“Wait a minute!” a girl’s voice calls out. “We just want...”
I can’t understand the rest because the Yamaha starts to lurch while we bump over the curb onto the highway.
“Watch out!” River’s helmet slips from his hand, and at that moment, a truck speeds by us, and the hot wind burns my face.
“Now! Now drive!”
I’ve never driven a bike like this before, but I manage to keep the thing on track, even if I’m definitely using the wrong gear.
What was that about? I want to shout, but it’s not possible.
So I drive a mile and bring the Yamaha to a stop with shaking hands.
I turn to River, indignantly.
His face is red and dusty, his expression a mixture of anger and disbelief.
He says nothing. He just gets off and runs three steps away from me, putting his hands on his thighs like he’s run a marathon.
Whatever happened, it must have thrown him completely off balance.
I carefully turn off the bike and walk toward him. My helmet is still hanging on my forearm because I didn’t have time to put it on.
“W-w-what’s going on?” I choke out, feeling contempt for still stuttering and being unable to come up with a sensible sentence.
I hear River taking a deep breath, apparently trying to calm down. When he turns, a fake smile is plastered on his face. “I need a new helmet,” is all he says.
I could scream! He digs the sunglasses I bought at the little store in Woods Crossing out of the backpack and hands me mine. “Put them on. The sun’s totally aggressive.”
I reluctantly obey, even though I hate that he’s acting like I can’t count to three. He knows that I know something is wrong. He doesn’t want to be recognized, that’s what it looks like!
Maybe the guys in the store were his friends who somehow found out where we were?
I don’t ask on my cell phone, and we ride on. It’s strange that he doesn’t just go back to pick up his helmet. I guess the situation is more serious than he lets on.
In Coyote Springs, wearing sunglasses and a scarf made into a bandana, he buys a completely overpriced helmet from a rental car dealer, even though we’re almost in Las Vegas.
You don’t want to be recognized?I ask as he hurries back to the bike with long strides.
“Didn’t you want to speak three sentences a day?” he asks gruffly in return and simply pulls the visorless helmet over the bandana.
I tug on his sleeve, and he stops and turns to me. “What is it?” He sounds impatient and has never been that way, or rarely, in all these weeks.
Who are you?Again, there is this dull fear in me that I could lose him. That there is something so bad that we can’t overcome it.
“River McFarley. Tanner Davenport. Take your pick!”
“Please,” comes out of my mouth unexpectedly.
He looks at me through his sunglasses, looking like a young pilot, cool and distant. “What do you want, Kentucky. What? We’re in a hurry, so don’t mess around!”
Angry, I take a deep breath. I shouldn’t mess around? He should talk. Maybe his mood is currently changing again. In my mind, I try to calculate how long he might be awake. Perhaps there is a fixed rhythm to these periods and they can be calculated ahead of time.Are you having a bad phase?I type because I can’t do the math quickly and River seems so impatient.
After reading it, he roughly pushes my arm with the cell phone out of his reach. “See, that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Because then you’ll blame everything on this supposed illness that I don’t even have.” He leaves me there and walks to the Yamaha, so I pick up the backpack that he left outside the shop.
Talk to me, damn it!I want to shout at him, but who am I to say that?
“Have you googled anything about it yet?” he asks when I reach him.
