All Broke Down (Rusk University 2)

And I realize what’s happening.

She’s ending this. That’s why she hasn’t called, why she looks so forlorn now. A warm evening breeze blows a few loose strands of hair across her face, and when she lifts her head to pull them away, she sees me. Her hands drop from around her middle, and she takes a step forward away from my truck.

My chest feels hollowed out at the sight of her. I want to soak her up after the days apart and keep my distance all at the same time.

“Hey,” she whispers, and I don’t so much hear the word as see it on her lips.

“Hey.”

“Sorry I’ve not been around.”

I want to cross to her, push her up against my truck, and kiss the apology right off her lips. But I don’t. I plant my feet and stay exactly where I am.

“Where have you been?”

She shrugs. “Nowhere. Locked in my room, mostly.”

I don’t know how to do stuff like this. I’ve never been in a relationship. The last few weeks with her are the most serious thing I’ve ever had, the only relationship, romantic or otherwise, that has ever meant this much. I don’t know the rules. All I know is that I’ve missed her, that my life seems out of balance without her.

“Dylan, I need you to tell me. Whatever it is that you’re thinking right now, please put me out of my misery and just tell me.”

She lifts a hand and traces the outer rim of my oversized rearview mirror.

“Can we go for a drive or something? Just get away for a bit?”

I hesitate, unsure what to think. I might not know much about relationships or breakups, but common sense says you don’t go somewhere with someone if you’re planning to dump them.

Even when I’m worried about what she’ll say, I still can’t tell her no.

“Sure. Okay. Hop in.”

She doesn’t go around to the passenger side. Instead she opens my door, and climbs up first. I’m surprised to see her sit in the middle seat, and it makes it a little easier to breathe around all the worry. She doesn’t act like we’re breaking up, especially when I climb up beside her and she loops her arm around mine when I reach for the stick shift.

“Any preference where we go?”

She shakes her head. “Somewhere quiet.”

I take the highway south out of town, and take an exit for a smaller highway that leads out to some small towns between here and West Texas. I never planned to drive back that way, back in the direction of home, but off the top of my head, it’s the only place I can think of to take her. Just before we hit the first small town I pull over onto the side of the highway. It’s mostly ranches and farms out here, so the only lights around for miles are my headlights. I park so that they shine through the barbed wire fence and out onto the field of green beyond us. I think for a few moments and then switch the lights off, leaving us in the dark.

“Come on.”

I open my door and slide out, holding out a hand for her to join me. Then I lead her around to the tailgate of my truck and lower it.

If I were better at this kind of thing, I would have a blanket or something else so she wouldn’t have to sit in the dirty bed of my truck and ruin her nice clothes.

But I don’t have a blanket, and I have no f**king clue what I’m doing. So I just do whatever comes to mind. I climb up in the back and lift her up with me. I take a seat leaning back against the cab and pull her down in my lap. I’ll have to be the blanket, be the thing that keeps her clean and warm.

She ducks her head beneath my chin and pulls her knees up to her chest. The cicadas are out in full force tonight, and the sound of them reminds me of heavy rain. They’re so loud that I don’t notice Dylan is crying until I feel her damp cheek against my neck.

“Dylan?”

She doesn’t answer, and when I try to get a look at her face she keeps herself pressed tightly against my neck where I can’t see.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I should never have asked.”

“Should never have asked what?”

She shakes in my arms, and her gasped breaths are getting bigger, louder.

“I’ve gone all this time in the dark, and it should have stayed that way. But I thought I needed to. Thought I needed to know.”

“You’re scaring me, Dylan.” I’m so bad at this shit. Hell, I go off and hit people when I can’t handle my emotions. How am I supposed to deal with someone else’s? How am I supposed to deal with her crying when every broken breath she takes feels like the slice of a knife over my chest? “Talk to me. Please.”

“I’m adopted.”

I tense. “And you just found out?”

She shakes her head against my neck. “No. I’ve always known. I was in foster care until I was nine, and then I was adopted.”

It stings that I didn’t know that. I should have known that.

But I never asked. I stopped asking questions because I didn’t want her to turn around and ask me.

“Okay. So . . . what’s changed?”

I feel her swallow, and she fiddles with her hands nervously until I lay one of mine over the top of both of hers.

“Wednesday,” she answers. “When I asked you that question again . . . I started thinking that it wasn’t fair of me to ask you to deal with your past, when I’ve deliberately chosen to remain ignorant about so much of mine. I’d always sworn I didn’t want to know. I thought it would somehow jeopardize what I had with the Brenners, with my adopted parents. But as soon as I thought about it at your place, I knew I had to know. I wanted to know.”

“Wanted to know what?”

“My birth mother. I know she d-died. That’s why I was in foster care, but I didn’t know how. On Thursday, I asked my parents, and they told me.”

I run my fingers along her braid, dipping underneath occasionally to lightly stroke her neck, and I press my cheek tight to the top of her head.

“How?”

She trembles harder in my arms, and I pull her closer, thinking maybe if I hold her tightly enough, I can keep whatever is making her shake at bay.

“She was killed,” she says. “Her boyfriend. He might have been my dad. We’re not sure. Anyway, they fought a lot. My mother told me that, my adopted mother, but now I think I can remember. Maybe. Or maybe it’s just my head filling in the blanks, but I think I remember the screaming. He was a drunk. And he hit her. He hit her all the time. But one night he kept going, kept hitting her, and he must have just snapped or something because he kept right on going until he killed her. Then when it was over, he killed himself, too.”