A Better Bad Idea by Laurie Devore

Author:Laurie Devore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Imprint

* * *

The tires turn and turn through a dark night.

I wish we would’ve slept, at least.

“Shit,” I say, behind the wheel after Ashton’s bender. “Shit, that was close.”

Ashton swallows but doesn’t say anything. He ditched his credit card in a trash can as we ran to the parking garage, along with his phone. We stopped at the first ATM we saw, and he withdrew all his money in his account before tossing his debit card out the window.

In some ways, there’s nothing left of Ashton Harper.

“They know you’re alive,” he says. “That means they’re looking for us.”

“And you were ready to turn us both in.”

Lights blur past in the windows as we speed out of Atlanta. “I can’t have any more blood on my hands,” he says after a minute.

“Oh, what, I’m white trash so I must be violent?”

“We killed someone, Evelyn,” he says, and then releases a breath. “We killed someone and they know we killed someone.”

“So you want to go home?”

He blinks, eyes glued to the road. Finally, he says, “I want whatever you want.”

Whatever I want. My whole life has been one day bleeding into another of getting by, of teaching myself not to dream. There wasn’t money for college, so why imagine what it would be like? There was no respectable person who would want me, so why indulge in imagining someone else’s skin on mine? There was no happiness or freedom or simple. Only survival.

Whatever I want.

“Nashville,” I say. “I’ve wanted to see the Opry my whole life. Walk the streets where the greats did.”

“Nashville,” he echoes, and reaches forward, cranking the music up loud like it will give him strength. It shakes the car, shakes me down to my soul, and I swallow.

I watch Georgia roll by. The dark rural roads should be melancholy, but instead I think about how there is so much majesty in utter darkness. The night sky gives you everything in a place like this, a place like home.

“I only had to call nine-one-one once in my whole life, you know?”

I don’t know. “Why?” I say, but as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know.

“The boat,” he says. “Reid went in, and…” He trails off. That’s it. The end of the story.

“I did what I thought would save us,” I defend myself, even though he didn’t ask for it, and he doesn’t argue.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “about the hotel. Before. On the bed.” He shakes his head. “That was fucked up.”

“It—” I start to say and then trip over my own thought. “It’s not a big deal.” And then just to stop him from saying anything else: “I was thinking about Kara. My sister. I’m glad she won’t think I’m dead.”

“Do you think she’s all right?”

“She’s tough,” I say. “She’ll hold Mama together. She’s been holding me together for long enough.”

“You don’t need anyone to hold you together, Evelyn,” he says then, and maybe I’m prickling at the idea he knows me, after a drunken night and an almost kiss.

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