around and stared over the shelves toward the counter.

Trucker Cap Danny was working today. The guy who’d given Matt his number the first time we were here. It felt like a whole lifetime had passed for us, but it was only a little over two weeks for him, which clearly wasn’t long enough for him to have forgotten Matt. I hadn’t given the guy a second glance the last time we’d been here, too busy being jealous—even if I hadn’t known that was what it was—but now, looking through my new rainbow-colored glasses, yeah. He was cute. Not as cute as Matt, but I was most probably biased.

I was most definitely bi-assed.

I walked over with my drinks and tried to act casual. “Hey,” I said, “want anything else while we’re here?”

I wouldn’t lie, it was a relief to see Matt’s smile directed at me. “Hey. I was telling Danny about the Grand Canyon.”

“Oh yeah, it was awesome.” I set the drinks on the counter and draped an arm over Matt’s shoulders. Was I staking a claim? Maybe. But Matt leaned into my touch, so I figured he liked it.

Danny’s eyebrows rose and his face split in a grin. “Oh, hey, congratulations!”

“What?”

He shrugged. “Seems like it’s something new? ”

I flushed. “Yeah.”

“Turns out I’m irresistible,” Matt deadpanned. “Did you get my Mountain Dew? If you didn’t, it’s a deal-breaker. Danny would bring me Mountain Dew.”

“Whoa,” Danny said, holding his palms up and snorting with laughter. “You’ve already got a hot guy bringing you Mountain Dew. You don’t need me. Besides, it’s Coke or nothing.”

He thought I was hot too? And he was a Coke drinker?

Okay, so suddenly he seemed okay. It would be unfair to hate him just because he’d given Matt his number a couple weeks ago. That just showed he had taste. And he’d thought Matt was single. He had been single. But yeah, a lifetime had passed for us since then.

We lingered a little longer in the gas station than we otherwise might have, and I thought it was because we both knew this was our last stop before home. I was sick of driving, but I knew Matt wasn’t anxious to get back to Cape Charles and face his mom. And not just that, but this was the end of our road trip, the end of our summer, the end of a major part of our lives. From now on it’d be college and jobs and adulthood, and it didn’t matter if we were ready for that or not because there was nothing we could do to stop it. I’d been scared about that before this summer but not so much anymore. I didn’t know what the future held, sure, but I knew I could handle it.

We could handle it.

And I saw that same certainty reflected in Matt’s eyes when he unscrewed the lid of his Mountain Dew, took a swig, and then nodded outside where the car was waiting for us. “Ready to hit the road?”