When Dylan and Keith come back from the restroom, Emma knows something has changed, something more than Dylan's eyes, which are now red and puffy.
She wonders if it was anything to do with how she answered Dylan's questions when he was grilling her. He was upset with her answers. Did he think she deserved to be hit or have dead parents? Because, whatever's changed, it's not for the better. The tension in the air is so strong, it's nearly visible.
"Guess we better get going," Keith says, and she doesn't know why he's looking at her so strangely, as though he's decided something. "We drove most of yesterday, so if we push through, we can be in Tulsa by late afternoon or early evening."
That sounds wonderful, and she tries for a smile. He doesn't smile back, and Dylan glares at her. Her stomach twists.
"Why'd you run from home?" Keith asks once they're back on the road, voice harder than earlier. "And before you give me a bullshit answer, don't think I won't leave you on the side of the road."
Emma gulps, suddenly wishing she had asked for the window seat instead of being in the middle of two angry people. Would he really leave her? One look at his face, and she believes he would.
"I don't know," she says, because she's still figuring it out. "I just…"
He grows sterner. "Just felt like an adventure?"
"No!" she denies, because she's not the adventuring sort, her current excursion a behavioral anomaly. "I just…"
"Just what?" Dylan sneers. "Just thought it'd be nice to worry your folks. If my mom was still alive, she'd be worried sick, and you don't even care if yours is doing the same."
"Because she's gone!" Emma cries, fully panicking now.
What did I do? What did I do? she thinks repeatedly. Everything was fine before. What did I do?
"You said she was alive," Dylan says accusingly.
Emma hugs herself and tries to breathe as she chokes out, "Far as I know."
And she waits for the ridicule to come. The taunts that her mother chose not to be part of her life, because she's that pathetic. If only it wasn't true.
And just like that, Keith eases up. "Geez, runaway parents sure do breed runaway children, don't they?"
She doesn't fully understand what that means, and judging by his face, neither does Dylan, who remains angry.
"Still got your dad, don't you?"
"He won't notice I'm gone, and if he does, he won't worry," she says quickly before she can freeze up again. "I mean, he'll be mad, because I broke the rules, but he won't lose sleep over me being gone."
Keith's eyes narrow. "All kids think that way."
"But it's true!" she insists. "He never talks to me, unless it's to yell, and I don't know why he hates me so much, because he never tells me anything, and I thought maybe his brother would, and that's why I'm heading to Tulsa, because I have to know what happened to him, and if it's really all my fault like he says!"
And to Emma's utter mortification, she starts crying. She wipes at her eyes roughly when she feels a hand touch her shoulder. She flinches away, suddenly afraid of everything. Maybe being left on the side of the highway wouldn't be so bad after all. At least then she'd be out in the open, not here where she can't breathe.
"Easy, kid," Keith says softly before looking over her head at Dylan. "See, I told you not to make assumptions. Being smacked around ain't the only way to get messed up."
"Sorry," Dylan mutters his pittance of an apology.
Emma doesn't look at him, because from out of nowhere she's angry. She's never been angry before. Oh, sure, she's been upset. She's cried her eyes out, and such, but she's never been truly pissed off.
"Let me out!" she hisses.
"What?" Keith is surprised.
"Let me out!" she screams, not caring that it'll take her so much longer to get to Tulsa now.
They manipulated her and frightened her into talking about personal things. Maybe she deserves it. Maybe she is that worthless, nothing more than the world's emotional punching bag, but she doesn't have to take it cowering, not from people she thought were better than that.
"Let me out!" she shouts again, reaching over Dylan to try and open the passenger side door.
"Whoa!" Keith yells, pulling over and reaching out to grab her. "Calm the fuck down!"
She's too angry to listen, and Dylan's all too willing to press himself against the seat and let her get past him. She hates him for it, even as she jumps out onto the edge of the road. She hates everything, understanding Meg more than she ever has before.
Footsteps are running behind her as she takes off down the stretch of highway. She's not a good runner, and Keith quickly catches her, yanking her to him. She thrashes in his hold as he drags her back to the truck, but he doesn't let go.
"You're okay, kid," he says. "Just let it out. We all crack sometime."
"She's crazy," Dylan concludes from his seat, door still open a crack as he watches her fit.
"Shut up, Dylan." Keith tightens his grip as Emma fights harder, talks low, so only she can hear. "You're not crazy, kid. You just don't have a coping mechanism yet, don't know how to cool it. That's fine. It takes practice."
"Let me go," she says again, this time the words a soft plea. "Let me go."
Keith shakes his head. "No can do. Need to get you to that uncle of yours, remember?"
"I thought you were different."
He winces. "Yeah, and instead I used you to make a point to my grandson. I'm sorry about that. I know it was a shitty thing to do. Let me get you to Tulsa safe and sound, as a way to make it up to you, okay?"
She wants to refuse, to get away from this humiliating situation, but it's a long walk. Not to mention, manipulation aside, Keith and Dylan are probably the nicest people she'll meet out here. Best to eat shit and survive, as she once overheard Courtney tell Meg.
Emma sighs and nods, all the fight draining from her. As she returns to her usual timid self, she feels a disconnect to who she is versus whoever she was a moment ago. Is this what going insane feels like? Maybe Dylan has a point.
Meg doesn't really expect to find Emma strolling down a street, lost and too shy to ask for directions, but a girl can hope. At least it feels like she's doing something. And even with the heavy silence, she's happy to get her father out of the house too.
Speaking of, her dad's eyes are rimmed with dark circles as he cruises through the city, starting with their part of town first. He didn't sleep like she told him to, choosing instead to rinse off and get dressed in ten minutes before snatching the keys and demanding to drive. Happy to see him take charge of something, she let him.
"What if she's gone?"
Meg startles, not expecting him to talk, even more surprised to hear him say what he did. "She is gone. That's why we're trying to find her."
"I mean dead," he clarifies. "'Cause, Megan, I've lost people. I've lost a lot of people, but this would be the last fucking straw."
Unsure if she can look at him without punching him, she turns to gaze out the window. "Who knew you cared so much?"
He only laughs, no humor, just acceptance. "Not me, Meg. Not me. I keep thinking back to when it all went wrong. Was it really Izzy that toppled everything? Or maybe it was when my brother died. Or it might've been before, when my friends kicked it, or maybe when my parents crashed their car and left Darry to scrape a living for us."
"What?"
He's not making any sense now. She's heard about Darry, enough to know he's an uncle she can't remember clearly, but she never knew there was another one. And what was that about Dad's friends, and his parents?
She chances a look back at him, still angry but less so. "It doesn't matter. Everything went wrong when you decided to let it."
"Just me?" he asks, condescension threaded in his tone. "Or does that apply to you too?"
"See, that's what I mean. You can never own up to all you've done. All you wanna do is put me down, show me how I'm no better than you, because as long as we're the same, you don't have to feel guilty."
His eyes leave the road as he regards her steadily for a moment. She expects him to crack a joke, ask her when she became a shrink. But he doesn't.
"You would've done me in too."
Meg scoffs. "You mean when I tried to kill myself? Sure, I would've."
It makes him flinch. Other than the first time they talked about it, when he hit her, it's never been brought up. It's certainly never been referred to as anything but a car accident.
"Why'd you do it?"
He's never asked that.
"Was it me?" he asks when she doesn't answer.
She crosses her arms over her chest, very tempted to say yes, but this feels like an occasion for the truth. "A boy won a bet. I was the challenge. My pride was hurt, and I figured it'd be easier to die than deal with it, because I was a melodramatic shit. The end."
Mike clicks his tongue. "You know, I always hated guys who pulled stunts like that."
"Same," Meg agrees.
"He shouldn't have hurt you like that."
Meg is thrown by her dad's flash of empathy. "I was willing enough, and I came out on top. Lost my innocence, but I gained a thicker skin. I value the latter more."
"Doesn't matter. It shouldn't have happened that way."
She furrows her brows. "Stop being weird and drive, or get out, and let me."
His lips purse together, and she feels as though she's missed something. "I would, but knowing you, we'd just crash."
At least he's back to normal, she thinks, shaking off the sting of his words and feeling an odd longing for Courtney to be here to deal with this mess.
Rachel wonders where Joe learned his infidelity, receiving her answer in the mirror. She can proudly say she never cheated, but even after she remarried, she spent loved Ponyboy Curtis for years. She remained jealous of his other marriages, even as she slept next to another man, and the hypocrisy didn't even faze her, because it burned.
Before she knew it, she was poisoning Joe against his father. At first, she merely exaggerated stories, then told half-truths, until she had no qualms about lying. And now, she can't recall what was true or not.
Thinking back, she remembers how it was painful to see Ponyboy grieving over his brother, to know she could do nothing to make it better.
It wasn't long before her thoughts ran wild, and she wondered if the might've gotten married too soon. Maybe he didn't even love her anymore, because he was so damn numb, he couldn't possibly love anyone. Her insecurities combined with Pony's refusal to seek counseling convinced Rachel that he didn't care about her or Joe.
And when she packed up her things, Ponyboy promised he would do whatever she wanted to fix things between them, but she was angry and didn't trust him anymore. At the time she had said it was too late, and now she wonders if it wasn't. She didn't look back as she left, and it felt like power for all of five minutes.
It hurt to see him move on twice. The first time was a mistake, and it made her feel vindicated, as if it was proof that she wasn't the problem.
Then he married Izzy, and he got the help he had refused before. He came alive again for another woman, and while their family was a mess, they were beautiful, and they were healing. But Rachel wasn't a part of it, so she made sure Joe wasn't either, and that was perhaps the most unfair thing she ever done.
Now she tries to talk to Joe, who hates her a little without knowing why. He feels the consequences of her actions, even if he doesn't understand them. All he knows is that he carries pain, and he learned it from her, and it's messed him up.
Joe refuses to see a therapist. He refuses to contact his family, except for her, occasionally. His way of doing things is to go it alone, and he learned that from her, not Pony. That hurts more than everything else combined.
Her cellphone rings, breaking her from her thoughts.
"Hello?"
"Kelly left," says Joe on the other end of the phone, his voice wobbly. "She left, and I don't know what to do."
Rachel takes a breath. "Well, the first thing would be to decide what you want."
Because that's another thing she didn't do back then. She lashed out and pushed Pony away, because she thought she wanted him to be as miserable as her. What she had really wanted was for them to give it another try, but her pride got in the way.
"If you want her back because you love her and you're willing to work it out, even if it means admitting you were wrong, then make sure she knows that," Rachel continues, wishing she could say the same thing to her past self. "If you just want her back because you don't like losing, let her go and move on."
Joe sniffles. "Yeah, both those options suck."
"I know," Rachel says, "but you gotta pick one, or you'll end up like me."
"Yeah, that sounds worse." Joe laughs shakily, only half joking. "I love you, but that's the last thing I want."
She smiles bitterly, glad he can't see her. "Good boy."
"In other news," Joe says, not-so-subtly changing the subject, "Meg came by yesterday."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, she said Emma was missing, so if you could keep an eye out, just in case…"
Rachel frowns. "Missing how?"
"I don't know. Meg's didn't stay for long, and I was kinda an ass to her."
"I'm sure she was the same to you," Rachel says before she can stop herself, clumsily adding, "but even so, you should know better."
"There's a lot of things I should know better," Joe says, voice darker now. "Maybe I would've learned them from my father if you hadn't kept me from him as much as possible."
He may as well have just slapped her. "Yes, I suppose you would've."
"Shit, no, that's not…" Joe stumbles over his words. "It wasn't your fault."
"Don't lie to spare my feelings, dear. We both know it was."
"Not completely," Joe mumbles. "I did my fair share in burning that bridge too."
"Build a new one," she says. "And thank you for telling me about Emma. I doubt she'd come my way, but on the off chance she does, I'll let everyone know."
"Thanks.
"Has anyone told Darrel?"
"Uncle Darry?" Joe asks. "No, I don't think so, but he lives in Oklahoma still, and Emma's never met him."
Rachel hums. "Well, I'll still call him to make sure. You never know what goes on inside a child's head."
So, all my characters are feeling guilty. As for me, I'm nervous about this one, as always, and I had to post it before I though too hard about it, so I'm sorry about any typos. Hope y'all enjoy. Stay safe out there!
