Game Changer (The Field Party)

He said nothing, and the sound of his heater blowing was all that filled the silence in the truck. How many times had I wished to be right here in this truck with him? How many times had I daydreamed about Asa? And here I had the chance to run off with him and I couldn’t do it.

Sirens ahead, lighting up the dark road, sent my heart pounding in my chest. Had my parents already called the police? Were they coming after us? I’d barely been gone. They should just be finishing dinner now. “Dios,” I muttered, clasping my hands tightly in my lap, not sure if God cared about the current situation I was in or if he helped out girls who rebelled against their parents. I was still unsure of his existence anyway.

“Fuck,” Asa said with an angry scowl. Maybe his choice of word was more productive. I should try cursing instead of calling on a God who had ignored me thus far in life.

“Are they coming this way?” I asked, unable to keep the trembling out of my voice. He didn’t know my momma. I was terrified.

He didn’t respond right away, and I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to respond. Then the lights turned off the road and more followed. I watched as they, too, turned and sirens mixed in the night air as we got closer. “You haven’t been gone long enough for a police search, and there would be no need for an ambulance. Something else has happened.”

I thought about his dad but said nothing. He seemed to know what I was thinking, though, because he said, “They’re turning on 101. Not my road.”

Lawton was small, and sirens of any kind drew attention. An ambulance wasn’t too out of place, but the police cars following the ambulance were concerning.

Asa’s cell phone rang. He glanced down at it. I watched him grab it and put it up to his ear. Would it be his dad or maybe his mom? Was he still going to run away?

“Yeah,” he said gruffly into the phone. Then he listened. I could hear a deep voice on the other end of the line, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. When the other voice went silent, Asa said nothing. He pulled back onto the road, driving faster than before. The other voice said something else.

“I’m on my way,” he said simply, then ended the call.

I didn’t ask, but he was my ride home and there were ambulances and cop cars still flying toward us, then turning on 101. I expected him to say something, but he didn’t. He slowed and glanced down the road as we passed 101, then gave me a quick glance. “I’ll take you home first,” as if that was all the explanation anyone needed.

There was a darkness in his eyes. Or maybe sorrow or pain was a better explanation. Even in the cloak of night, I could see it. Whoever had been on the phone had told him something bad. “Is your mom okay?” I blurted without thinking. My imagination went to his father doing exactly what Asa feared he’d do eventually.

Asa lifted a shoulder and sighed. “Yeah, I mean I guess,” he said.

I felt relief wash over me. That was good. He didn’t seem equally happy about it, though. He also didn’t seem to want to tell me any more. I tried to think of several ways to ask him about the news he’d received on his call but could think of no way to ask that didn’t appear nosy. He wasn’t telling me, so it obviously wasn’t my business.

The truck pulled in front of the store, and I saw my mother and father inside talking—no, make that arguing. I was the topic and I was about to walk inside to face the brunt of it all. My getting out of this truck wasn’t going to help matters at all.

“Thanks,” I said to him, not sure if that was an adequate response to what had happened tonight.

He nodded, staring straight ahead. His mouth was in a grim line. I wanted so badly to reach over and touch his hand. To ask him what was wrong. What had happened. It just felt unwelcome. I was a stranger. One who had possibly saved his life, but still, I was no one to him.

“I hope everything is okay,” I said finally as I reached to open the passenger door. I waited one more second to see if he was going to respond but knew I had no more time to sit here. My parents would notice the truck and me any moment, and all hell was going to break loose. Asa had other things to deal with and he needed to go.

Just as I started to climb out, he spoke. “They aren’t. My friend is dead. An accident. He’s dead and didn’t want to die. He didn’t fucking die at his own hands. Yet here I sit alive. Life isn’t promised, is it? And I took it for granted.”