Page 79 of Goodbye Days

“Yeah.”

“Then you’ve earned it. Not that you needed to.”

I roll my eyes and cast up my hands. “Fine. Um. That day, instead of texting Mars, I wait for them to get to my work so we can hang out. They all live and I’m not sitting here. The end.”

“No, no. Remember the rules? That narrative still turns on your actions. What you didn’t do saved your friends. I want you to tell me a story where you don’t have anything to do with the accident.”

I growl deep in my throat. “Okay. The semi they rammed into wasn’t supposed to be there when it was. The driver was late so…there it was. And if it hadn’t been there, they would have lived.”

Dr. Mendez frowns and nods. “Not bad. But I found myself…uninvested in the characters. What did you say the name of the driver was?”

“I didn’t.”

“Maybe that’s why the story didn’t quite grab me.” His eyes twinkle. “You can do better.”

I roll my eyes again and slouch in my chair, staring at the ceiling. When I speak, it’s at the ceiling. “Fine. The truck driver’s name was…Billy…Scruggs. That’s a good truck driver name, right?” I still don’t look at Dr. Mendez.

“Excellent.”

“Billy’s wife had just made him move out. She said she wanted a divorce because she was tired of his being gone on the road constantly. So he was depressed. He leaves…Macon, Georgia, where he lives. That’s a good place for a truck driver to be from, right?”

“Billy Scruggs from Macon. Good. I want to hear more.”

“So Billy is hauling a load of…” I look to Dr. Mendez.

He lifts his hands in an I-dunno-it’s-your-story gesture.

“…psychiatry manuals and eyeglasses to Denver.” I almost want him to call me on my smartassery.

Instead, Dr. Mendez laughs and points. “Now you’ve hooked me.”

This feels strangely good. “So Billy was never a responsible driver and he’s running a little behind. He’s stopped at a truck stop in Chattanooga for some breakfast. He knows he should hit the road, but he can’t, because of the waitress. Her name is…Tammy Daniels. She’s thirty-nine but doesn’t look a day over fifty.”

Dr. Mendez chuckles. “Fantastic.”

“She’s not as beautiful as she used to be and she’s trying to hide it with too much makeup. But Billy still finds her beautiful. Because she only needs to be beautiful by comparison to endless asphalt and billboards and the backs of other semis.”

Dr. Mendez nods. “Yes,” he says softly. “Good.”

“So Billy keeps trying to work up the courage to ask her for her number. She smiled and winked at him earlier, so he thinks he has a shot. He drinks cup after cup of coffee—more than he wants to—because it brings her to his table. He’s wondering when he’d even see her again if he did work up the courage. Finally, he chickens out and gives up. Billy isn’t only a bad truck driver—he’s also a quitter. He leaves a big tip and writes ‘You’re beautiful’ on the receipt before hitting the road.”

“I was rooting for Billy,” Dr. Mendez says. “Now he’s late and he doesn’t get the girl.”

Somewhere along the way, I’ve moved to the edge of my seat without even realizing. “And plus he has to keep stopping to pee from all the coffee he drank waiting for a chance to talk to Tanya.”

“Tammy.”

“Oh, right. Tammy. So he’s really late by now. When he hits Nashville, he’s supposed to be farther down the road. But he’s not. Instead, he’s where Sauce Crew ran into him. In front of him is a van carrying a load of feather pillows and packing peanuts. If they’d run into that van, they would have lived. But they ran into Billy instead. Screw-up Billy.”

A long silence passes. I rub at a smudge on my pants.

“In that story, you’re not the cause of their deaths,” Dr. Mendez says.

“I guess not. In that story.”

“How do you feel after telling it?”

“Like I’m lying to both of us.”