With every ounce of my soul, I reached out and I begged for divine intervention for Bo. I knew that nothing was impossible for God and that if He willed it, Bo would live. I didn’t know how, but I knew it could happen, and at this point, I was willing to try virtually anything.
On the way home, I noticed that, also for the first time since Izzy’s death, I didn’t feel like a pretender. I watched Mom and Dad interact in the front seat. I listened to them tiptoe around any subject with the slightest bit of significance. It was like seeing two actors film a made-for-TV movie about the humdrum life of a humdrum southern family. There was no depth, no genuineness, no truth. There was only the façade, the superficial veneer I’d come to know so well.
Back at the house, I was surprised when Dad came knocking on my bedroom door right after we got home, telling me that I had a visitor. Not having heard an engine, I assumed it was Bo. My heart beat in an excited tap dance at the mere prospect of seeing him.
The sun was shining brightly, but it was a cool day, another indication that fall had arrived. I quickly changed into jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt that said Sweet Baby Ray’s across the front, pushed my feet into my Sketchers and hurried out the door.
My smile faltered a bit when I saw Drew standing in the foyer instead of Bo.
“Oh, Drew. Hi,” I said, trying to recover.
“Expecting someone else?”
His tone was sharp and he was eyeing me suspiciously. I doubted that anyone else would’ve been able to detect the venom in his tone, but trust me, it was there.
“No, I’m just surprised. That’s all,” I said, coming to a stop several feet from him. “What are you doing here?”
“You said we’d talk later,” he said, shrugging. “Is this ‘later’ enough?”
“Yeah,” I replied, shaking my head. “Of course.”
“Let’s take a ride,” he suggested.
A tiny twinge of apprehension shot down my spine, but I reminded myself that this was Drew. We’d dated for over a year and I knew him well. I had nothing to fear.
I thought of my phone and how Bo was supposed to be calling me today, but I knew that I shouldn’t go back to my room for it. If Bo called while I was with Drew, it was sure to make matters worse. Much worse. So, in the interest of preserving relations with Drew, I left it.
“Alright,” I finally said, preceding Drew to the door. Before I opened it, I stopped and called out to my parents. “I’m taking a ride with Drew. I’ll be back in a little while.”
I heard a mumbled acknowledgment coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen. That was about the most response I could expect, so I left.
At the car, it didn’t escape my notice that, unlike Bo, Drew didn’t bother opening the door for me. I climbed in the passenger side and he slid in behind the wheel. Wordlessly, he started the engine, pulled out of the driveway and then we sped off down the street.
After we’d traveled several miles, I had to break the increasingly uncomfortable silence.
“Where are we going?”
“Just riding,” he responded.
The narrow back road we were on was a winding two-lane that led to Arlisle Preserve and, beyond that, to Southmoore.
“So, what did you do last night?” I tried to put my focus elsewhere. I hated this road because it’s the one Izzy wrecked on.
“Went to Josh’s to work on the Mustang.” His answer, like his attitude, was short and clipped.
I nodded. “Is it close to being finished?”
Drew sighed loudly. “Ridley, I don’t want to talk about a stupid car.”
“Then talk about something else.”
“Fine,” he snapped, shifting up into third to take a curve entirely too fast.
“Drew, slow down.”
“Don’t tell me how to drive, Ridley. You gave up that privilege.”
“Drew—”
“Don’t ‘Drew’ me,” he warned, accelerating through yet another curve. “The only thing I want to hear from you is the truth.”
“I told you the truth, Drew.”
“No, you didn’t. I want to hear you admit that this is about that freak, Bowman,” he spat.
“Drew, Bo has—”
“Don’t lie to me, Ridley,” he shouted, the tires squealing as he rounded a hair pin curve without even so much as tapping the brakes.
I gripped the edges of my seat tightly. “I’m not lying, Drew. Please slow down,” I begged.
“You’ve got a thing for the new guy and I want to hear you admit it,” Drew said, his voice booming inside the confines of the car.
As he took another corner at a dangerous speed, the back tires slipped off the road and we skidded in the gravel. The car fishtailed alarmingly and I felt my heart flopping fearfully in my throat.
My head was plastered to the head rest as I pushed my feet into the floorboard.
“Alright, Drew. I admit it. I have feelings for Bo,” I confessed.
“I knew it,” Drew hissed.
“But it had nothing to do with us. My feelings for Bo came after,” I continued. “I swear.”
And that was true. While I might have been intrigued by Bo, a bit taken with him, my feelings for him had been child’s play compared to what they are now.
Drew said nothing. I looked over at him to gauge his reaction, but I couldn’t read his expression. I was not inclined to believe that my confession had helped, however, when I saw the tight set of his lips.
“I never meant to hurt you, Drew,” I declared, putting as much truth and feeling into the statement as I possibly could. “I—”
My words were cut off when I saw the deer from the corner of my eye. A horrible and unwelcome sense of déjà vu swept over me. I’d been through this before and I knew I only had a fraction of a second to react before it jumped in front of us.
“Drew!”
My cry didn’t help. As if in slow motion, the deer leapt from the trees up onto the road. I heard Drew’s sharp inhalation right before he jerked the steering wheel with both hands to avoid the deer.