Something Beautiful Part 9

"Baby, let's go," I said.

Shepley took a step toward the friend, who jerked back in reaction.

"Shepley Maddox! We're leaving!"

Shepley looked back at me, huffing. He didn't have a single mark on his face. He walked past me, taking my hand and pulling me out the door.

Shepley The Charger's steering wheel whined as I twisted the wood with both hands. Rain fell from a dark blue sky, a.s.saulting the windshield so loudly that America had to nearly yell over the noise. She was chattering a thousand words a minute, and it was all blurring together. She wasn't mad but excited. I wasn't mad. I was feeling unadulterated deep f.u.c.king fury. Adrenaline was still pumping through my veins, making my head throb like it was going to explode. That feeling was exactly why I wouldn't lose my temper. It would leave me feeling sick, out of control, guilty-everything I didn't want to be.

As the miles pa.s.sed and we escaped Topeka, America's voice came into focus.

She reached over to touch my hand. "Baby? Did you hear me? You might want to slow down. The rain is coming down so hard it's starting to stand on the roads."

She wasn't afraid, but I could hear the concern in her voice. My foot lifted half an inch off the gas pedal, and I eased up, releasing the tension from my leg and then the rest of my body.

"Sorry," I said through my teeth.

America squeezed my hand. "What happened?"

I shrugged. "I lost it."

"I feel like I'm riding in the car with Travis instead of my boyfriend."

I breathed out through my nose. "It won't happen again."

From the corner of my eye, I saw her face compress.

"Do you still love me?"

Her words were like a punch to the gut, and I coughed once, trying to catch my breath. "What?"

Her eyes glossed over. "Do you still love me? Is it because I said no?"

"You ... you want to talk about this now? I mean ... of course I love you. You know that, Mare. I can't believe you just asked me that."

She wiped an escaped tear from her cheek and looked out the window. The weather outside mirrored the storm in her eyes. "I don't know what happened."

My throat tightened, choking off any reply I might have had. Words didn't come to me. I alternated between staring at her in confusion and watching the road.

"I love you." She balled her elegant thin fingers into a fist and propped them under her chin, her elbow on the door's armrest. "I've wanted to talk to you about the way things have been between us lately, but I was scared ... and ... I didn't know what to say. And-"

"America? Is this a ... is this like a good-bye trip?"

She turned to me. "You tell me."

I didn't realize my teeth had been clenched until my jaw began to hurt. I tightly closed my eyes and then blinked a few times, trying to concentrate on the road, keeping the Charger between the white and yellow lines. I wanted to pull over to talk, but with the hard rain and limited sight distance, I knew it would be too dangerous. I wouldn't take the chance with the love of my life in the car-even if she didn't believe she was at the moment.

"We don't talk," she said. "When did we stop talking?"

"When we started loving each other so much that it was too scary to chance it? At least, that's what it was for me-or is," I said.

Saying the truth out loud was both terrifying and a relief. I'd been keeping it in for so long that letting it go made me feel a little lighter, but not knowing how she would react made me wish I could take it back.

But this was what she wanted-to talk, the truth-and she was right. It was time. The silence had been ruining us. Instead of enjoying our new chapter together, I had been lingering in the why not, the not yet, and the when. I had been impatient, and it was poisoning me. Did I love the thought of us more than I loved her? That didn't even make sense.

"Jesus, I'm sorry, Mare," I spit out.

She hesitated. "For what?"

My face screwed into disgust. "For the way I've been acting. For keeping things from you. For being impatient."

"What have you been keeping from me?"

She looked so nervous. It broke my heart.

I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. She turned to face me, pulling up one leg and holding her knee to her chest. She needed something else to hold on to, bracing herself for my answer. The rain-speckled windows were beginning to fog, softening her. She was the most beautiful and saddest thing I'd ever seen. She was strong and confident, and I'd reduced her to the worried big-eyed girl next to me.

"I love you, and I want to be with you forever."

"But?" she prompted.

"No buts. That's it."

"You're lying," she said.

"From now on, that's it. I promise."

She sighed and faced forward. Her lip began to tremble. "I screwed up, Shep. Now, you're just content to keep going like we have been."

"Yes. I mean ... is that okay? Isn't that what you want? What do you mean, you screwed up?"

Her lips pressed together into a hard line. "I shouldn't have said no," she whimpered softly.

I exhaled, trailing off in thought. "To me? When I asked you to marry me?"

"Yes," she said, her voice almost pleading. "I wasn't ready then."

"I know. It's okay," I said, squeezing her hand. "I'm not giving up on us."

"How do we fix this? I'm willing to do whatever. I just want it to be the way it used to be. Well, not exactly, but ..."

I smiled, watching her stumble over the words. She was trying to tell me something without saying it, and that was something she wasn't comfortable with. America always said what she wanted. It was one of the million reasons I loved her.

"I wish I could go back to that moment. I need a do-over."

"A do-over?" I asked.

She was both hopeful and frustrated. I opened my mouth to ask why, but quarter-sized hail began to pelt the windshield.

"s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t!" I yelled, imagining every dent being pounded into the body. I slowed down, looking for an exit.

"What do we do?" America asked, sitting up and planting her hands on the seat.

"How far out are we?" I asked.

America scrambled for her phone. She tapped on it a few times. "We're just outside Emporia. So, a little over an hour?" she yelled over the sound of rain and a thousand ice chunks nailing the paint at forty miles per hour.

I slowed down even more, seeing the glow of brake lights from vehicles pulled over on the shoulder. The windshield wipers were echoing my heartbeat in a fast but steady rhythm, like the dance music at The Red.

"Shepley?" America said. Worry tinged her voice like before, but she was also afraid.

"We're going to be okay. It'll pa.s.s soon," I said, hoping I was right.

"But your car!"

The tail end of the Charger slipped, and I tore my hand away from America's, using both of mine to navigate the wheel against the skid. We slid across the road, toward the median. I overcorrected, and then the Charger began to fishtail toward the ditch. Hand over hand, I turned the wheel again, taking my foot off the gas. The Charger tilted to the side, and we slipped down a short embankment before landing in a full drainage ditch.

The water crested at the bottom of my window, the gra.s.sy brown river arching and ebbing against the gla.s.s, begging to be let in.

"You okay?" I asked, holding her face in my hands, checking her over.

America's eyes bulged. "What ... do we-"

Her phone began to shriek. She took one glance and then showed me the screen.

"Tornado warning," she said. "For Emporia. Right now."

"We have to get out of here," I said.

She nodded and turned around in her seat.

"Leave the luggage. We can come back for it. We have to go. Now."

I rolled down my window. America took the cue, unbuckled her seat belt, and rolled down hers as well. As she began to climb out, I unbuckled but paused. The ring was in my backpack in the backseat.

"d.a.m.n it!" America yelled from the top of the car. "I dropped my phone in the water!"

The faint rise and fall of tornado sirens blared in the distance as the hail was replaced by rain.

I reached back for my bag, slipped it over my shoulder, and climbed out of my window, joining America on top. Water was sloshing over the top of the hood. America crossed her bare arms over her chest, shivering in the wind, her hair already becoming saturated with rainwater. In just a pair of shorts, a tank top, and sandals, she was dressed for a hot summer day.

I took a quick look around, a.s.sessed the water, and then jumped off. It barely came to my waist.

"It's not deep, baby. Jump."

America squinted her eyes against the rain.

"We have to take shelter, America. Jump to me!"

She more fell than jumped, and then I helped her across the ditch to the gra.s.sy knoll. Cars were parked on both sides of the turnpike, but not all traffic was stopped. A semi blew past us, blowing America's hair back and soaking us with water.

America held out her arms at each side, her fingers sprawled out, her mascara running down her cheeks.

"I don't see anything, do you?" I asked.

She shook her head, using her tank top to wipe her face. "That doesn't mean anything though. They could have reports of circulation or lowering."

"That overpa.s.s is closer than town. Let's go there. We can call your parents ..."

A melody of screams echoed behind us, and I glanced back to see what was going on.

"Shepley!" America screamed, looking southwest in horror, toward the RV park nestled in a patch of trees. The branches were bending, nearly to their breaking point, thrashing helplessly in the raging wind.

"f.u.c.k," I said, watching a cloud slowly fall from the sky.

America Wet and freezing, I lifted my shaking hand to point toward the blue finger dangling from the clouds above. Someone shouldered past me, nearly knocking me forward, and I saw a man sprinting toward the overpa.s.s, hugging to him a toddler with pigtails and white sandals.

The turnpike led to an overpa.s.s over Highway 170. The RV park was below on one side, and a gas station was on the other side, just a quarter of a mile away.

Shepley held out his hand. "We should go."

"Where?"

"The overpa.s.s."

"If it goes over the bridge, we'll be sucked out," I said, my teeth beginning to chatter. I wasn't sure if it was because I was cold or terrified. "The gas station is the safest place!"

"It's closer than Emporia. Hopefully, it will miss us."

More people ran past us toward the junction, disappearing as they descended down the hill to hide under the bridge. A truck slammed on its brakes in the middle of the turnpike, and seconds later, an SUV rammed the truck. A loud crunching of metal and gla.s.s was muted from the growing wind created by the tornado. It had grown larger in just the few seconds when I turned away.

Shepley signaled for me to wait while he jogged to the wreckage. He peeked in, took a few steps back, and then rushed to check on the driver of the truck. His shoulders slumped. They were all gone.

"You can't stay here!" a woman said, tugging on my arm.

She held hands with a young boy, about ten years old. The whites of his eyes stood out against his dark bronze skin.

"Mom!" he said, pulling her away.

"It's going to plow straight through here! You have to find shelter!" the mother said again, taking off toward the gas station with her son.

Shepley returned to me, taking my hand. "We have to go," he said, turning to see dozens of people running toward us from their parked vehicles.

I nodded, and we began to run. The rain stung my face, blowing horizontally instead of toward the ground, making it hard to see.

Shepley looked back. "Go!" he said.

We ran across two lanes and then paused on the far side of the gra.s.s median. Traffic was light but still moving in both directions. We stopped for a moment, and then Shepley pulled me forward again, across both lanes of oncoming traffic and then down the on ramp toward the gas station. A tall sign overhead read Flying J. People were running from the parking lot toward the overpa.s.s.