I turn to Tempest. “I-I need the keys to his car.”
“What? Why?”
“I just… I need…”
Tempest grabs my shoulders and makes me look at her. “What happened, Callie? What did he do? What’d he say to you?”
I look at her, into her gray eyes, so much like her brother’s. “I love him.”
Sympathy overcomes her features. “I know.”
“He used me.”
“What?”
I have to wait for this pain in my chest to pass before I can speak. “H-he said he used me. Against Ledger. He did it all to mess with him. So he could win at soccer.”
Her eyes are wide. “Oh God.”
“I don’t… I don’t know how to stop this.”
“Stop what?”
“This pain,” I whisper. “I don’t know how to make it stop hurting.”
She hugs me then. “Oh, Callie. I’m so sorry. I’m…” She moves away from me. “Listen, Callie, my brother, I love him, okay? I love him to pieces, but he has a major self-destructive streak. He can be… toxic and –”
“Will you bring his keys to me?” I ask, cutting her off.
“Keys to his Mustang?”
“The thing he loves the most.”
She studies me for a few seconds before nodding with determination. “Yeah. I will. Just wait here.”
And I do.
And she does too.
She does bring me the keys after a few seconds and I don’t ask her how she did it. How she swiped her brother’s keys.
All I do is get inside his car and despite my many protests, Tempest gets inside too. All I do is start his car and drive away.
I’m sixteen now so I can get my driver’s license.
In fact, Con was going to take me for my test next weekend and he’s been teaching me for the past few months. Ledger has been teaching me too.
Him too.
He’s the one who taught me to drive stick. He’s the one who taught me that in his Mustang.
So this isn’t the first time I’m driving this car.
Although this is the first time I’m driving it to this place.
I’ve been to this place before. With my brothers and a couple of times with my friends.
Never with him though.
I regret that.
It would’ve been poetic. Me driving to a place in his stolen car that we used to visit together.
But it’s not.
It’s tragic and catastrophic and awful.
Just like our Shakespearean names.
It didn’t help, did it?
Changing them, calling each other by made up names. Rivalry and hatred still fucking won and it’s so awful that I’m cursing and I don’t even mind.
It’s so awful that when I get there, to my destination, the lake, I stop the car.
I turn to Tempest. “I’m going to do something awful.”
“I know,” she says.
I flex my fingers on the wheel. “Aren’t you going to stop me? He’s your brother.”
Tempest throws me a sad smile. “He’s my brother, yes, and that’s why I know that he must’ve done something really horrible for you to do this. I know what my brother is capable of, Callie. I know he broke your heart. I know he didn’t just break your heart, he smashed it. Didn’t he?”
A tear streaks down my cheek as I nod.
“Well, then I was right. You wouldn’t do this otherwise.”
That’s all the encouragement I need.
I turn back and look at the lake, all shimmering and silvery under the moon, surrounded by trees. A slope leads down to it, a perfect slope for what I have in mind.
I start the car and pull at the gear. I put it in neutral and say to Tempest, “Get out now.”
She does and I’m right behind her.
And then, standing on the forest floor, my ballet flats crunching the leaves and tears streaming down my face, I watch the love of his life sliding toward the lake at a steady pace.
Before it hits the water.
Before the water slowly engulfs it, swallows it down, eats it up like he ate up my heart.
Just when it looks like I’ll never see it again, something goes off inside of me. Another earthquake. Another explosion, and I start to run toward the lake.
I start to dash toward it but Tempest stops me.
She grabs my arm and pulls me back. “Callie, no. Let it go.”
“No, I can’t… I…”
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s fine. Let it go.”
“I have to… I have to save his car. I have to…”
“Callie, you can’t go in there, okay? You can’t.”
“But I have to save it.” It’s going down and down, the bright white disappearing into the darkness. “I have to… He loves it and I… I can’t hurt him like this. I can’t hurt him…”
“Hey, hey, Callie. Look at me.” She turns me around and shakes me, makes me look at her. “It’s just a car, okay? It’s only a car.”
“But he loves it,” I tell her, tears streaming down my face.
“He’ll get over it.”
“I have to save it,” I whisper.
“You don’t.”
“I have to save the thing he loves.”