“You’re too young to understand what love is! He’s a thug. A user. Look where you are! Look at what you’ve done to your mother! What the hell are you even doing here?”

Dad presses the clutch and the gas while trying to shift and the engine completely stalls out. “Dad...you need to—”

“I can do it,” he yells, and the pure fury shooting from his eyes shuts me up. Again the cells stops then starts all over again.

In the rearview mirror I watch as Abby eases toward Isaiah. I’m losing the two people I love the most. Dad tries again and the engine roars to life. He successfully shifts the car into First, and I close my eyes as he grinds the gears.

“Just let me drive. I’ll take us home, I swear.” No matter how I try to stop them, the hot tears in my eyes overflow down my cheeks. “You can’t drive a stick!”

“You ruined today.” Dad ignores me completely. “You’ve made your mother sick. This isn’t what I expect from you.”

The cell stops and when it begins again, Dad reaches for it. “Goddammit!”

The light at the entrance of the dragway begins to change, and my eyes dart between the cell against his ear, the light and my father’s inexperienced hand off the gearshift. “Dad, I don’t think you should—”

I suck in a breath at the sound of the horn, and all I see is the grill of a semi. “Dad!”

Chapter 75

Isaiah

I SLIP MY WALLET INTO my back pocket and watch as her father murders the clutch. The ache in my chest is enough to kill me, but I hold on to the words I said to her: I swear we’ll be together. Rachel knows I’ll never break my word. This love between us—it will never stop.

Noah places a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“I love her,” I say. “And she loves me. She’ll be eighteen in less than a year. Graduate in less than a year and a half.” Then no one can keep us apart.

“And you have me.” Abby appears on my other side. “Maybe my cover will work, and I can keep you connected. You never know.” But she doesn’t say it like she believes it.

Abby stares after Rachel as if she lost her best friend. I place an arm around her. That’s because she did. “We’ll get her back.” I don’t know if I’m trying to convince her or me.

She wipes at her eyes. “This is why I don’t do relationships.”

At the intersection leading out of the dragway, the police officer turns right. The brake lights release as the Mustang rolls forward on a yellow and a tightness overwhelms my throat. The sensation that I dread, the tingling between my skin and muscles, crawls over me. I release Abby and take several steps. Terrified that if I lose sight of Rachel, I’ll lose her forever.

The light switches to red and the Mustang stalls in the middle of the intersection. I hear the attempt to turn over the engine, and my feet move faster as I watch the tractor trailer move into the intersection—speeding. My world goes into slow motion as my legs pump hard to reach the car, to protect Rachel.

There’s a sickening crunch and the white pony flips onto its side and rolls again and again. Like a ball hurling down a hill. From the other direction another car hits, and I scream out Rachel’s name. Brakes screech, glass shatters, more cars collide. The carnage lies in front of me as her car comes to a rest. The entire body smashed beyond recognition.

Buzzing fills my head as I continue to scream her name. I push my body harder, faster, but I can’t reach her. A few wisps of smoke puff from the hood.

And then fire.

I jump onto the hood of a sandwiched Civic. “Rachel!”

People are crying. Others screaming. Glass falls to the pavement. “Rachel! Answer me!”

The windshield of her car is a spiderweb, allowing me no visual access. Noah joins me on the hood of the Civic, and both of us use our arms as shields when a burst of flame shoots in our direction. Heat warms my arms. My eyes flicker, hunting for her exit. She’s wedged in. Both doors blocked by other vehicles. “Rachel!”

“We gotta move this car,” Noah shouts.

Her car is on fire. The thought races in my head. We slide off the hood and run to the back end of the Honda Civic. “Pick it up.”

The driver of the Civic joins us. Blood stains his cheek. “It happened so fast.”

Noah and I say nothing to him as we raise the back end with our bare hands. We both yell as the end lifts. My fingers scream in agony, but we keep going until we create a space. The Civic slams back on the ground. The gap isn’t much, but enough to wedge through. I cough as I inhale smoke and open the driver’s-side door. Blood soaks her father’s white shirt, but his eyes are open and he blinks. Beyond him, Rachel lies completely broken.

“Get her out,” her father coughs. “She’s not responding.”

Panicked adrenaline surges through my body. She can’t be dead. She can’t. “Noah!”

“Pull him out!” Noah says on top of the Civic. “Hand him to me.”

I squat down, in order to get a better grip. “Can you stand?”

He tries to move and groans instead. “Get her out!”

Smoke rises from the dashboard, and my heart rate increases. Using my shoulder, I lean into her father and yank him out of the car. He yells in pain and screams again when Noah pulls him up. The second his body is off me, I dash into the car.

“Rachel.” I say her name calmly, hoping she’ll answer. “Angel, I need you to open your eyes. Come on. Talk to me.”

I place my arm behind her back and the other beneath her legs. She flops like a rag doll. “You’re not fucking doing this, Rachel. I made a promise, and that means you made a promise to me. We’re going to be together. Do you hear me?”

I tug and Rachel’s body jerks back toward her seat in response. Readjusting my grip, I yank harder, and her body resists. My lungs burn from the smoke, and I wave at the air, trying to see the problem.

My hand reaches to the floorboard, exploring, and the world halts. I swear. No, no, no, no. The floorboard collapsed up and the side smashed in, metal twists around her legs. I cradle her sweet face in my hands and talk to her as if she can hear me. My voice breaks. “Your legs are stuck, angel. Your legs are stuck.”

I’m going to lose her. Please no, I’m going to lose her.

“Isaiah!” yells Noah. “You’ve got to get out! Get out, get out, get out!”

Chapter 76

Isaiah

May

I SPENT A GOOD PORTION of my life trying to figure out where I would get my next meal or how to avoid physical pain. In other words—how to survive. I never had a reason to contemplate death—too busy worrying about living.

Standing in this cemetery, it’s hard not to think about the end of life. Noah told me that his parents are buried in the section across from here. Echo’s brother’s final resting place is on the other side of the massive graveyard. No one is immune to mortality.

A light misty rain makes the warm spring day humid, causing my shirt to stick to my skin. I stay motionless, staring at the plot. There’s a heaviness inside of me that could produce tears. But I push it away. I’ve got too many emotions running rampant.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

My mother squats and touches the tombstone. “Yes. I knew he was your father the moment you walked into that visitation room. You look exactly like him, Isaiah.” She glances at me with a weak smile and glassy eyes. “He was handsome, too.”

My father. Unable to stand anymore, I sit on the wet grass. James McKinley. “I’m Irish?”

She laughs. “I guess. We never discussed family trees. He was a good guy. Decent. He died before I knew I was pregnant. So I crossed him off the list of possible fathers. Once again, a stupid mistake on my part.”

We’re not close—me and Mom. She wants to bond. I’m okay with knowing she’s alive. She pressures me for more, but I tell her she should be happy that the anger I feel for her is receding. Too much time passed between six and seventeen. Too many hurts. Sometimes it’s best to forgive someone and keep them at arm’s length.

“James had a big family. A little odd, but great people. I wish I had known then that you belonged to him. They would have taken us both in.” She goes silent. “Or at least you. You should find them.”

I scratch the back of my head. Somewhere in Kentucky, I have a big family. “I’m not sure I’d want to go through a paternity test.” And be proved wrong.

“I can’t say they wouldn’t ask for one, but one look at you and they’d know. You’re all him. Right down to the earrings and tattoos.”

The thought makes me smile. “No shit?”

She laughs again. “He would have said that, too. James was good to me. We were friends, and I got stupid and took advantage of him. I never forgave myself for hurting him, and I feel awful that he never knew you existed.”

“How’d he die?”

“Car accident.” She stares at the tombstone as if he’d appear if she focused hard enough.

“Will you tell me about him?”

Mom relaxes back on her bottom. The rain mats her dark hair against her face. “I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you everything I do know. James loved motorcycles...”

* * *

At the McDonald’s across the street from the cemetery, I wait in a corner booth. Courtney slips me a container of vanilla ice cream before sitting across from me with her own. She opens her purse and produces a bottle of multicolored sprinkles. She shakes some on hers and pours a whole shitload on mine.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Buying you ice cream.” Courtney drops the bottle into her purse and digs into her soft serve. “Don’t tell me that at eight you didn’t wish someone would have bought you ice cream with sprinkles.”

Courtney can do this now. Extract a memory buried within me with scary ease. There are times I think she’s a mind reader, then I remember she’s not. She was a foster kid, raised by the system, just like me. A pang in my chest makes me think of being eight and watching families buy ice cream. Courtney smiles when I take a bite.

“Do you feel like you ratted by becoming a social worker?” I ask.

She’s silent as her forehead furrows. “I choose to think about how I can help other kids in ways no one helped me.”

Fair enough.

“You and your mom talked a lot today.” Courtney observed us from her dry car.

“Met my dad.” So to speak.

“Sort of figured. How are things going with her?”

I shovel the ice cream in my mouth so I don’t have to answer. My eyes narrow at the way the sweet sprinkles roll on my tongue. Courtney giggles. “By the way, gummy worms on ice cream are way overrated.”

“Noted.” I mix the ice cream. “I can’t give her what she wants.”

“You don’t have to,” she says. “I never said a relationship with her is healthy, just that you should talk to her. From experience, you eventually would have had an ache to see your mom. I thought it would be better to deal with her while you’ve got me to buy you ice cream afterward.”