The Seat They Never Saved and the Offer I Finally Took novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Passenger Seat

On the road east Lena ends it with Connor in one text, and an ice storm shuts the interstate with one motel left.

The rental car was a gray sedan in lot B, and the first thing I saw through the rain was the blanket folded on the passenger seat.

It was a cheap fleece from the airport gift shop with a cartoon moose on it.

Someone had already cut off the tag.

"It was the only one they had," Tobias said, shaking water off his shoulders. "I figured you'd hate the moose."

"I love the moose."

I wrapped it around my legs and the heater roared on, and for the first time in six hours my hands stopped shaking.

Ivy leaned in at the back window to hand over a bag of peanut butter crackers and a bottle of water.

"I'm going back," she said. "Somebody has to watch those two, and my ticket's on the nine o'clock."

"Ivy, you don't have to."

"Lena, I want to see his face when he figures out you're gone." She grinned and slapped the roof of the car. "Text me from the road."

Then she jogged back through the rain.

Tobias pulled out of the lot at 3:52 a.m., and the airport shrank behind us until it was only a smear of orange light.

We drove with the wipers going and the radio low.

My phone buzzed against my thigh.

I turned it over.

Connor: Where are you? Don't be dramatic.

Connor: Seriously Len. You can't just leave.

Connor: Lacey is really upset. She thinks she caused this.

I read that one twice.

Lacey was upset, and I had somehow become the one who owed her a phone call.

Another one came in while I was still staring at it.

Connor: You're making me look like a monster in front of everyone. Come back and we'll talk like adults.

I held down the button and looked at the little glowing screen for a full mile.

Tobias didn't say a word.

He kept his eyes on the road, both hands at ten and two.

I typed with my thumbs, slowly, so I wouldn't change my mind.

We're done. Don't call me. I'll pick up my things this week.

I sent it and put the phone face down on my knee.

"There," I said. "That's three years."

"That's one text."

"It was a very good text."

Tobias made a sound that was almost a laugh.

It surprised me how much I wanted to hear him do it again.

At a gas station outside Sterling, he came back with two coffees and a paper bag.

He'd bought two ham sandwiches.

He put one in my lap before he even sat down.

"Eat," he said.

I looked at the sandwich.

Then I looked at him.

"You bought mine first."

"It's your sandwich." He shrugged and buckled up. "I bought you one at three a.m., and somebody took it. This one stays in your lap."

I ate half the sandwich in four bites, and I might have been crying a little, but the road was dark and he was very polite about it.

"You know what's strange?" I said. "I didn't even want the sandwich."

"No?"

"I wanted one person to say, hey, Lena hasn't eaten."

"I said it," Tobias said. "In my head. Loudly."

I snorted coffee up my nose.

That was the moment I knew I was going to be all right.

We swapped drivers at five, and I let him sleep with his head against the window for forty minutes.

His coat smelled like cold air and cedar.

I knew that smell.

I'd known it since I was nine years old and he'd lived next door to me in Duluth, throwing a hockey puck against my fence.

Somewhere around dawn the sky turned a flat, heavy white.

The snow started in tiny dry flakes, then in a steady gray slant, and by Kearney the plows were out.

Tobias woke up when the car shifted under me.

"Pull over," he said gently. "Let me drive."

"I'm fine."

"I know you are." He looked ahead at the road. "I'm better in snow. Please."

I switched with him without arguing, because my eyes were burning.

By noon the radio was reading out closures.

A semi had jackknifed past North Platte.

The state patrol had shut the interstate in both directions for an ice storm.

We crawled to the next exit behind a line of red taillights.

The town was one gas station, one diner and a motel with half its sign burned out.

The parking lot was full of idling trucks.

Tobias put the car in park and rubbed his eyes.

"I'll go ask," he said.

He was gone five minutes.

When he came back, his face had a careful, flat look.

"Good news and bad news," he said.

"Tell me the bad."

"They have exactly one room left."

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