As if cued by my last thought, Trevor’s Suburban turns into the parking lot and crosses the empty spots to where I’m standing. Kat waves excitedly from the front seat, and Trevor gives a nod and a half smile before he puts the car in park. For a second it crosses my mind that it’s strange they showed up together, but that thought is overshadowed by a second one: Holy crap, we’re really doing this.
They both get out, and Kat crashes into me in a sort of tackle hug. “Holy shit, Parker, we’re really doing this! God, I’m so frickin’ proud of you! You have the journal? And the map, and everything?” I nod as best I can, my answer muffled by her cleavage and enthusiasm. She releases me. “Good. I’m gonna go grab us some food. I’m starving. You want coffee?”
“Um, sure. You want me to come with you?”
“No. You stay. I’ll be right back,” she says with a wink and a glance at the Suburban. She pushes through the red double doors, releasing a waft of grease and coffee from inside, and then she’s gone. When I turn back to the car, Trevor gets out casually, his hair still morning messy, which is adorable, and his eyes as blue and bright as ever.
“Morning, Frost,” he says with a grin that seems either a little shy or a little tired, I can’t tell which. He holds an arm out. “Let me get that bag for you.”
I slide it off my shoulders and hand it to him. “Thanks.”
“Wow,” he says, hefting it up and down a couple of times. “Kat didn’t tell me we were running away forever. You bring all your earthly possessions along?”
That familiar warmth creeps up my neck and threatens to spread out over my cheeks. “No. I just . . . I didn’t know what I would need, so I brought it all. You never know what the weather will be like on the coast. Sometimes—” Oh my God, just be quiet now. Stop being lame. Be someone new today. Brave. Bold. “Yeah, I guess I probably brought too much.”
“That’s okay.” Trevor hefts my bag into the back of his Suburban. “Just giving you a hard time.”
He shuts the trunk and we both slide our hands into our pockets at the same time. He takes his out. I laugh. What happened to who we both were yesterday, in my car?
“So,” Trevor says, after an awkward moment. “Is she always this . . . peppy in the morning?” We both look through the window to where Kat is inside gesturing wildy and the guy behind the counter is laughing.
I turn back to him. “Not usually. I think it’s because she’s finally getting me to do something crazy, that she would do. That I normally wouldn’t.”
“Ah,” he nods. “Corrupting the indomitable Parker Frost. It is an accomplishment, actually.”
“Indomitable? That’s a big word for you, Trevor Collins.” He laughs, and it’s enough to encourage me. “It might be an accomplishment,” I say. “But she’s been failing at that for years. There’s a chance I’m just a lost cause.”
Trevor raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know about that, Frost. Maybe you just haven’t been tempted with the right transgression yet.”
Brave. Bold. WWKD.
“Or maybe I have,” I say with a smile I’m pretty sure looks like one Kat would give. “Maybe I just haven’t made up my mind whether to risk it.”
He smiles slow and leans in close. Close enough to touch. “That’s too bad. Because all the fun is in the risking.”
“Then maybe you should try it some time,” I answer back.
Kat comes out then, loaded up with more grease-dotted bags than it would take to feed all of us three times. She sees me looking. “What? Road trip food doesn’t count.”
“True,” Trevor says. “Let’s get on the road. So we can eat some of that food that doesn’t count.”
With that we pile into Trevor’s car—which he informs us is actually called the Silver Bullet. Kat hops in the back, and I, by Kat’s design, I think, sit shotgun. Seat belts click, the familiar chorus of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” rushes out of the speakers, and greasy fast food breakfast is distributed all around.
Kat raises her Diet Coke in between me and Trevor. “To fate, friendship, and adventure. Here we go!” We tap our drinks together. Trevor puts his arm on the back of my seat to twist himself around when he backs up, and when he does, our eyes catch.
“Wait,” I say.
“No backing out now,” he says. “You’re committed.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m not backing out. There’s just one place we have to stop before we really get on our way.”
“Let me guess,” Kat says. “Summit Lake?”
I turn around. “How did you know?”
“You might be the one with the scholarship to Stanford,” she says through a mouthful of breakfast burrito, “but I’m always one step ahead of you.”
21.
“But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”
—“FIRE AND ICE,” 1920
The road to Summit Lake is off the main highway, fifteen minutes or so out of town, and is definitely out of our way, but there’s no other place this trip should begin. If we’re searching for a different ending to Julianna’s story, we need to start where the original version ended. When Trevor makes the turn off the highway, the road narrows as if that’s the only way it can manage to hug the side of the mountain it puts us on. We all kind of go quiet when we round the first turn and the view unfolds in front of us, grand and dramatic, and in my mind, a bit sinister, too.