“Okay then.”
“Don’t sass me,” she snaps.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I pinch my lips closed. Which is how they will stay for the foreseeable future.
Way to screw everything up.
Karli manages to get the gas in the tank and then slams the tank lid closed.
She shoves the empty can into the back of the van. “Anything else you would like to yell at me before we go?”
“Karli, I didn’t–”
Her eyes bulge, and she clamps a hand over her mouth before sprinting away. She falls to her hands and knees on the desert floor and then proceeds to lose her breakfast.
I’m a jerk.
Chapter 15
Karli
I’mdying.Notonlydo I have food poisoning, but we’ve been stuck in construction closures for twenty minutes with no end in sight.
Which is terribly inconvenient because I decided to sentence Trent to the silent treatment.
I’m overreacting. I tend to do that when I’m being mansplained to.
I know sleeping in a van isn’t the safest idea there ever was. But I don’t need Trent, the man who barely knows me, telling me what to do. After Thursday, he will be out of my life again, which means his little protective display back there was completely unnecessary.
I think I’m torturing myself with the silence more than him, though, because he seems like he’d be perfectly content to never say another word for the rest of his life.
I, on the other hand, feel like I’m going to explode. With words…and more. It’s maddening. Every tiny sound Bertha makes feels deafening. Has she always been this annoying?
I’d play music on my phone, but I forgot to charge it, and now it’s slowly sucking life out of Bertha attempting to charge.
There’s nothing. Nothing but silence and tension. And the fatigue threatening to claim me at any moment. I wish it would have taken me twenty minutes ago when Trent first started driving. But instead, it’s taking its time and…. I. Can’t. Stand. This.
“I don’t have a dad,” I blurt.
Trent slowly looks over at me, a teasing glint in his eye. ”I hate to break it to you, but that’s not how biology works.”
I bite back a smile. Most people wouldn’t appreciate a joke at a time like this, but I live for the sass, the snark, the laughter, all of it. Because if I’m joking, then I’m not worried about what’s really wrong in my life. Like all of it.
“I mean, my mom doesn’t know who my dad is. Or at least that’s what she claims. I think she does, but the deadbeat man refused to take me off her hands or give her money. So she’s trying to hurt me the way he hurt her.”
“Oh.” Trent removes a hand from the steering wheel and rubs his jaw. “That’s…a lot.”
I cringe. It is a lot.I’ma lot for a regular person.
“What I was getting at is that I’m used to watching out for myself, so I don’t do well at taking protective advice from others. None of my mom’s marriages lasted, but the one thing all the good-for-nothing men had in common was that they didn’t hesitate to come in and try to tell us what to do. Because they were men they felt they had the right to boss us helpless women around.”
It’s quiet. For at least two very slow miles. Honestly, it could be far less, or far more. The seconds are weighted and heavy. Forget talking. I should have stuck with the silent treatment.
“Karli, I’ve never thought of you as helpless. I know how strong you are. I got worried and spoke out of turn,” he says. “So please, feel free to ignore me from now on. Especially if I stick my foot in my mouth.”
I nod once, content with his apology. “Permission to ignore. Got it.” A soft smile finds me.
Neither one of us speaks for a few minutes, but I’m surprised when Trent breaks the silence.
