Page 72 of Wayfarers

to be eighteen, but you wonder) and pretty

(and intoxicated) new addition to your group

and you found his driver’s license.

And you wrote down

his true name. And the next time

you were in a library, you looked

it up and lo and behold found

that he was registered as a sex offender in Oklahoma

for some pretty bad-sounding stuff,

which might explain why your group had never

been to Oklahoma (but everywhere else)

and that was the final straw; the thing

that made you decide

enough was enough. But the leaving isn’t why

you feel remorse.

It’s the leaving alone.

It’s the telling no one

what you knew. All the while

hoping he didn’t hurt

anyone else in the vast

empty wasteland of your silence.

Knox

“My biggest mess-up?” I say. “Going so long without trying Jimmy John’s.”

Sylvie snorts. “That’s so the sort of thing a serial killer would say to deflect.”

“Sylvie!” I point. Another fortune teller billboard. Thank God.

“The Roadside Psychic?!”

“Just as Miss Tara foretold.”

“Man, I almost read that as the Roadside Psycho.”

“Possibly that applies to her too.”

Sylvie immediately gets into the right lane. “Obviously we are stopping here too.”