Ten Years of Public Breakups, Then He Ran After My Bus novel · Chapter 13 of 40

Chapter 13: The Getaway Truck

I drove to Owls Head Light because it was the only place I could think of that was quiet.

The lighthouse sat on its rock above the bay, white and small, with the beam turning slowly over the water.

I pulled into the empty lot and cut the engine.

The truck smelled of him, of bait and coffee and cold air.

I sat there in my green dress and my beret with the tommy gun on the seat beside me.

My hands would not stop shaking.

Headlights came up the lane behind me and stopped at the far end of the lot.

I watched in the mirror as a door opened and shut.

A tall figure in a fedora walked toward me through the dark.

He stopped at my window.

I rolled it down an inch.

"My father drove," Eben said.

"That doesn't count."

"I know it doesn't," he said.

"You had to be driven to me."

"I wasn't going to run down Ash Point Road in dress shoes," he said. "They're rented."

I almost laughed, and I hated that I almost did.

"What do you want, Eben?"

"I want my keys. And you in the truck. In that order," he said.

"Both of those are happening."

"Then open the door," he said.

I didn't.

He put his hand flat on the glass.

"You've known since September," he said. "About Portland. You let me find the email on your phone."

"You didn't ask."

"Would you have told me?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"That's the first honest thing you've said all night," he said.

The beam came around and lit his face for a moment, white, and went away.

He was not angry.

That was what scared me.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do about it," he said.

"I know you're not."

"It's your life. It's your work," he said.

"Right."

"If you go, you go," he said.

"That's what I thought you'd say."

He heard it, and I saw him hear it, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

"What do you want me to say, Cyr?"

"Don't."

I said it before I could stop.

He went still.

"Don't what?"

"Don't stand there with your hand on my window and be reasonable," I said.

"I'm trying to be fair."

"I don't want fair," I said. "I want you to be mad."

"I am mad."

"You are not. You're polite."

He looked down at his shoes.

Then he reached for the door handle, and I unlocked the door, and he got in.

The passenger seat sagged under him.

He took off the fedora and set it on the dash, and sat there with his hands on his knees, breathing.

The windows began to fog.

"Friday," he said. "November thirteenth. Dad's stent."

"What?"

"The cardiologist called Wednesday. They found a blockage. They're putting a stent in at Maine Med, six in the morning," he said.

"Eben."

"I'm not asking you to come."

"That's the same day as my interview," I said.

"I know it is."

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