Page 47 of Shut Up and Drive

“What? You knew me back when I was a wild teenager. You don’t know me anymore, Thane.”

I see this as an opportunity to step a few inches out on a ledge. This could either break down her walls, or blow up in my face. I take a steadying breath before I reply.

“Just because I don’t know you anymore, that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I did. I may not know twenty-four-year-old Serafina, but I still hope that you’re happy.

“Every timeIriscomes on, I’m right back in my beat-up truck next to you. I can’t resist singing at the top of my lungs, even after all this time. Sometimes I wonder what your new favorite song is, and if you sing like that with anyone else.

“I think about you driving Priscilla, and I hope that you remember to check your oil, and that you don’t wait until your tires are bald before you replace them.

“I think about what we used to be a lot. How grumpy you were on the way to school in the morning, if it was too hot or too cold. If you didn’t get enough sleep, or if you gottoo much. When I wake up grumpy for no apparent reason, I think of you and how you hated mornings, no matter what the circumstances were, and it makes me miss you.

“When I drive with the windows down, I think about how you looked as you tied your hair up to keep it from getting tangly. You never complained about the lack of AC in my truck; you just pulled up your hair and went along for the ride. That was one of my favorite things about you. You were always up for an adventure.

“So you’re right. I may not know you as well now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about who you used to be. That girl will forever be poured into the cracks of my heart, and even though I’m not the one who you’ll spend the rest of your life with, I still hope that you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for. I hope you findwhoyou’re looking for. A person who can make you belly-laugh at the dumbest things. Someone who knows exactly how you like your coffee in the morning. A man who will scrape your car windows after a good snowstorm. I hope that he can be everything I wasn’t.” Then I pause. “Everything I’m not. I don’t know you anymore, Fina, but I wish that I did.”

Her breathing stills and she blinks furiously as she stares out the windshield. We sit in silence for a few minutes, but it isn’t uncomfortable; it’s steadying. The tumultuous day and a half that we were forced to experience together settles into a depth familiar to us. The energy between us grows with each quiet breath we share, and I start to feel encouraged by our progress. I’m not expecting to have everything tied up in a neat little bow by the time we arrive in Amethyst Lake, but at this rate, we will have made baby steps toward mending fences.

She composes herself and finally squeaks out, “All that from a question about a fart? You never cease to surprise me, T.”

I smile across the car at her. “Never underestimate the power of farts. They’ve been bringing people together since the beginning of time.”

At that, she laughs. And not the soft, polite chuckle she gives someone after a joke she thinks is lame, but the good, hearty, from-the-depths-of-her-soul laugh she’s been doing since the gas station incident. Pride swells within my chest, and I can’t help but think to myself,I’ve still got it.

I glance at the clock. Although the events of the day set us back a bit, time-wise, we still have two hours left until we arrive at Amethyst Lake. The potential for conversation is wide open at this point, just like the road in front of us. But since Sera is in the driver’s seat, I let her steer where it goes.

“Okay, you’re up. What else do you want to talk about?”

“Hmmm, okay, I’ve got one. What is our code name for the gas station incident of 2026?”

Chapter 18

LET ME OUT OF THE POOL

Sera

“Operation Rolling Thunder.”

Thane chimes in with, “Project Dumpster Fire.”

“How about Operation Burrito Backfire?” I say, and we fill the whole car with our laughter.

“It’s perfect. That definitely lands on my top ten list of horrible life experiences,” Thane says.

“What else lands on that list?” I ask.

“Oh, no. I’ve given you enough information for the time being. It’s your turn to spill the tea.”

I pause, wondering about what he may ask. The more time I spend with Thane, the more I want to open back up to him, for “us” to be “us” again; but I can’t seem to fully drop the guard I’ve put up for myself. The words,let’s talk about the hard stuff,circle around my mind like a whirlpool, but they can’t seem to find their way to my mouth. I wish Thane would push a littleharder for me to be vulnerable, but he’s being so respectful of my boundaries I almost regret setting them. I’m not sure why I’m even surprised; he has always respected my boundaries. When I wanted to keep our relationship a secret, he obliged. When I asked him to keep things light on the drive, he obliged in that too. He may have made some bad choices in his younger years, but he has always had my back.

He smiles at me from over in the passenger seat and my stomach tumbles—in a good way this time. I want to know every secret he has kept from me, and I want to spill my guts to him too. My chest burns, and the words I can’t seem to make sense of go from a simmer to a boil. Everything inside me screams, “Just jump!” but I dance on the edge like a kid afraid of the diving board. I feel the panic sweats coming on again, and holding them in only makes things worse. I can’t have a major burrito attackandexcessive pit stains all in one day. I steal a quick glance at him, and he’s staring pensively out the window. The courage to let everything out—even if it’s all at once—surges. I clear the mud in my throat and practically shout.

“I can’t pretend anymore!”

Surprise washes over his face. “Finally,” he whispers as a smile curls on the corner of his mouth. “I’ve been waiting five years for this.”

The moment I open the floodgates, everything spills out into my lap. Nothing makes sense, and I can’t sort things so they do, but once I begin, I can’t stop. My eyes well and spill over, but I don’t care. I need relief from this burden.

“I’ve never hurt so badly in my entire life as I did the day you left me, broken, confused, and alone. I don’t thinkI ever recovered from the way my heart shattered that day,” I confess, wiping my tears with a gas station napkin. I don’t even care anymore that I’m the ugliest crier in the world, or that he’s seeing that side of me. I don’t need to impress him with my beauty or charm; I need him to see the raw wound that festered and reopened every time I looked at the Donnellys’ empty driveway where his truck used to sit. I was never the same after that day. Mr. Donnelly parked Thane’s truck in a storage unit after he came back home from the airport, and it was like Thane had never existed.