The Friday night lights radiated off the field in a way that mimicked pure sunlight, expelling the darkness of the hour into the cow pasture behind the press box. Rickety metal bleachers vibrated with the stomps of avid parents shouting vehement praises and insults to a few dozen puberty-stricken teenagers, with each comment more passionate than the next. The air smelled of an assaulting combination of Axe spray, body odor, and popcorn. It was the fourth quarter, and the score was tight. People shouted, buzzers rang, whistles blew, children tumbled up and down the stairs, elderly couples stopped in the view of everybody to look for their grandkid who had not left the sidelines–it was all incredibly overwhelming. I would not have been here under normal circumstances, but the club I was a part of needed volunteers to work a merchandise booth. Since I was the only ambassador who did not care about watching the game, I thought it would be best if I took the job. Besides, I was graduating in the spring, so I figured I should at least watch one game. I closed the booth after the third quarter and pushed my way through the blockade of figures that congregated at the concession stand to the bleachers. I smoothed the back of my skirt out and sat down, the cold metal pressing against the back of my legs. Though I had impulsively decided to step out of my comfort zone, I had no intentions of doing it alone. I serial-texted every friend I had who was not already on the field, but the game was almost over. I gave them a hard time, in all my usual sarcastic glory, but I understood. I would not have come here, either.

I watched the guys on the field play their game while simultaneously attempting to decipher what the actual hell was going on. They moved forward, then backward; an orange target followed the players loosely, and referees made calls I did not understand. I was lost, then focused on trying not to be lost, then focused on ignoring the people around me so I could focus on not being lost; I was so far inside my own head that I did not notice a friend of mine had come to sit with me until he was coming up the stairs.

“Hey,” he said, waving his hand slowly. He held on to the guardrail as he walked toward my seat. Jackson and I had known each other for a couple of years through a mutual friend, Isaac, but neither of us had cared to know the other. In truth, his company annoyed me. I knew guys played rough, but I always felt like Jackson took it too far. Isaac would jokingly punch him in the arm, and Jackson would respond by shoving him backward, sometimes into a wall or a desk. Isaac never complained, and they did this often, so I shrugged it off. Boys will be boys, right? 

It was not until Jackson joined my robotics team that we decided to be friends. Many people had quit the team in later years, so we sort of fell into a friendship. We would sit together on the bus rides and hang out during practices, but we were not the kind of friends who would meet outside of a school setting. It took pure boredom and a dash of desperation for me to ask him to meet at the game.

My eyes widened. “Hey,” I said, feeling a blend of shock and relief. “I thought you said you couldn’t make it, Mr. ‘I-Have-No-Ride.’” Jackson sank into the seat beside me, leaning against the chainlink siding of the bleachers. His eyes were red, and his movements sluggish.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Gus is around here somewhere. The Rogers game sucked, so I got him to bring us here.” He looked around before meeting my gaze. 

I cocked an eyebrow and displayed an accusatory smirk. “Hmm.”

“What?” he asked, unable to hide a smile. 

“Bro, you look high as shit right now.” He chuckled, his eyes still fixed on me. He went into some long-winded explanation about his friend’s bong and what they were doing before they came, but I did not listen much. Jackson always seemed to be inebriated in some way or another during those days, so I had grown accustomed to tuning out his rambly explanations. I tried to talk to him about it, but he always shrugged it off. He would say he was fine, then call me on Snapchat at three o’clock in the morning, needing me to talk him down from committing suicide. He always seemed like he was running from something: his emotions, his physicality, but most apparent to me, the truth. I do not think he said an honest statement to me the entire time we were friends; I don’t know if he was capable of doing so. Lying was no more than a breath to him: necessary and done without thought. It didn’t matter if it was about weekend plans, or the movie he saw, or the dates he went on; every sentence was tainted with some kind of exaggeration or blatant lie. It drove me nuts, but I never said anything to him. He was the kind of guy who could never be wrong, so arguing about it was futile. 

I would usually save my complaints for Hannah, my best friend at the time. She knew Jackson, too. In fact, he had a little crush on her, which she really liked–not him, just the fact that he liked her–so she just brushed whatever I said off. She would tell me I was “reading into things” or “seeing something that was not there.” That I needed to “stop playing ‘detective’” or drop the “God complex” that made me think I was right all the time. Even with evidence, she would tell me I was wrong or that he had a reason. I would consider his problem pathological, but it was not harming anyone yet, and I was the only one who saw it. So, for that reason, I let it slide.

“So, did Gus meet up with some of his friends or something?” When Jackson came to my spot on the bleachers, he had come alone. Gus was a popular guy; he had every girl wrapped around his finger, but he was too nonchalant to go seek them out. He was usually stuck to Jackson, like a kind of barnacle, until some thin blonde came and snatched him up. 

Jackson, who had been looking around the field in a daze, turned his head toward mine, his eyes following slowly behind. “Hmm?”

I scoffed, cocking my head to the side. “Your ride? The guy you came with?” I nudged him with my elbow, and he smirked. “How’d you guys even drive here in the first place?”

“Yeah, we just kind of walked.” He looked down in the direction of my legs and picked at the skin on his fingers.

“You walked?” More disbelief slipped through my tone than I had intended, but the school they were at previously was a good fifteen minutes away by car. This man complained about walking 10 minutes to Subway, so he certainly did not walk the forty-five minutes from the school. But, then again, he always made strange choices when he was high.

“Yeah.” This was the quickest he had reacted to anything. It seemed convincing enough. “Why?”

“That’s just a long walk.” I turned my gaze to the field. He shook his head and mumbled a bunch of sentence fragments I could barely hear. I nodded as though I understood and let him change the subject.

We chatted for a while as the game began wrapping up. The crowd, with sunken faces and a despondent manner, was beginning to pack up their megaphones and orange-and-black pompoms; all that cheering had not won them the game. I was ready to go home and retreat into that comfort zone I loved so much; however, I mistimed when I needed to leave. I lived approximately thirty seconds from the high school, just across the street, but the traffic funneling out of the parking lot would turn that into fifteen to twenty minutes. I decided to wait on the bleachers with Jackson to let the lot clear out a bit. 

“So, what are you doing after this?” he asked. 

I stood up, and his eyes followed my body. Uncomfortable, I broke eye contact and looked around where I was sitting, grabbing my wallet and phone as I did. “Just homework. I have a calc test on Monday, and I have to reteach myself logarithms before then.” He chuckled and stood with me. A silence had washed over the stands, replacing cheers with the sound of a soft breeze brushing against some leaves and a faint mooing from a couple of cows out in the pasture. “How are you getting home?”

“You.” His reddened eyes bore into mine. His posture, though limp, stood rigidly in front of me. Jackson was a large guy, nearly a head taller than me. High or not, I could not move him if I wanted to.

“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “Where’s Gus?”

“Oh, I think he left.” He stumbled over his words as he looked around the nearly vacant bleachers.

“What? Why?” I had enough of people for the day and just wanted to leave. I began to walk down the bleachers, and he followed closely behind.

“Oh, well, he, um.” He spouted out a few different excuses, but relented when thinking became too strenuous for him. “Yeah, I just told him he could leave.” Something seemed off, but I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. I did not want to read into things. I had not seen him pull out his phone once to tell Gus to leave, but maybe he did it before he got here. Hard as I try, I do not know everything. So I dropped the “God complex” and moved on. 

“Jackson, I don’t know where you live,” I laughed half-heartedly. “And my mom probably just wants me to come home.” We continued walking toward the exit and stopped once we reached the gate.

“I don’t live far. I’m ten minutes away, just past the McDonald’s.” There is no one on the planet worse with directions than me, so I knew this would not be an easy drive, especially not with him trying to give instructions in this state.

“I’m sorry,” I said, dragging the word out to show a faux sincerity. “I’ve got work I have to do, and, like I said, my mom is not going to want me driving around this late.” In truth, she probably would not care, but playing the ‘my mom said no’ card usually worked. “Text Gus and have him come back, okay? I really have to go.” I smiled as I waved and began to trek toward my car. I always parked close to the lot exit, which meant my car was a good distance away from the field itself. It was a long walk, but I preferred to park away from everyone else.

By this time, the lot was empty, save for a few scattered cars left behind by players still changing out of their uniforms. Streetlights coated the faded concrete in a dim, orange light, flickering at random. Apart from my footsteps, the lot was completely silent. The circle of trees that encompassed the school made everything seem much darker than it was, blocking out the light from surrounding cars and shops. The air was cooler now, and I was regretting wearing a skirt rather than pants. I reached into my pockets and pulled out my keys, eager to get inside as quickly as possible. The jingling of metal interrupted the quiet lot, masking the sound of my shoes. I looked down to press the ‘Unlock’ button and noticed a shadow that was not my own. I snapped my neck to look behind me; it was Jackson, jogging to catch up with me. I felt dread plotting itself in the center of my stomach.

“He can’t come,” he said, halfway out of breath.

“What?” I instinctively held off on unlocking my car.

“Gus. He can’t come.” 

“Did you even call him?” Honestly, I had not seen a phone on him all night. Maybe he left it in his pockets.

“Yeah.” There was no way, in the time I had left him, that he had been able to have that conversation. But guys can have conversations quickly, so maybe it was fast. I did not want to read into it, but something aside from the brisk October wind made my neck cold.

“Okay, well, what about your mom?” I dropped the friendly tone and replaced it with something distant and professional. I quickened my pace and stiffened my body.

“She’s asleep.” He matched his stride to mine.

“At 9:30?”

“Yeah.” My skepticism was growing, and I was finding it harder to do what Hannah said and not play ‘detective.’ But Jackson and I were not friends like this. We were not outside-of-school friends. I was already uncomfortable driving with people I liked in the car, much less someone I did not really know. I needed to get out of this. I needed to leave him.

My thoughts continued to race as we reached my car. I was running out of ideas and excuses, so I decided not to make any more. I was just going to leave. I unlocked the car and went to the driver’s side, putting my hand on the door; he did the same on the passenger’s side. Was he seriously just going to get inside my car? I locked the doors, and his face shot up at me. His eyes were wild, and I remembered the way he would look at Isaac when they “wrestled.” The look was similar.

“Hey, man, I need a ride.” His tone made him sound like he was joking, but his face was something else. He pulled on the locked car door.

“Jackson, I can’t.” I had hoped that if I said ‘no’ the right way, he would hear it differently. Maybe he would realize he was being pushy or respect me enough to accept my refusal. But he didn’t. He kept his hand on the door handle, jerking it at random. I could not get him to leave, and we were already at my car, fixed in a stalemate. I could feel something inside of me that closely resembled fear, but that didn’t make sense to me. I had hung out with him several times alone and never felt this way, but now there was a thickness in my chest and an overwhelming sense that I should just leave. He was my friend, though. Maybe I was just letting the thoughts get to me. 

“Fine, let me text my mom.” I unlocked the car, and we got in.

“Why?” he asked, clicking his seatbelt.

“Because she’s going to want to know where I am.” I did not joke. My responses were dry. Honestly, it was a bit uncomfortable to be so outwardly rude, but he did not care about my feelings; I would not care about his.

I sent the text and started the car. He kept trying to make small talk, but I remained quiet. I wanted to ensure this was not going to happen again. I went to the end of the road and got ready to pull out, mapping out my route in my head. If I went left toward the McDonald’s, then I needed to figure out how to get on that little frontage road behind the restaurant and– 

“Hey, I know a shortcut. Go right.”

“What?” I panicked, and his interruption threw me off my guard. I was already moving to pull out. I needed a direction now.

“Go right.”

“O-okay?” I quickly changed the angle of my car to go right and drove on. “I thought you said you were only ten minutes away? You know something shorter?” Usually, I would not question his lies, but something was different tonight–with him, with me, something. I gripped the steering wheel tightly.

“Yeah, turn left up here at the gas station and keep straight.” He seemed sure, but I felt wrong. I wanted to turn around. I wanted to pull into the gas station and kick him out, tell him to find his own way home. I wanted to stop this. But maybe I was being dramatic. Technically, he had not done anything. Maybe I was being weird. I asked him to meet me at the game, and he did. He was being nice. I felt like I owed him. I think he knew that, too, and used that to his advantage. 

The path beside the gas station was the typical Alabama country backroad. Uneven pavement, winding roads, and not a streetlamp in sight. Hardly anyone traveled down these paths, and if they did, they knew them well. The yellow lines in the center of the pavement had long been worn off, and reflectors were not wasted on a place like this. The front of the road seemed to disappear right past the reach of my headlights. I could be driving straight toward the edge, and I would be none the wiser. 

I drove straight until we reached the end of the road. The path split into two contrasting directions: one towards an abandoned house with overgrown foliage outside of it and another towards a thick brush of trees. “Uh, you’ll go right here.” I started to turn but stopped. There was no one behind me, so I sat at the stop sign and pulled out my phone.

“How about we put the address into the GPS. I’m a lot better with directions that way.” I let out a dry laugh, attempting to disguise my nervousness. I felt silly for being so unnerved, but I could not quash it; I would try to reason with it instead.

He turned his head toward mine; I kept my eyes on my phone. “It’s a new house. I don’t have the address memorized.” Something inside me twisted. This, I knew with absolute certainty, was a lie. No reading into the situation. No “playing ‘detective.’” No “God complex.” A straight-up lie. He had been living in the same house for years, and that had not changed overnight. We looked at each other. I turned to him, wondering if I should say something. We sat in silence, just looking at each other. “I can just tell you.” I looked down at my phone and began switching between the two GPS apps I had, trying to get either one to load. 

“Yeah, I’m just better with a GPS. I have to actually see where I’m going, ya’ know?” I fidgeted with the WiFi button, turning it on and off, and continuously refreshed the navigation apps. I would have been lucky to reach any kind of signal on these deserted roads, but I hoped nonetheless. Jackson’s head never turned from mine. After a minute, a light from behind my car flooded my interior. A car had pulled up behind us and was waiting for us to go.

“We can’t keep them waiting,” Jackson said. “Just turn right.” I looked at him for a moment before putting my phone down. I switched on my blinker, the rhythmic ticking filling the silence between us, and turned. I had hoped the car behind us would follow, then I realized how crazy I must be to want a random car to follow me on these roads. For some reason, a complete stranger in a shadowy car felt safer than the friend who sat in my passenger seat. But they turned left and took their light with them. I was alone in the dark again.

“Okay, what’s my next turn?” The beating in my chest was picking up.

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Jackson, I need to know where I’m going. I can barely see, and I can’t keep–”

“We’re not far. I’ll tell you what to do.” His voice was firm. I glanced at him, his head still turned towards mine, and looked back at the road. We were going to his house. Of course, he knew where we were going. Stop playing ‘detective.’

I had never come down this way, so I had no idea what to expect, but he seemed sure enough. There was nothing to give me any sort of indication as to where I was. There were no road signs, no homes with addresses on the mailbox, no businesses with signs, nothing. Cracked trees and decrepit barbed wire fencing were all there was. I searched around, looking for any kind of recognizable landmark, but the darkened void of the night had vacuumed any significant markers. I had no other option than to listen to his directions. He would tell me where to turn, and I would. Lefts and rights disoriented me further. I did not have a single hint aside from the gas station from several miles ago to signal where I was. As the night continued, even the trees began to lose their shape. Their shapes melted into each other, molding together into a thick, rigid mass that jutted out into the road. Branches clawed their way out into the narrow, one-way road, almost as though they were trying to reach out to save me. I would have taken the claws in a heartbeat.

Jackson sat up, looking around. “Uh, I think you turn left here.”

I slowed down, turning my blinker on, and stopped. “You think?”

He paused. The ticking of the blinker once again filled the silence, exposing his uncertainty. “Y-yeah. You turn left here.” He slowly leaned back into the seat and let his head fall in my direction.

“Jackson–”

“Just turn.” I wondered if I should. If I should pull over or turn around. If I should tell him he had a weird vibe about him and see what he said. If I should get out of the car and just run, not that I could outrun or overpower him if I tried. Then, I wondered if I was seeing something that was not there. That thought seemed more plausible than the others, so I did as he said.

Two more rounds of directions followed in that same manner. He stuttered each time and looked around the roads as if this were his first time here himself. 

“How do you not know where you live?” I asked, my impatience clear.

“Told you, new house.” He sounded disinterested, arrogant–like I was the crazy one for needing to know where I was going. He didn’t seem to care that this ten-minute drive had turned into twenty. Honestly, he didn’t seem to care if we got to his house or not. The cold on my neck solidified into a thick mass that sank right through me. My mind raced with possibilities of what he could be doing. Screw Hannah. Something was wrong, and it was getting worse.

“Okay,” I finally said. “I’m calling my mom, maybe she can help.”

“Why?” His voice was laced with offense.

“Because I don’t know where the hell I am, and you don’t seem to, either.”

Jackson sat up in his seat, eyes fixated on me, but silent. I began ringing my mother, but each call lost signal. Some went through, and I could hear broken pieces of her voice; others simply said, ‘Call Failed.’ I felt something cold run down the center of my spine, and the top of my skin vibrated. I was lost. He was intoxicated. I had no service. He was not telling me where his house was. I was in the middle of nowhere. It was dark, and it was just him and me. My thoughts went to two places: I am either about to die, or he is about to do something else; even to this day, I cannot bring myself to verbalize that thought aloud. But I couldn’t tell if I was being dramatic. He was my friend. Yeah, he could be violent with his “bros.” Yeah, he had little regard for his own life. But he was not like that to me. I had done nothing but help him. Surely, he would not try anything. I was just being paranoid.

Still, fear thickened the blood that ran through my veins. I felt cold and shaky, but I masked it all. He did not get to know I was afraid. I continued calling my mom, and he continued with his vague directions. My thoughts swelled in my mind, and each minute seemed like a closer march to what was beginning to feel like an elaborately planned inevitability.

My eyes jumped back and forth from my phone and the road. My speed had slowed, but the road was still devoid of people. Each twist and turn only plunged me deeper into confusion. The night was blacker than tar; not even the moon knew where to shine light.

“What is wrong with you?” His voice was low and pricked my skin.

“I just figure my mom could–”

“How is she going to help you?” The question sat in the air. I did not know how to interpret it or respond. All I could do was try to get a signal.

We kept on that road for several more miles. It could have been two or ten; I would not have known. The bestial hands of the trees still reached after me, and I still drove past them.

“Hello?” A call finally went through. It was my mother’s voice, and Jackson’s head snapped toward mine. “Where are you?”

“Hey, I’m still with Jackson.” I masked the nervousness in my voice. Neither one of them could know something was wrong.

“What? I thought you were just dropping him off?”

“I was, but we–” I paused, choosing my words carefully. “We just got a little lost. My GPS isn’t working.” I glanced at Jackson. The only light in the car came from the radio screen and my phone, but even still, I could tell his eyes were dark. Was it anger? Embarrassment? Sleepiness? I did not know, nor care. He stayed still and quiet, but his mind seemed elsewhere. Not the typical high-and-dazed elsewhere. Just elsewhere.

“Okay, well, let me pull you up on Life360, so I can figure out where you are.”

“Okay.” My mom talked to herself as she messed with the app, but Jackson and I stayed quiet. We both knew something had changed, and he did not seem happy.

“Maleah, you’re not even in Springdale. You’re, like–”

“Turn right,” he interrupted. This was the first clear direction he had given in a while. I turned.

“I’m what?”

“Yeah, you’re, like, a few miles outside of it. I think y’all missed your turn and got stuck on that one-way road toward the church.

“Turn right,” he said again.

“Oh, okay,” I said. I thought being on the phone with someone would help the jitters subside, but they continued. I needed him out of this car, and I needed to be home.

“Is everything okay?” My mother is an incredibly intuitive woman, but I did not want Jackson to know I was concerned. It just felt like that would lead to something bad.

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s good.” 

My mother paused. “Okay, well, you’re getting closer.”

“Okay, can you stay on? My GPS still isn’t working.”

“Of course.” My mom tried to make small talk with the two of us. I overcompensated for my fear with jokes, and he masked his insolence with courtesy for the remainder of the car ride.

“Yeah, turn left,” Jackson said. He sounded bored. “This is me.” I hit the brakes and unlocked the car. He stumbled out of the vehicle and headed toward the door. I didn’t even know if that was truly his house; something in my gut told me it was not. Unfortunately for him, the part of me that cared what happened to him died the moment he took my ‘no’ as an empty suggestion. 

I sped off, dust whirling in my tracks behind my car. “Hey, can you see how I get back onto the highway?

“Yes.” I could hear the sound of my mother’s fingers swiping against the screen. “Looks like you can keep straight and you’ll hit that Chevron gas station. You’ll turn left there and get on the highway.”

“Okay.” My mind was full of a thousand thoughts, but I could not get anything to come out of my mouth.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I did not know what to tell her because I did not understand myself. I have my mother’s intuition, and I trust it. But I do tend to look for threats that are not there. No. The threat was there. Was it not?

“Yeah, I’m just tired. I don’t have great cell service, but I’ll be back home soon.”

“Okay,” my mother paused. “I’ll see you when you get home, then. Call me if you need me. I’ll be watching you on Life360.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

 I ended the call and put my house into my GPS. I was roughly thirty minutes away from my home. I spent the entire ride back in complete silence. No music, no radio, nothing. My mind raced with every bad scenario I might have just narrowly avoided. I couldn’t tell if I was just being crazy or not. Maybe I was overthinking things, but my gut? My intuition is hardly ever wrong, and it was telling me things I did not want to hear. 

I turned onto the highway, and an immediate sense of relief washed over me. The trees behind me waved to my car as I escaped the claustrophobic roads. Light filled my path–flickering liquor store signs and lampposts broke the night’s hold on my eyes. There was a calm in my mind, but a tightness in my body. I was safe now, I knew that. I probably was the whole time. But I did not once feel that way. 

I still do not know what the point of that whole car ride was. 

I never figured out why he sent his friend away. I never figured out why he didn't know where he was going. I never figured out how he magically knew right where his house was in the suffocating darkness the second my mom was on the line. It worked out too nicely, too quickly. I tried to justify his actions in any way that I could. I did not want to think he would do something that would harm me. 

Then, I thought about Hannah. She was friends with him, too. What if he tried to hitch a ride with her one day, or even tell her about tonight? Maybe if she heard what he did tonight, she would see that I had been right about him. I called her the second I pulled into my driveway and told her what happened. I was greeted with silence.

“Okay?” She dragged the word out like it was six syllables long.

“What?” I laughed nervously. “What do you mean, ‘okay?’”

“Why are you telling me this?” She sounded offended. No–jealous? There was something in her tone. Something that made me feel like I was going to receive the usual nonsense she gives me.

“Wha–Hannah, it was weird. Like, I did not feel safe at all. He was looking at me weirdly and didn’t know where we were going and–”

“Well, he was high, was he not?”

“I mean, yeah, but he sobered up real quickly when my mom got on the phone.”

“Hmm.” I knew that sound. No sound could hold more meaning than her “hmm.” She did not believe me. Not a single word.

“You don’t think it’s weird?”

“Yeah, it’s weird, but why’d you let him in your car in the first place? Since you seem to know how he is.”

“Well, he was pulling on the handle, Hannah. And he’s like twice the size of me.”

She scoffed. “Okay, you’re not that small. And you could have just left the passenger side locked and driven off.” I was not expecting this reaction at all. She was actually blaming me for being nice.

“I would have if I had known he’d be like this, but we’re friends. Seems like kind of a dick move to just desert him there.”

“Hmm.”

“What?” My kindness had long worn off, and I was growing irritated. I called her with the sole intention of making sure she never got in a car with him, to keep her safe. But instead of blaming the man, she blamed her friend.

“It just kind of seems like your fault. Like, you could have just said no.”

Silence.

“I tried to. Several times.”

“I mean, not really. If it had been me, I would have driven off in his face.”

“Well, it’s really easy to say what you would have done in the situation. It’s different when you’re actually in it.

“Not really.” I let her words sink in: “Your fault.” I didn’t know what to say. Every inch of me felt she was wrong, but I could not tell. I did not know anything right now.

I broke the silence after a few moments had passed. “Okay, well, I’ve got homework to do, so I’ll just talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Bye.” I sat in my car for a moment, rolling her words around my head. I knew better than to talk to her about this, but I felt like she needed to know. My fault? I shook my head and went inside my home, setting my stuff down at the dining table. 

My mom came from the living room to the kitchen. She faced me, placing one hand on the table and leaning on it. “So, what happened?”

I wondered if I should tell her the truth right then and get a second opinion. If I told her, she would be at his house in a heartbeat, tearing into him for how he acted. I knew that, regardless of whether my feelings about the situation were right or not. But I was tired. My mind had been through the ringer, and I still had calculus to do. I decided to table it for another day. 

“We tried to take a shortcut, but he got lost. It was a whole thing.” My mom looked right through me. She knew I was not saying everything. I wanted to, but I just did not have the bandwidth.

“Okay, well,” she paused. “We can talk more about it tomorrow, if you want.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I sat down and pulled out my notebook.

My mom studied my movements. “Okay, don’t stay up too late, though.”

I nodded, and she left the room. My nerves had calmed, but my heart still fluttered. The thoughts of what I had possibly evaded clashed in my mind, and my friend’s declaration that it was my fault danced with them. I did not know what was right. I did not have any answers. I never spoke to him again after that night. I could not look at him without thinking about the frigid dread that had run down my bones. I walked away from him that night, but the experience never left me. It stays with me on every Alabama backroad, sitting in my passenger seat.