“Here?’ I question Kemper as we approach a gravel parking lot hosting a run-down motel and more importantly, a bar. It’s not that I’m wanting to drink, rather my stomach is flipping acrobats, screaming for food like a starving toddler.

“Looks trashy.” He lowers his head to peer out the windshield. “It’s perfect.”

I can’t agree with his assessment, but like I said, I’m fucking starving. I push the shifter into neutral and apply the brakes as we make the sharp right turn into the parking lot and come to a stop beside an RV in the gravel.

Kemper rips the parking brake upward as I turn off the ignition. He’s as ready to get out of this damn car as I am. After driving another hundred or so miles, without the assistance of a GPS, we’ve somehow ended up in the upper region of North Carolina, if my basic knowledge of geography is to be trusted. Kemper suggested we were close to the Florida state line, so I’m going to have a talk with Mr. Lawrence, the geography instructor, when we get back to Ridgefield.

“You want to wait out here?” He leans across the roof of the car. “I’ll go get us a room.”

I glance around at our setting. Pitch-black darkness illuminates trees in a silhouette painting of serenity. Above us, the night sky is clear where stars burn bright. It’s the best view of the stars I’ve seen on this side of my parent’s farmhouse.

“Yeah.” I nod. “I’m good.”

“Be right back, Vin Diesel,” he jokes and walks to the front office.

I lean back against the car and up into the night sky, taking in the breathtaking view of peace and tranquility. A cool breeze crashes against my body and tangles through my hair. It’s a chilly night, but I don’t feel the cold against my skin. I feel next to nothing, but I’ll take feeling numb over the pain I felt last night.

I choose a particular star in the sky, the one that shines the brightest, and force myself to believe it’s Nathan. Believing in something—anything—is the most powerful feeling in the world. I spot another star close by, burning hot and twinkling right at me. That’s my unborn child, that’s what I choose to believe, and it brings some kind of peace to my shattered heart.

Kemper comes jogging out of the front office, breaking my focus on the beautiful painting above me, and meets me beside the car. He passes me a keycard for the room.

“Keycard?” I force a smile. “Fancy.”

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “We’re moving on up.”

After a quick shower and shave, I threw on a fresh pair of clothes and we made our way to the bar across the way from the motel. Three hundred miles out from home, and the place still looks like it belongs in my own hometown.

Maybe it’s true what they say, you can take the girl away from home, but you can’t take the girl out of her home. Maybe that’s not the exact saying, but it’s close enough.

We’re parked in a small booth near the back of the bar. Old country tunes are spit out of an aging jukebox machine that doesn’t appear to have been updated since the mid-nineties.

An empty plate is pushed to the side of Kemper, and a plate with a half-eaten burger and a half-serving of fries rests in front of me. Between the two of us is an unopened bottle of beer.

“Are you going to finish eating?” He points to my food with his elbows planted on the table.

“I don’t know,” I groan. After waiting so long to eat, my stomach filled quickly. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Are you going to drink that?” He points to the bottle of beer. He’s always asking questions. “It’ll calm your nerves.”

“Who says my nerves need calming?”

He furrows both brows and purses his lips, with a knowing face.

“I haven’t really drank since the accident.” I sigh and push the plate to the side and grapple the body of the bottle with my hand. “I don’t know why.”

“It’s because you associate the tragedy with it, but you shouldn’t.”

“I wish it were that simple.”

“It’s always as simple as making a choice.” He reaches for my free hand to comfort me. My eyes shift to his touch. “Choose to let go of it all. I understand why you feel the way you feel, but if you ever want to stop feeling that way and take back control of your life, then you have to learn to accept things for the way they are, and then choose to let go of the way you think things will be.”

“Cars. Alcohol. Highways. My husband.” I take a beat to myself, preparing myself to push the next word from my lips. “Students.” I pull my hand away from him and ball my fingers into a fist. “It all reminds me of the night I lost my soul.”

“You drive to work everyday,” he points out. “You drove my car down an unfamiliar highway. You only associate cars with tragedy when you’re lost in the past. When you’re living in the present, you’re not living with the constant reminder.” He pushes himself back against the padded seat. “That drink in your hand isn’t the drink that was in that boy’s hand. Maybe it’s the same brand. Maybe it’s not, but that bottle is fresh from the factory and you can’t push the weight of that night on that bottle.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s not about drinking.” He shakes his head and sighs, his mind bypassing my attempt at humor. “It’s about overcoming your fears so you can stop living one flashback at a time, so that you can start living the way you want to live.”

I nod at him like he’s right, which he most likely is. Moving on isn’t as easy as making the choice to move on, however. It’s a minefield, littered with bombs, and if I’m not careful with each step I choose to make, I’ll be blown to bits.

For the first time since I’ve known him, he appears irritated. His lips are drawn tight and his eyes chase his forehead while his head bobbles. He pushes his tongue against his cheek before reaching across the table, ripping the bottle out of my hand, and twisting the top off. He pushes the bottle into my hand. “Drink,” he commands.

I defy him and stand to my feet. “I don’t want to.” I storm away from the table.

He jumps from his seat and chases me with the bottle in hand. He rushes in front of me and sticks the bottle out to me. “Drink.”

“Why are you so hell bent on this?”

“Because I saw you put a gun to your head last night,” he explodes in a fit of passionate fury, but then quiets and leans into me. “You tried killing yourself because you can’t let go of the past.”

“Fine,” I huff and rip the bottle out of his hand. I’d do anything to bring this conversation to a screeching halt. I throw my head back and down the entire bottle in one chug. When the bottle is empty, I throw it in a nearby trashcan and wipe the wetness from my lips. “There, I did it. Are you happy?”

His mouth is dropped open, his eyes bulging in apparent shock that a woman could chug an entire bottle of beer in one go. “Did you have to drink it all?”

“Jesus Christ.” I throw my hands in the air. “I can’t win.”

“Don’t you get it?” He caresses my cheek soft and gentle. “You just did.”

I stand frozen, my eyes marching across his. A glow passes my face, and I find myself floating through the clouds. He’s right. I’m winning.

“Do you want to dance?” he questions me with an apprehensive twitch.

“Only because I know I don’t have a choice.”

“That’s the attitude I like to hear.” He takes my hand in his and pulls me to the center of the bar, away from the booths that line the east wall. When we come to a stop, one country song fades into another, a song I’ve never heard before. It’s a soft and gentle song about eternal summer love, sung from the pipes of a fragile, broken-hearted man yearning for redemption.

Kemper grips me by the waist and we begin to dance in a slow circle, but it’s clear as soon as we begin that we’re both dancing with two left feet. It doesn’t matter though. Nobody here is judging. They’re too lost in their own lives, whether they’re working behind the bar or drinking away the traveling blues.

I lean my head on his chest and his palm traces up my back, caressing me. His heart thumps from beneath his chest, throbbing against my cheek. A genuine, warm smile passes over my lips as I lay against him, all the while spinning in a slow circle, but it’s my own heart that’s spinning. I feel full, and for the first time in what amounts to forever, I know it’s there, pumping blood through my veins like it’s supposed to. My heart’s not dead. It’s just been in hiding.

“I want you to think about something,” he whispers against my head.

“Do I have to?” I sigh, and dig my head deeper against his chest. “That’s all I do. Think.”

“Since we left the motel this morning, you’ve changed,” he says, not giving me the chance to turn it all off.

“People don’t change in the course of a few hours.”

“True. But you’re different when you’re away from it all. You’re happy.”

“I’m distracted.”

“Also true.” He retreats from me, but his hand remains attached to my back. “I just wanted to point something out to you that should be obvious, but you’re kind of dense.” A mischievous smile, full and wide, is scribbled across his face. It’s an irresistible smile that could undo the strongest of women.

“Do I need to punch you again?”

“If it helps.” He shrugs. “Anyway, the point isn’t that the pain is gone. It’s not. You’re hurt, and you’ll be hurting for a long time, but it gets better.”

“We’ve already read this chapter,” I groan and break away from him. “Get to the point.”

“The point is that you can be happy.” He combs his fingers through short hair. “It doesn’t mean you have to be happy tomorrow, or the day after that. It’s proof though that life is worth living.” And then he’s pulling me in with his eyes, because he knows that when he does so, I have no choice but to listen. “Your life is worth living.”

“I wish I had your wisdom when I was nineteen,” I say dryly. He’s wise beyond his years, wiser than those twice his age. He’s lived through something hard, to be as insightful as he is, he would have had to.

“There’s something I need to be honest about.” He exhales and takes a cautious step backward. This can’t be good. “I may have fabricated my age.”

“You’re lying,” I insist with a petrified smile.

“Judging by that look on your face, I’m certainly leaning towards, I wish I were.”

“You are unbelievable,” I scoff at him and twist on my foot, prepared to flee.

“I’m going to need you to relax,” he says as he reaches for my arm and twirls me back to face him.

“I take back the wisdom bullshit.” My hands do the talking, throwing gestures left and right. “You’re obviously an idiot if you think it’s appropriate to tell a woman to relax.”

“To be fair, you are overreacting.”

“Just stop talking. You’re sounding stupider every time you open your mouth.”

“Is stupider proper—“

“Say another word,” I dare him, and wait for him to comply before continuing. “Whether or not I knew who you were going to be, my student, when we did what we did, I could lose my job and my reputation and maybe go to jail.” I point at him with both hands for emphasis. “That’s when you were of age. Now you’re telling me that was another lie?” I take a threatening step toward him, the smile I had a few short seconds ago now flipped upside down. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

I throw daggers with my eyes.

“I swear.” He reaches into his pocket and retrieves his ID from a brown, leather wallet.

I rip the ID out of his hand and chuckle to myself. “Cute picture,” I tease him. Nobody has an attractive photo on their license, but this is just ridiculous. He has long, shaggy hair and a puffy face. I run my eyes over his stats and see the proof he’s telling the truth. He just turned eighteen two months ago. I pass him his ID, and he stuffs it back into his wallet.

“Can I ask you a question?” he asks as he pushes the wallet into his back pocket.

“You’re going to do it regardless.”

He takes a step toward me and wets his lips. It’s hard to tell what’s ever about to come out of his mouth, so I don’t even try to prepare myself for it.

But he doesn’t ask a question. He presses his lips against mine, and I aim to protest, but find my hands clawing at his back to pull him deeper into my mouth.