Captured by the Mafia Bad Boy

5

I’ve been on the road for a while. Started out early this morning. Now the sun is setting, and the cars around me have turned on their headlights. I’ve no idea what time it is, but I don’t want to look at my phone to check. The clock on my dash has never worked right, and it’s too much of a pain to keep resetting. As far as my body is concerned, it could be two in the morning for how tired I am. I’ve read somewhere a body’s response to stress is to sleep, if that’s the case I should be in a coma right now.

The last few days haven’t exactly been “stress-free.” I’ve been laying low with friends, sleeping on couches and hiding out in garages, hoping for things to blow over, but now I’m almost out of money and really out of friends willing to help. Marcus has put the word out that he wants to talk to me.

Talk. Yeah, right.

I’ve seen his version of talk, and I’ll be lucky if I still have a tongue after our conversation. Apparently, my “friends” think the same thing. More doors have been closed on my face than a salesman peddling bibles. Not that I blame them. Tongues are one of those rare things no one’s willing to sell, and no amount of money can buy.

I thought, for a hot second, of going to Jett and Nikki’s house for help. Back when I’d been younger, they both had looked out for me. Jett made sure I’d gone to school with a full belly, and Nikki taught me everything I know about pool. Things changed when my mom started dating Lucas. Jett’s the sheriff now, and Nikki is pregnant with their second. The thought of Marcus sniffing around their house looking for me sends such a chill down my spine, I almost throw up.

No, it’s best that I left town. Even so, I’ve been watching my gas gauge more than the odometer. Less than a quarter of a tank. I’ve never been good at math, but I’m an expert on calculating gas mileage on a 1970 Chevy Malibu, V8 tank—the only thing in school worth learning. I have about twenty miles left. I keep my eyes peeled and read all the highway signs. Interstate I-10 west. West to California. To the beaches with their white-capped waves, Hollywood stars, and to Sam.

“I’m heading to Oceanside. It’s in California,” Sam tells me one night while I sit on the counter watching him make his famous spaghetti. “Got a good job lined up there. The trucking route pays almost double than it does here. Even found a small apartment not too far from the beach.”

“You’re leaving us?” I’m sixteen or seventeen. Too old to have gotten my hopes up over Sam. Sometimes though, I just can’t help myself.

He stirs the pot, the glow of the overhead stove light making him look tired. “I can’t stay here.” He glances up. His orange head of hair and even darker full beard always makes me think of a lumberjack. Sometimes he even wears flannel shirts to fit the part. “But if you need anything. Anything. You come find me, okay?”

I nod, too choked up to do much more.

“I’ll call you when I get there and get settled. See how you’re doing,” he says, reaching out to ruffle my hair.

Two days later, I watch him get into his truck and drive away. Leaving my mom. Leaving us.

He never calls. Or maybe he did, and my mom just hadn’t told me. I prefer the latter version.

I didn’t blame him then, and I don’t now. My mom is a mess, a stripper, and sometimes a meth head. Though she hadn’t been a meth head when Sam had been around. He hadn’t allowed that. Hadn’t allowed a lot of things.

Pretty lame plan, only one conversation from one of the multiple guys my mom’s dated over the years. But it’s all I have. That and—I pull out the wad of cash I’ve tucked in my jean pocket—one hundred dollars. A hundred dollars, and—I check the gauge again—less than a quarter tank of gas.

Even my sleep-deprived brain can figure out it isn’t nearly enough to get from Texas to California. Right now though, I’m too tired to think about it. By the time I find an exit that boasts of both gas and food, the red dial is buried past E, and I end up coasting to the back of the parking lot.

The exit turns out to be a dud. It’s nothing more than a deserted parking lot with one lonely gas pump and a flat-roofed, squatty building that boasts the word BAR in the window. I find a parking space near the rear, and then crawl into the back seat, pushing the frozen burrito wrappers and empty thirst busters to one side, and then curling in on myself, I fall asleep.