Ask the Passengers

But they don’t love me. They just use me and then put me on the next flight out.

It’s lonely, but I’m okay. I just fall in love a lot, and I shouldn’t. And sometimes I end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. And sometimes I don’t get paid enough. Sometimes I dream that I’ll be rich one day and be able to go to college and get a job. Then I remember that it takes a lot of clients to get rich… unless one of them falls in love like I do.

As we fly over the mountains, I get this feeling I’ve never felt before. I can’t explain why I feel it or how, but it’s a big feeling. Bigger than I can put into words. It’s all-encompassing, like all the love I’ve poured into all the someones I’ve loved is now coming back to me. Like someone is loving me back for the first time in my life. And I know that everything’s going to work out. Maybe someday, someone will fall in love with me. I’ll go to college. I’ll be rich. Or at least I can help people like me so they don’t have to do what I’ve done.

I stare out the window and smile because just dreaming it is nice… even if it doesn’t happen. Just dreaming it is nice.

I don’t have a lot of love to send right now. Or maybe I’m being stingy. My heart just isn’t in it, so I get up off the table and into my car and start driving toward the college town where Donna lives. I don’t remember how we got to the Gamma Alpha Psi house, but I’m sure if I drive around enough, I might find it.

ME: And what will you do once you get there? Call Kim? Run off and get married? What are you doing?

ME: Just driving. Leave me alone.

By the time I get on and off the turnpike, I’m starving, so I go to a drive-thru and then cruise the fraternity and sorority houses looking for those familiar Greek letters. It’s about noon. The sidewalks are busy with students. I stop to eat my bacon double cheeseburger and watch them. I think: That will be me at this time next year.

I’ve been so caught up in Dee and Kristina and our secrets and now this whole mess that I’ve forgotten my entire future. No Ellis. No Mom and Dude. No Kristina bossing me around. Not even Dee if I don’t want her in my life. I will hear scholarship news in the next few months. My grades rock. I should be concentrating on me.

College kids look happy. And free. After I crumple the uneaten part of my burger in its wrapper and stuff it into the bag, I realize my future is only a few months away, and I will be one of the free, happy people. And then I start the car again and head for the turnpike. I turn up the music to block out the sound of my own thoughts. When I get to Unity Valley, I pull over into the Legion Diner parking lot and I text Kristina. You coming back any time this decade?

She texts back. On our way now. Should be back by dinner.

I park in the fairground parking lot hidden behind Kristina’s house and abandoned since the last fair of the season. I walk to Kristina’s back porch and sit on the swing, and I start thinking about what Kristina said. And I decide that I’m done being a pushover.

“What a surprise!” Mrs. Houck says when she finds me sitting on her back porch. She’s got a suitcase in either hand, and after she says this, her face makes a frown. The kind of frown I’d have expected from a mother who thinks I corrupted her daughter. Then Kristina shows up as Mrs. Houck jiggles her key into the back door.

“Dude. You can’t live here. I already told you that,” Kristina says. She’s joking, so I figure this must mean she doesn’t know how much I want to kill her right now.

“We need to talk,” I say.

She nods and goes back to the car to get more things. “Let me get the rest of my stuff,” she says. Her smile has disappeared. She must know why I’m here. I use my finger’s imaginary marker on her back as she walks up the path to the driveway. LIAR LIAR LIAR, I write down her back. When she gets back with her last bag and a pillow, she says, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

I get up and pace. I see Mr. Houck is not in the car. Strange. I thought they went as a family. Then I hear Mrs. Houck whisper-yelling through the open door. I don’t hear what she says. I don’t care what she says. I trace the word LIARS onto the side of the house. I face out toward the big barn they have as a garage, and I write it in imaginary letters twenty feet high.

“So?” Kristina says.

“Wanna take a quick ride somewhere?” I ask.

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here, I guess.”

“Do we have to?” she asks. “I have to unpack.”

I have to pack. I have to unpack. These are things that never mattered to Kristina before Tuesday.

I face her when we reach the driveway. “If you want, we can sit right here,” I say.

She sits down on the ground. I sit down next to her.

“So I heard the big lie you told about me, and I can’t understand why you’d do it.”

She looks a mix of surprised and ashamed. “I—uh—I’m not sure what you mean,” she says.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

She sits silent for a while then says, “I didn’t tell any lie.”

“Really?” I’m surprisingly calm. “You didn’t tell your mom a lie, which she then told the whole town? About me dragging you to Atlantis… almost against your will? That lie?”

She acts surprised. “What? I never said that!”

“Dude. You told my mom to her face. You said it. And I think you made it up because you can’t handle not being the perfect little Unity Valley Homecoming princess anymore.”

She smirks at me.

“Well?” I ask.

“Well, what did you lose? Nothing. That’s what you lost.”

“I lost my sister, my mother—who believes you and your mom and not me—and my father. And my best friend, who would rather lie about me to save her skin.”

“You still didn’t lose nearly as much as me.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What did you lose? You weren’t even in school this week to hear anything! And your little lie made you the victim of Astrid Jones’s evil g*y plot to get you out to a bar, right? Isn’t that how you wanted it to play out?” I yell. “And it worked perfectly! Good job, Kristina Houck. Mission accomplished. You set up your best friend after she kept your secret for over two years, and then you lost her. Nice job.” I get up and dust off my butt.

I start walking toward the fairgrounds to my car. “Wait!” she yells. She’s following me. “Wait!”

hey don’t love me. They just use me and then put me on the next flight out.

It’s lonely, but I’m okay. I just fall in love a lot, and I shouldn’t. And sometimes I end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. And sometimes I don’t get paid enough. Sometimes I dream that I’ll be rich one day and be able to go to college and get a job. Then I remember that it takes a lot of clients to get rich… unless one of them falls in love like I do.

As we fly over the mountains, I get this feeling I’ve never felt before. I can’t explain why I feel it or how, but it’s a big feeling. Bigger than I can put into words. It’s all-encompassing, like all the love I’ve poured into all the someones I’ve loved is now coming back to me. Like someone is loving me back for the first time in my life. And I know that everything’s going to work out. Maybe someday, someone will fall in love with me. I’ll go to college. I’ll be rich. Or at least I can help people like me so they don’t have to do what I’ve done.

I stare out the window and smile because just dreaming it is nice… even if it doesn’t happen. Just dreaming it is nice.

I don’t have a lot of love to send right now. Or maybe I’m being stingy. My heart just isn’t in it, so I get up off the table and into my car and start driving toward the college town where Donna lives. I don’t remember how we got to the Gamma Alpha Psi house, but I’m sure if I drive around enough, I might find it.

ME: And what will you do once you get there? Call Kim? Run off and get married? What are you doing?

ME: Just driving. Leave me alone.

By the time I get on and off the turnpike, I’m starving, so I go to a drive-thru and then cruise the fraternity and sorority houses looking for those familiar Greek letters. It’s about noon. The sidewalks are busy with students. I stop to eat my bacon double cheeseburger and watch them. I think: That will be me at this time next year.

I’ve been so caught up in Dee and Kristina and our secrets and now this whole mess that I’ve forgotten my entire future. No Ellis. No Mom and Dude. No Kristina bossing me around. Not even Dee if I don’t want her in my life. I will hear scholarship news in the next few months. My grades rock. I should be concentrating on me.

College kids look happy. And free. After I crumple the uneaten part of my burger in its wrapper and stuff it into the bag, I realize my future is only a few months away, and I will be one of the free, happy people. And then I start the car again and head for the turnpike. I turn up the music to block out the sound of my own thoughts. When I get to Unity Valley, I pull over into the Legion Diner parking lot and I text Kristina. You coming back any time this decade?

She texts back. On our way now. Should be back by dinner.

I park in the fairground parking lot hidden behind Kristina’s house and abandoned since the last fair of the season. I walk to Kristina’s back porch and sit on the swing, and I start thinking about what Kristina said. And I decide that I’m done being a pushover.

“What a surprise!” Mrs. Houck says when she finds me sitting on her back porch. She’s got a suitcase in either hand, and after she says this, her face makes a frown. The kind of frown I’d have expected from a mother who thinks I corrupted her daughter. Then Kristina shows up as Mrs. Houck jiggles her key into the back door.

“Dude. You can’t live here. I already told you that,” Kristina says. She’s joking, so I figure this must mean she doesn’t know how much I want to kill her right now.

“We need to talk,” I say.

She nods and goes back to the car to get more things. “Let me get the rest of my stuff,” she says. Her smile has disappeared. She must know why I’m here. I use my finger’s imaginary marker on her back as she walks up the path to the driveway. LIAR LIAR LIAR, I write down her back. When she gets back with her last bag and a pillow, she says, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

I get up and pace. I see Mr. Houck is not in the car. Strange. I thought they went as a family. Then I hear Mrs. Houck whisper-yelling through the open door. I don’t hear what she says. I don’t care what she says. I trace the word LIARS onto the side of the house. I face out toward the big barn they have as a garage, and I write it in imaginary letters twenty feet high.

“So?” Kristina says.

“Wanna take a quick ride somewhere?” I ask.

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here, I guess.”

“Do we have to?” she asks. “I have to unpack.”

I have to pack. I have to unpack. These are things that never mattered to Kristina before Tuesday.

I face her when we reach the driveway. “If you want, we can sit right here,” I say.

She sits down on the ground. I sit down next to her.

“So I heard the big lie you told about me, and I can’t understand why you’d do it.”

She looks a mix of surprised and ashamed. “I—uh—I’m not sure what you mean,” she says.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

She sits silent for a while then says, “I didn’t tell any lie.”

“Really?” I’m surprisingly calm. “You didn’t tell your mom a lie, which she then told the whole town? About me dragging you to Atlantis… almost against your will? That lie?”

She acts surprised. “What? I never said that!”

“Dude. You told my mom to her face. You said it. And I think you made it up because you can’t handle not being the perfect little Unity Valley Homecoming princess anymore.”

She smirks at me.

“Well?” I ask.

“Well, what did you lose? Nothing. That’s what you lost.”

“I lost my sister, my mother—who believes you and your mom and not me—and my father. And my best friend, who would rather lie about me to save her skin.”

“You still didn’t lose nearly as much as me.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What did you lose? You weren’t even in school this week to hear anything! And your little lie made you the victim of Astrid Jones’s evil g*y plot to get you out to a bar, right? Isn’t that how you wanted it to play out?” I yell. “And it worked perfectly! Good job, Kristina Houck. Mission accomplished. You set up your best friend after she kept your secret for over two years, and then you lost her. Nice job.” I get up and dust off my butt.

I start walking toward the fairgrounds to my car. “Wait!” she yells. She’s following me. “Wait!”