a gas station. Rourke went inside to use the bathroom and buy cigarettes. Left the keys in the car because who’s gonna steal it with a kid in the trunk and a girl too scared to move.
Tasha moved.
She climbed over the console into the driver’s seat and she drove off into the dark with her little brother in the trunk and no plan past away.
She got nine miles before the tire blew.
“I don’t know how to change a tire,” she said, shaking so hard her teeth knocked. “I never learned. I don’t have a phone, he took my phone, I’ve just been standing out here for two hours praying somebody would stop and praying it wouldn’t be his headlights when they did.”
I looked north down that empty highway, the way she kept looking. And I finally understood what she’d been doing this whole time.
She
