Page 24 of Lost With My Enemy

"And Elise lives in Toronto, and I live in Calgary, and we've been in a truck together for merely two weeks, and that's not enough to change a career trajectory."

"No."

"So I take the job."

"Sounds logical."

"You're doing the thing where you agree with everything I'm saying because you know I'm wrong."

"I'm doing the thing where I let you talk yourself into something you don't want and wait for you to figure it out." The music in the background gets quieter, like he's moved rooms. "Can I tell you what Sloane would say?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"She'd say that the fact that you called me at 10 PM to talk about a job offer you got three hours ago means the job isn't what's keeping you up."

The farmhouse creaks around me. Old bones settling. Through the bedroom door, there's no sound. Elise is probably in her planner, colour-coding tomorrow's drive into Calgary. Two hours and forty minutes. The last page of the itinerary. The end of the trip.

"She told me we were always going to different places," I say. "And she's right. She's always right. She's the most right person I've ever met."

"She sounds terrified."

"She sounds logical."

"Same thing, with her. You told me that."

My forehead drops against the back of the couch. The ceiling has a water stain in the shape of a lopsided heart, which feels like the universe is being heavy-handed.

"I like her, Griff. Not in a twelve-day, road-trip, proximity way. In a real way. In a way where I can't imagine pulling into Calgary tomorrow and watching her get out of my truck."

"Then tell her that."

"She doesn't want to hear it."

"She doesn't want to hear it, or she's afraid of what happens if she does?"

The bedroom door is still closed. The cross-stitch says BLESS THIS HOME. The dream catcher is in the truck, catching nothing but dark.

"Go to bed, Jax," Griffin says. "Talk to her in the morning. Before you get to Calgary. Don't let the truck do the talking."

"What does that mean?"

"It means don't just drop her off. Don't let the trip end without saying the thing."

"What thing?"

"You know what thing. Goodnight, man."

The line goes dead.

The pull-out mattress is worse than usual, or maybe that's just my head. Every time I close my eyes, I see the sunset. The violet sky and Elise leaning against the tailgate with her arms crossed, building walls out of logic and geography.

We were always going to different places.

She said it with total certainty. The certainty of a woman who booked fourteen days of rentals, mapped every fuel stop, and colour-coded a binder to prevent exactly this: the feeling of freefall when the plan runs out.

But plans run out. They always run out. Mom's health plan ran out in four months. Dad's marriage plan ran out while Kenzie and I were still in school. Every plan I've ever made has run out or been replaced by a plane ticket and a new assignment and the comfortable numbness of moving too fast to feel anything.

Elise runs out of plan tomorrow at 2:43 PM Mountain Time, when the truck pulls off Deerfoot Trail and into Calgary proper.