Damage Read Free Page A

started the engine. “Let’s go.”
    Last chance to change your mind. I closed my eyes for a moment, imagining the shock on my parents’ faces when they got back to the hotel room and realized I’d taken off. Dad would be furious with me. Mom, too, but she’d take it out on Dad, blaming him. If you hadn’t insisted on sniffing his breath at dinner, this would never have happened. You never know when to back off, do you?
    Nope, I didn’t need to listen to any more of their arguments. “Right,” I said. “Hollywood, here we come.”
    Zach slept for the first twenty minutes and then woke up crying. We were just outside Redding, heading south on I-5, but Ronnie pulled over and tried to comfort him. She offered snacks, books, toys, but Zach just kept screaming at the top of his lungs. At least, I sure hoped it was his top—any louder, and he’d do permanent damage to my hearing. Ronnie unbuckled him and tried to pick him up, but he just kicked his legs, arched his back and tried to push her away. She looked like she was about to start crying herself.
    â€œMaybe we should just keep driving,” I said at last. “Buckle him back in and keep going, you know? I mean, if he’s just going to scream anyway.”
    Ronnie gave me a look, like I was a terrible person for suggesting it, but she stuck him back in his car seat. You can only park at the side of the high-way listening to a toddler screaming for so long.
    â€œHow about I drive?” I suggested. “You can sit with him.”
    She nodded. “Jump to lightspeed,” she said. “Though my car starts to rattle if you go over sixty, so maybe not.”
    I dropped my voice an octave and did a Han Solo swagger, smacking the car roof with the palm of my hand. “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.”
    Ronnie shook her head as she slipped into the backseat beside Zach. “Un-freaking-believable.”
    I drove and Zach cried. He yelled and sobbed until his whole face was covered with bright red blotches.
    â€œUm, Theo? Yesterday in the car, singing really helped,” Ronnie said.
    â€œSinging? Me? I can’t sing.” I glanced at her face in the rearview mirror and caught her wiping tears from her cheeks. I groaned. “Okay, okay,” I said. “We’ll sing.”
    After a few verses, Zach settled down, but each time we tried to stop singing, he went right back to screaming. When we passed the exit for Clear Lake—the turnoff that I should’ve been taking with my parents, to go to Darrell’s place in Santa Rosa—my stomach started doing flips. God, my parents were going to freak out. What had I been thinking?
    Ronnie and I sang Raffi songs nonstop all the way to Sacramento—over two straight hours. “ Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea ...” My eyes met Ronnie’s in the rearview mirror and she gave me a weak smile. She’d stopped crying, at least. I kept singing. “ Swim so wild and you swim so free ...”
    This was so not what I had imagined when I pictured the two of us driving off into the sunset together.
    Just past Sacramento, I heard sirens close behind us. I glanced in the rearview mirror. Cops. I was over the limit but only just. “Seriously?” I muttered.
    â€œOh my god.” Ronnie’s voice was strained. “Oh my god , Theo. Were you speeding? Damn it, what were you thinking? Do you have any idea—”
    â€œI’m only, like, five miles over,” I protested. “If that. I mean, cars are flying past me in the other lane.” I slowed down and started to pull over.
    â€œI can’t believe this,” she said, her voice rising. “I shouldn’t have let you drive.”
    â€œWhat’s the big deal?” I drove onto the shoulder, braking. “If we get a ticket, I’ll pay it, okay? So chill.”
    â€œI don’t care about a goddamn