I didn’t, actually. I hadn’t realized I was just a chore to look after, or a way for Rusty to feel important. I tried to push away all the implications of what she’d just said to me: that Finn had thought I needed looking after but left anyway, that he’d decided Rusty was the one to do it even though he couldn’t look after himself most the time, that I was still somehow on the outside of their friendship, even now.
“Honor,” Celia said, putting her hand on my shoulder, “I know he can be hard to handle. I do. Which is why I’m thanking you—for being someone worth enough to him to help him through. And for being gracious enough to let him take this journey with you.”
I looked at the ground, not wanting her to see how wrong I thought she was, wishing I could bite my tongue just a little longer, but it was no use. “This isn’t some spiritual journey,” I said. “This is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.” It felt rotten to say, but it was true. “I was supposed to be at school a day ago, touring campus with everyone else,” I went on. “I took off the day after they put Finn in the ground, lied to my aunt, and haven’t spoken to my best friend since I left. And for what? So I could go to California to see Kyra Kelley’s last show? And hope I got a chance to talk to her about my dead brother who sent me the tickets?” I stood there clinging to anger because it was easier, right then, than facing up to everything else I felt. “This is not a journey. This is just . . .”
Celia smiled gently at me like I hadn’t just let loose on her, then put her arms around me and held me there, all wrapped up in reassurance and the scent of rose oil. She spoke softly, through my hair. “I think this—you . . . and Rusty . . . going to the concert . . . it’s part of something bigger for you. We all do crazy things, and sometimes they don’t make sense until we’ve seen them through, but this—this is something you need to see through. I know it. So you go, like your brother said, and—”
“And what?” Rusty asked as he walked up. He didn’t wait for Celia to answer, just looked right to me. “You ’bout ready to go? Better pee now, ’cuz I’m not stopping till we’re halfway there.”
I felt Celia’s eyes on me, trying to finish what she’d been saying, and I was thankful for an excuse to walk away. She’d brushed awfully close to a lot of things I didn’t want to think about. Already having failed Finn being the biggest one.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, excusing myself. My boots crunched over the red-rock driveway back to the house, almost loud enough to cover up Celia murmuring something to Rusty about being careful with me.
When I came back out a few minutes later, I’d swallowed everything down enough to say our official, polite thank-yous and good-byes to Celia and Bru out by the car. I didn’t argue when Rusty walked around to the driver’s side and got in. If he wanted to drive, that was fine with me. I’d sleep all the way to California and then figure out what to do when we got there. I ducked into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut after me.
Bru bent down to the open window. “You two have a safe trip. And keep your ears open for the universe.” He winked. “Sometimes it whispers.”
“Okay.” I smiled. But I was sure it didn’t have anything else to say to me. I’d already wasted my cosmic grace.
He stood and gave the hood a pat, Rusty turned the key in the ignition, and I sat back against the already hot vinyl seat, shoring myself up for the next seven hours.
“So you’re really not gonna talk to me this entire drive, huh?”
“No,” I said, eyes trained on the ugly, endless nothingness of the landscape outside. We’d made it a surprisingly long time in silence—across the California border, and now we were somewhere in the middle of more desert. “Nothing to talk about.” Why would I want to talk about how I was just a favor Rusty was taking care of for my brother? Or how it turned out to be true that I really couldn’t take care of myself? What I wanted was to stay mad about it, because maybe then those things wouldn’t hurt so much.
He turned down the music. “C’mon, Honor. I’ve known enough girls to know that means there’s plenty you wanna talk about. Why don’t you just yell at me for somethin’ and get it over with?”
I looked over, and he did too for a second before we both looked away again.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at Hell Week or something? Why are you even here?” I said it more to my window than to Rusty, but I felt him shift in the seat.
“Why are you here?” he countered. “You’re supposed to be in Austin, going to school, being a big success, making it worth it.”
“Making what worth it?”
Rusty didn’t answer.
I looked out the dusty window. “I don’t know why I’m here with you. It’s not like Finn made me promise to look after you or anything. At least he had faith in you.” Out the corner of my eye, I saw Rusty glance over at me again, but I kept my eyes on the solid yellow line that went on forever next to us.
He sighed. “It wasn’t like that, H. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I’m not babysitting you. I got drunk and passed out in your car. And then I woke up in New Mexico.”
“You could’ve stayed in Sedona. Or you could’ve turned us around today, back to Texas.”
“You want me to turn around, I will. Say the word.” Rusty slowed the car like he was gonna pull over. “I’ve had about enough of you as you’ve probably had of me, but the road back home is a lot longer right now than the road to the coast, and I’d rather make it all the way to the ocean today than end up back in Big Lake tomorrow. If that’s all right with you.”