I have to get him to put me down. Z and I have to get the hell out of here. We’ll run away, and get married, and then neither of these men will have any claim over either of us.
But Silas is moving again before I can argue any more, carrying me out of Z’s trailer, past the barrel fire where people are staring, past Ms. Hernandez’s gnomes, past everything that’s been my whole goddamn life.
“Let me GO!” I’m sobbing now, and I hate it. I hate that I’m crying and that I’m so weak and that he’s so much bigger than me. “You can’t do this! Z needs me! You can’t just?—”
“When Darlene told me Todd was putting his hands on you,” Silas says, voice tight, “I drove straight here from Dallas. Soon as I hung up the phone, I got in the truck and drove.”
“Oh, sonowyou give a shit?” I spit the words at him between sobs.
He stops walking, just for a second. His grip on me tightens.
“I’m here now.”
It’s not an apology. Not an explanation. Just a statement of fact.
And somehow that makes it worse.
He deposits me in the passenger seat of a shiny new Ford F-150. How the fuck did he afford a truckas expensive as this? It’s the kind of truck someone with money drives. The kind of truck a con man would buy to look legit.
I immediately try to bolt to get back to Z.
But Silas catches the door, holding it shut with one hand while he leans in. “Harper. Stop.”
“Fuck you!” I claw at his arm, at the door, at anything I can reach. “Let me out! I need to go back. Z needs me!”
“That kid needs a hell of a lot more than what you can give him right now.” His voice is maddeningly calm. “And so do you.”
“I don’t needanythingfrom you!” My voice breaks on the last word, and I hate myself for it.
“Yeah, well.” He reaches across me—I try to bite him, but he’s too fast—and clicks the seatbelt into place. “Tough shit.”
Then he closes the door and locks it.
Child locks.
Of course.
I throw myself at the door, pulling the handle over and over, even though I know it won’t open. I pound on the window. Scream for Z until my throat is raw.
Silas walks around to the driver’s side like I’m not having a complete meltdown. Gets in. Starts the engine.
“You can’t do this,” I whisper, but the fight is draining out of me. Exhaustion settles into my bones like concrete. “You can’t just take me. I was going to marry him. We were going to get out?—”
“Marry him?” Silas glances at me as he pulls out of Grass Alley. “Jesus Christ, Harper. You’re seventeen. Just a kid.”
“So? It would’ve emancipated us both. We could’ve?—”
“You could’ve what?” His voice sharpens. “Run off to some shithole apartment and worked minimum wage jobs while you both tried to survive? That’s not a life, kid. That’s just survival.”
“It’s more than you ever gave me!” I cry, fat tears rolling down my cheeks. I’m half hyperventilating and hate the tears, so I pour everything I’m feeling back into my anger, pounding and kicking uselessly to try to open the passenger door even though we’re on the gravel drive leading to the main road now.
And I watch the world I know disappear behind us, mile by mile, until there’s nothing left but highway and the horrible, crushing weight of not knowing if Z is okay.
I always swore I’d never be anything like the father who abandoned me when I needed him most.
And look at me now.
I’m sorry, I think, hiccupping on another sob and pressing my forehead to the window.I’m so sorry I left you there.