Chapter 15: Rule Two

Nine days later, on the second dose, I was sick on the shoulder of Route 33.

Abel pulled over so fast that the toolbox slid across the bed behind us.

I got the door open and my feet on the gravel before my stomach finished turning.

It was not dignified.

It went on for a long time, and when it stopped I stayed bent over with my hands on my knees and a cold wind going down the back of my cap.

A truck rattled by.

"Sorry," I said to the ground. "Oh, God, I'm sorry. Your floor mat."

"I'll take that coffee, thanks," Abel said.

He was beside me.

He had come around the hood without my hearing him.

He was holding my cap in one hand and a water bottle in the other.

"Rule one," he said. "You said it twice. You owe me two bad coffees."

"I'll buy you three."

"Take the water."

I rinsed my mouth and spat, and he took the bottle back and capped it.

My legs were shaking.

He didn't say anything about it.

He sat down on the running board of his truck, in the wind, and patted the metal beside him.

I sat.

We watched the traffic go by on the highway for a minute.

His shoulder was against mine, a hard, warm line from my arm to my hip.

"Does it get easier?" I asked.

"No."

"Thank you."

"I could lie. I have a free one."

"Use it," I said.

"It gets easier."

I laughed, and my eyes stung, and I wiped them with the heel of my hand.

Abel was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, in a voice I had not heard him use before, "Willa, I'm sorry."

I turned my head.

"For what?"

"For not driving faster. For not knowing what to do. I watched you out there bent over with nothing in my hands, and I couldn't stand it."

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