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I can feel Wes grinning, but I’m too nervous to look over at him. Instead, I focus all my attention on the green-and-white—and now, neon-orange—sign in front of me.
“But not me.” I give the can a few more shakes and cover the RD with two big, bold Ss.
“Bitchass Park Mall,” Wes reads aloud with pride. “I didn’t even think to add the double Ss at the end. Nice.”
I turn and give him a little curtsy, but when I open my eyes, I not only see Wes; I see the entire mangled pileup behind him.
Quint and Lamar’s daddy’s bulldozer is a charred hunk of metal. The pavement around it, scorched and black. The tractor trailer on its side looks like a T-Rex took a bite out of it, and all around, pushed to the sides of the road, are the totaled and abandoned vehicles Quint cleared trying to get us through the pileup. I picture him lying on the pavement with that shard of glass sticking out of his neck. I picture Lamar, dazed and in shock with blood trickling into his eye from his lacerated eyebrow. I remember the sound of the explosion and the way twisted metal and broken glass rained down around us like confetti.
And then, I remember the way the inside of my mama’s helmet smelled when I put it on.
Like hazelnut coffee.
Like her.
The scene in front of me goes blurry as the memories line up along the edges of my mind, ready to march in one by one to destroy me. The first one charges, and it’s a doozy.
Christmas morning.
The last Christmas before April 23, I came downstairs to find Daddy passed out next to a puddle of his own vomit on the floor in front of the Christmas tree. Mama and I left him there while we opened presents. She brewed her coffee extra strong that morning. Made me some too. I don’t know what else she put in that cup, but it made me feel warm and silly. We curled up under her blanket on the couch and watched Christmas Vacation on repeat until Daddy came to. It wasn’t so fun after that.
“Hey,” Wes says, blocking the sides of my face with his hands like blinders. “Stay with me.”
I blink, pulling myself out of my head as his beautiful face comes into view.
“You did it.” He beams, and the pride in his eyes is enough to make tears form in mine. “You’re outside, fucking shit up like a little punk.”
Wes jerks his thumb in the direction of the sign, and two warm streams slide down my cheeks as I turn to look at it. Not because I’m afraid to be out here.
But because I’m so incredibly thankful to be.
“I love you,” I whisper, shifting my gaze back to the man who, just yesterday, I thought I’d never see again. “I love you so—”
Before I can finish my declaration, Wes silences me with his mouth. He blocks out the world with his hands over my ears, clutching my face as he kisses me hard. He chases the memories away with his tongue and lips and hips and smell. And I am plunged back into my favorite place.
The one where Wes and I are alone together.
A car horn breaks into my consciousness, causing me to go rigid in Wes’s arms. I don’t look, afraid of what I might find, but Wes does, and what he sees makes him grin against my lips. He lets go of me to salute something over my shoulder, so I give in to my curiosity and take a peek.
A small white mail truck comes puttering up next to us, and Eddie—the same mail carrier we’ve had since I was a kid—gives us a little wave before flipping a U-turn and heading back down the highway toward Franklin Springs.
“The mail is running?” I ask in shock.
“Sort of.” Wes chuckles, lifting his tank top to re-cover my eyes. “C’mon. Let’s head back. I’m starving.”
“But Q isn’t feeding us today,” I remind him as he ties the white cotton in a knot behind my head, grateful that he’s not going to push me to walk all the way back, unblindfolded.
“I told you, I have plenty of food.” Wes presses a kiss to my unsuspecting lips, which part in a silent gasp as his hand slides between my legs. “That’s not what I’m hungry for.”
I feel so much better on the way back. Bolder. Braver. I lace my fingers between Wes’s and swing our hands back and forth as we head down the exit ramp. The bright May sun warms the top of my head, and I suddenly want to feel it everywhere—on my cheeks, on my shoulders. I crave it like oxygen.
Once we’re at the bottom of the ramp, I pull Wes to a stop next to the chain-link fence encircling the mall and yank my hoodie off over my head. His makeshift blindfold comes off in the process, and I freeze, both from the delicious warmth on my skin and from the war being waged inside my head.
“Rain?”
I think I can do it. I think I can open my eyes and be okay. With Wes beside me and the sun on my face, I feel like I could fly if I really wanted to.
I listen for anything that might sound … I don’t know … triggering, but all I hear is the faint rumble of an engine in the distance.
