Page 1 of This Might Hurt

ANDREW

Some people believe that time is a web of possibilities.

I hope that’s not true. If I chose today out of a billion alternate realities, then I’m a pretty sick person.

In my opinion, our lives are straight lines from beginning to end. Everything that happens was always supposed to happen.

For example, I have the song “Redneck Woman” stuck in my head because I’m speeding through the middle of Wyoming in a stolen car, listening to the radio.

I’m driving through Wyoming because I almost got run over by a delivery van last night, and I realized my loved ones would just be mad that I stepped out of the way.

I stepped out of the way because that’s what anyone would do, but afterward I wished I hadn’t.

I could keep going back forever this way, but there’s not much point.

Gripping the leather-wrapped steering wheel of my uncle’s BMW with numb fingers, I poke the navigation screen with my other hand to try and find a patch of green, no matter how small.

I was too picky earlier today, driving past one river and nature preserve after another because I didn’t like the scenery or the song on the radio wasn’t special enough.

Now I’m stuck in the most godforsaken part of Wyoming, and I’m going to have to take whatever I can get before the afternoon thunderstorms roll in.

For the tenth time, I catch myself going twenty over the speed limit, weaving recklessly between campers and semis. I’m sick of the sun-bleached grass, sick of the boring, straight road, sick of “Redneck Woman”.

My phone seizes control of the radio out of nowhere, blasting my ringtone through the speakers at max volume.

My mother and my bodyguard, Grant, have been taking turns calling me all day, more and more frequently as the hours tick by.

But when I see the caller ID, I almost swerve right into the guardrail at a hundred miles an hour.

Archie.

Before my brain can even process the name, my foot jumps obediently from the accelerator to the brake, jerking the car down to a reasonable speed.

My uncle’s on vacation in Cancun. He’s not here.

He’s not. But I made a huge fucking mistake not managing this situation before someone called him.

He’s the nuclear option my family brings in when I need to be controlled.

I don’t know why I notice the dusty yellow sign in the middle of the empty prairie, towering above a couple of concrete buildings. It’s spinning lazily on top of a hundred-foot pole, so I can only read it in nonsensical snatches. Trucks! Gas. Showers. Good Burgers.

My phone continues to screech as I take the exit at the last possible second in a spray of gravel.

If it rings out, I’m fucked. Still going at highway speed, I fly down the ramp and skid to a shuddering stop in the shade of the service station.

Everyone made fun of Archie for getting the kind of basic sports car an accountant would buy with his Christmas bonus, but it handles my shitty The Fast and the Furious audition gracefully.

The Bluetooth disconnects as I cut the engine and fumble for my phone, almost dropping it. It takes three tries for the screen to register my clammy, shaking thumb. “Sir?”

“Oh, hey buddy,” my uncle drawls, carelessly pleased like when you spot an acquaintance two tables away from you at a restaurant.

I swallow against my dry throat, trying to keep my voice steady. My t-shirt is glued to my armpits and back with sweat. “Hi. What’s going on?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.” Behind his rich, cheerful baritone, I can faintly hear waves and several women laughing. “Your mom called me crying because she can’t get ahold of you.”

“My mother is literally always crying.” He snorts at that, but I keep pushing ahead.

“I went up to Grinnell Glacier for a hike and left my phone in my backpack, that’s all.

Isn’t being outdoors the whole reason we have a house in Montana?

” I never hike. He knows that. The fact that he’s three thousand miles away is making me stupid.

“Uh-huh. It’s just, that’s not what the tracking on your phone says.”

My head goes blank as I lower the offending object from my ear and stare at it like I’m going to find some kind of old-fashioned wiretap attached to the back.

I’m the heir to a $200 billion company; of course my family tracks me.

There’s just something humiliating about the image of Archie sprawled out in some beach cabana, sipping cocktails and probably getting his dick sucked while he watches me flounder around a map of Wyoming.

I put the phone back to my ear, but I can’t think of anything to say.

The temperature in the car has risen ten degrees without air conditioning, so I push the door open and gulp in a lungful of dry air.

I struggle to my feet, stretching my cramped legs as the wind stirs against the sweat matted along my hairline.

Besides a single red minivan, the parking area and gas pumps are completely abandoned.

“Don’t worry,” Archie offers generously, after letting the silence stretch on for an eternity. “You’re young. It’s normal to test boundaries. Come home, no questions asked, and I’ll see you soon.”

“You will?” My heart stops, more out of habit than anything, since I have no intention of going home. “Doesn’t your trip last another week?”

His quiet chuckle makes my stomach turn.

“Did you miss me? Dad’s going into the hospital as a precaution, so I figured I should be there.

” Dread prickles down my spine. Precaution is a tidy PR lie for the press.

My grandfather, the craggy old Scotsman who built our family empire, always said he’d rather lie down and die in a grassy field than walk through the doors of a hospital.

If his children finally overruled him, he must be sicker than I realized.

Shading my eyes, I squint back at the wall of almost black storm clouds boiling along the horizon like an omen. “I’m sorry. Tell Mom I’m on my way home.”

Archie calls something muffled to the women, who laugh louder. “Go get us some Mai Tais. I’ll be right there.” The warm, easygoing grin in his voice doesn’t change at all, but his tone becomes brisk. “Your mom says you stole my car. What possessed you to do that?”

I go very still and close my eyes, even though he’s not here to see. “I’m leaving right now.” I don’t tell him I thought it would be ironic to take it. I don’t tell him that his call came five hours too late. And I certainly don’t tell him goodbye.

“If that car isn’t back in my garage in pristine condition when I check the cameras at midnight,” he adds mildly, “I’ll fucking hurt you. Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

As soon as he hangs up, I switch my phone to airplane mode and turn off my location so I can pretend I’m worth the effort they’ll have to put into finding me.

Pushing my tongue around in my bone-dry mouth, I study the service station.

I’ve never been so close to one before. The concrete walls are covered in greasy brown stains where thousands of people have taken their smoke breaks.

Something feels surreal, like I’m not meant to be here.

Like I split in half and the predetermined line of my life kept on driving into the distance, leaving me standing in a parking lot that smells of melting tar and the so-called Good Burgers.

I sway a little in the heat, dizzy and strangely guilty, trying to reconnect the chain of cause and effect in my head.

I’m going into this service station because I’m thirsty.

I’m at the service station because my uncle called.

My uncle called because I finally made the decision I’ve been working up to for many years.

It’s okay. Keep following the chain, don’t be afraid, and everything will happen exactly the way it’s supposed to.