In Honor (23 page)

I wanted to punch him. “Rusty, come on.”

“Tell me somethin’, H,” he said with a smile. “Did you
want
to kiss me last night?”

I didn’t answer. This was fun for him, making me wonder. He was enjoying this whole thing.

“It’s okay, you know, if you did,” he continued. “You definitely wouldn’t be the first girl to lose control of herself over me.” He paused and looked right at me. “But then again . . . would you
really
want me to tell you if you did? ’Cuz you don’t seem too happy about
that
prospect, either.” He smirked. “Which probably
would
be a first.”

“Rusty—”
How did I ever find him remotely attractive?

“You seen my keys?” Celia asked as she walked in. She did a quick scan of the kitchen counter. Rusty motioned at the key rack near the door, which held a set that had to be hers. I poked my fork at the egg on my plate, trying to look like we weren’t just having the discussion we’d been having. “Aw thanks, honey. I shoulda known. Bru always hangs them up for me.” She gave me a once-over. “You sure you’re okay, Honor?”

“Just fine, thank you,” I muttered.

“We’re good,” Rusty said, smiling at me. “Just talkin’ about how it’s not proper to kiss and tell.” He reached across the table and grabbed a piece of my bacon, crunching it as he stood. “You weren’t gonna eat that, were you?”

I wondered what would happen if I threw my breakfast at him right then. That probably wouldn’t be very proper either. “No,” I said, pushing my plate away. “Lost my appetite.”

Rusty snorted and snapped up my other piece of bacon before he stacked our plates and took them to the sink. “I’m gonna go get that hose changed out, then give the dirty porn-star car a little tune-up before we get back on the road.” He glanced over at me for a reaction, and I almost smiled at the flash of that conversation. Almost. Rusty leaned back against the counter. “You wanna give me a hand? So you know how to take care of your own car?”

“No. I don’t.” I turned to Celia. “You still have that stack of gossip magazines? I want to see if I can find out anything else about Kyra Kelley before we go.” It was a hollow excuse, especially considering I had no illusions now that I would actually get to meet her. I had no idea where I could have left the phone number Ashley had given me. The best I could hope for at this point was that we’d make it to the show. I still had the tickets, at least, and now there was no way I could let Finn’s gift be wasted. Not after what it must’ve taken him to get them.

Celia looped her jangly purse over her shoulder. “Sure thing, honey. They’re all there in the living room. And I’ll see if there’s any new ones out when I’m in town, okay? I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“Thank you,” I said, as sweet as I could. It wasn’t her I was mad at.

Celia stepped out the door, leaving me in the kitchen with a splitting headache, a turning stomach, and the near certainty I’d lost all sense the night before and gone and kissed her son, who was now leaning against the counter looking amused as heck by the whole thing.

“Anything else you’ll be needin’, princess?” he asked.

“Yeah, actually, there is.”

Rusty cocked his head. “And what’s that?”

“I need for you to not talk to me right now.” I slid my chair back from the table and stood to go. “This is starting to feel pointless, I feel like I got run over by a truck, and I don’t want any crap from you about it, okay?”

His face fell just a little, but he was quick to recover. “Fine with me,” he said. “I’ll be outside. Fixing
your
car. For
your
trip.” He ducked out the door, then shut it with a force that hammered at my temples.

My trip. That’s what Finn had meant it to be when he sent me that letter. But when I got in the Impala and pointed it at California, I’d wanted it to be
our
trip. Mine and Finn’s. I’d wanted to take his car and his letter and that pinch of dust and give him something impossible in return. A send-off he’d be proud of, no matter how crazy it sounded.

All I’d done, though, was go off course—miles and miles from where I should have been, and I didn’t know where to begin to find my way back now.

26

“I don’t have a map,” Celia said, “but this should get you there.” She handed me a MapQuest printout. “It says it should take around seven hours, so you’ll make it there by this evening.” She squeezed my arm. “I’m so happy for you, honey. Your brother would be proud of you doing this for him.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t argue, just set the papers down on the passenger seat and squinted at her in the bright sunlight that made my head ache even worse.

“You’re welcome, but it’s me who should be thanking you.” She hugged me to her tiny frame, and I tried not to stiffen.

“Why?” I asked, pulling away as gently as I could.

She glanced toward the garage, where Rusty was talking with Bru, then motioned for me to lean in. “Just that you . . . and this trip . . . it’s good for Rusty. He took the news about Finn so hard I thought it might break him in two, I really did. Lord knows he’s got his daddy’s tendencies to deal with things with a bottle. Which is just what he started to do. His energy was so dark for a while there . . .” She glanced at him with eyes that were tender and wet with emotion. “But once he worked things out about you, and about that promise he made to Finn, it gave him something important to focus on, something that mattered, you know?”

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.”

The ocean. I’d almost forgotten about it. Seeing Kyra Kelley seemed like a more ridiculous idea every time I thought of it, but the ocean didn’t. I thought of Finn’s letter, and how he’d said to go on a trip and put my feet in the ocean. Rusty wasn’t Lilah, but he had a point. We’d come this far already. “How far away are we?”

“Couple hours.”

“Fine,” I said, climbing into the backseat. “Wake me up when we get there.”

27

“Hey. We’re here.”

Rusty cut the engine. I creaked one eye open enough to see the dotted ceiling of the Pala, or Paula, or whatever we were calling it (her) now. “I don’t have to pee, okay? Keep going.” I rubbed both eyes with the heels of my hands and blinked away what felt like only a few minutes’ sleep.

“No, we’re
here
.” Rusty grinned back at me, then turned around and looked out the windshield, shaking his head. “I’ll be damned.”

I sat up quick and looked around, trying to get my bearings. We were parked on the side of the highway, in front of a small yellow building with white trim and a sign on the front that read
THE SHAKE SHACK.
To the side of it was a big blue deck with a giant postcard-perfect palm tree right in the center, its fronds sticking up against the dusky sky like crazy morning hair.