“Crap, this is all my fault. I’m so, so sorry.” I feel awful for a few seconds. And then I panic. “Oh my God. If my mom finds out about this she’s going to freak. Seriously. We have to get the car out and get back before she knows I’m not in school.”
I look around for something to wedge under the back tires to give them traction—a log, a rock, anything. “Maybe I can push it out.” I’ve heard of people getting superhuman strength in dire situations, which this all of a sudden is. Kat just looks at me like I’m being stupid, which might be the case, but I don’t know what else to do at the moment.
“What?” I ask. “You get in and give it some gas, and I’ll push.” I say it with confidence, then roll up my sleeves, step into the mud, and put my hands on the bumper, ready to get the truck out and save my butt from being grounded for the rest of senior year.
“It’s not gonna work,” she says flatly.
“Well, we have to try something. This can’t happen. I can’t get caught the very first time I ditch. That’s ridiculous.”
I wonder for a second if the desperation in my voice is as obvious to Kat as it is to me, and then I know it is, because she twists her long hair up into a bun, walks back to her open door, and gets in. “Don’t get pissed if you get dirty, because you will.” She closes her door, then turns the key, and the engine jumps to life again. “Okay,” she yells back to me. “You ready? Push on three!”
“Okay!” I dig the heels of my hands into the bumper and try to find something in the mud to brace my feet against.
“One . . . two . . .”
“Go easy at first,” I yell, but it’s too late.
“Three!” She hits the gas hard, sending a mud explosion flying from both tires. In the half second it takes for me to squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember to push, it splatters my face and my feet slip out from under me like something out of a cartoon. And that’s probably what I look like, lying face-first in the mud when she shuts the truck off.
By the time Kat gets back to me, I’m on my hands and knees wiping grit from my mouth and she’s laughing so hard she can’t talk or breathe. I chuck a handful of mud at her, which only makes her laugh more, then she loses her balance and ends up on her butt right next to me, and now it’s my turn to laugh so hard I can’t breathe. She grabs a handful of mud and smears it down my arm. I glop some onto her leg. We sit there in the mud like that for I don’t know how long, laughing until tears stream down our faces and it’s one of those moments I want to always remember. One that years from now will make me laugh just to think about. It makes me miss Kat already.
Finally, I catch my breath. “I’m sorry. This is totally my fault.”
Kat nods slowly, traces a shape in the mud. “Yep,” she says. “Which means now you have to tell me what we’re doing here with my car stuck in the mud and you about to get your ass handed to you by your mom.” She’s right, and she knows it. I owe her an explanation, which she waits for with a smug smile on her face.
“Fine,” I say. “But you’re gonna think it’s stupid.”
“Try me.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “I heard that Shane Cruz’s and Julianna Farnetti’s initials were carved into a tree out here near the Grove, and I wanted to see if I could find them.” It’s the truth, just not the whole thing.
Kat’s quiet a moment. “You’re kidding, right? Their initials on a tree is why we’re here? Do you know how many initials are carved into the trees down there?”
“I told you you’d think it was stupid—”
“I don’t know if stupid’s the right word,” she says, getting to her feet. “But it is kind of weird. Why are you all of a sudden obsessed with them since you got that letter? It’s not like you get points with the scholarship board for finding their lost initials.”
“I don’t know, I . . . it’s kind of romantic to think they’re out here somewhere. I just wanted to see.”
Kat shakes her head. “Clearly, you’re in need of a life outside of sappy books and movies,” she says. “And a guy. Which I’m gonna help you out with right now. I know how you like your knights in shining armor, so let’s call one to come get us out of this mess.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Whoever’s willing to drive all the way out here and get us unstuck. Relax about it,” she says with a wink. “Enjoy the sun and the last of your freedom.”
10.
“He asked with the eyes more than the lips . . .”
—“LOVE AND A QUESTION,” 1913
By the time we finally hear an engine heading our way, the sun is high and the mud on our clothes is nearly dry, and I’m grimly resigned to the fact that I probably won’t be leaving my house for anything but school for the rest of the year. It doesn’t matter though. This turned out to be such a bad idea, I don’t even care.
And then I do care. Because when our rescue car rounds the turn, I can see it’s actually a silver Suburban—one that I know well. I look at Kat and shake my head without saying anything.
“What?” she asks innocently, but her smile says she knows exactly what.
“You called Trevor Collins to come get us?” I wipe at my face, try to smooth my mud-caked hair. “That’s your idea of a knight in shining armor?”