Die Behind the Wheel by Brian Thornton

Author:Brian Thornton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

The next few days passed in a blur. Christmas, in all its tinseled glory, came and went, and we spent the week that followed in relative peace and quiet. Josie remained pensive and subdued, giving in to Mom’s requests without so much as an eye roll. Our mother was thrilled. I was terrified.

It wasn’t until Friday, the 30th, that I saw even a spark of the Josie who’d snuck out of her window, night after night. The Josie who was a human embodiment of a living, eternal flame, ready and prepared to set fire to anything and everything around her.

We were in the supermarket, walking each aisle as we collected the things on Mom’s list. Turning a corner, we collided with a trio of boys, their own cart a myriad of beers and cheap snacks. One of them was a guy from school, a tall, lanky kid named Liam who’d lived the street over since we’d been in kindergarten.

“Hey, Pattie,” he said, his smile shy and charming. “Enjoying break?”

“As much as I can, stuck in Woodside.” I glanced at my sister and saw her staring hard at one of the other boys. Liam’s older brother, Michael. He’d been in her class and was a larger, broader copy of his sibling. Gorgeous, actually.

“Hey, Michael,” she nearly giggled. “It’s been a while.”

Michael shrugged his shoulders and gave my sister a coy smile. “Yeah…it has. Lookin’ good, Josie.”

“You too, stud.”

The third kid, the one I didn’t know, stood there looking at Josie with the strangest expression. Like he recognized her, but didn’t know how.

“You guys coming tomorrow night for New Year’s?” Liam asked. “Party starts up at Rockaway, around ten.”

I hadn’t taken my eyes off that third kid, still peering at my sister. As I began to answer Liam, a massive grin spread across the guy’s face and he clapped his hands together in glee, like a toddler at a birthday party.

“Holy shit, it’s you!” he said to Josie. “I’ve seen your pictures! Niiiice, girl.” He began to laugh.

I was instantly reminded of a braying donkey.

Josie had gone the color of ash—pale and silvery and so, so fragile. Michael launched out a fist and caught the donkey on the arm, hard. It shut the stupid animal up, but the damage had been done.

Gripping the back of my arm, Josie hauled me away from our cart and down the aisle as fast as her legs would go. We were out the front door and halfway through the parking lot before I could stop her.

“JOSIE,” I hollered. “The cart! Mom’s groceries—”

“I don’t give a fuck about Mom’s FUCKING GROCERIES!” she screamed. Tears streamed through her mascara and down her cheeks in sooty, ragged paths. “I can’t go back in there, Pattie, I can’t!”

She was trembling, shaking, her eyes wide and terrified. The same way she’d been outside of Donovan’s on Christmas Eve. When she’d seen that guy.

“Where the fuck is the car?” she yelled, turning in rapid, manic circles.

I grabbed her arms and held them tightly at her sides.

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