According to the sign, the Trainsong office opens “most days between 9 and 10,” but today Cheri doesn’t show up until eleven. Turns out she still has his mother’s card on file from the first night. He can sign all the charges over to Mrs. Hendricks, and has no trouble doing so.

“You sure, Breakdown?” she says. “Is this really goodbye? Want to throw your key at me again?”

He throws the key at Cheri. She catches it.

“Good arm,” she says.

“Good catch.”

“Police still after you? Is that why you came bat-outta-helling down the stairs yesterday?”

“No,” he says. “I think I’ve settled things with the police.”

“How about her?”

“Who?”

“The one leaning against your car. Like she’s waiting for a ticket.”

“Dakota.”

“She’s nice. You should take her with you.”

“Really?”

“Sure. What’s the worst thing that happens? She’s pretty and she wants to ride with you, even in your broke-down old car. I’d take her.”

“You want to, Cheri? I can tell her you’re interested.”

“Don’t start. Hey. What happened to your cheek?”

“I got punched.”

“By one of them boys?”

“Yeah.”

“Just means they like ya.”

“Maybe.”

“You are a wild thing. You can stick around. I’ll give you a discount.”

“Do I still have to clean my own bathroom?”

“Bet your boots!”

Lance walks out the door and a bell rings overhead. The air smells like sunbaked leaves and freshly trimmed grass. The smell of early June, like a clear runway into summer when anything is possible and days don’t end and nights don’t end and nothing good will ever end.

Dakota is standing beside the Buick.

Their goodbye has chased them on trains and across fields, over long winding roads and through cemeteries and motel rooms and has finally caught them here in this parking lot.

She holds one hand up, shielding her eyes. The sun shines in her hair and he wants to press his face there, breathe in how that hair smells in the sun. He has never done that, and may not have another chance. His hand is moving through the warm air, reaching up to brush her hair, her cheek, but her hand comes up first. She’s holding something.

A worn envelope that says lance.

“I found this in your room.”

“Did you read it?” he asks. A flutter of panic.

“No,” she says, handing it over. “But you keep leaving it behind. Are you sure you still want it?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s why you came back, right? Yesterday?”

He looks at the ground.

“I was wondering if I’d get my own letter.”

Her eyes. They won’t stop looking.

“I couldn’t even write your name,” he says.

“Yeah,” she says. “I tried to write you a letter in my book, but it didn’t belong. Maybe if we can’t find the words, we don’t say goodbye.”

“We’ll have to sing it. Write a song.”

Her lips curl down, trembling.

“Dakota.”

“What?”

“We can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

He sighs. “We don’t have any money.”

“Okay.”

“I didn’t get into Seattle.”

“So?” she says.

“So?”

“So it’s one school. Are you going to stop playing music?”

She is not hiding now. Her face is bright in the sun.

“What do you expect me to do?” he says.

“Yeah? What do I expect? Oh, part of me—” she starts. Takes a breath. “Part of me expects you to go to Oregon State. Give your speech about stars. Catch some shit from your friends. Become a successful businessman who plays his horn on the weekends. Or maybe never.”

“So what about you?” he asks. “Work at The Float? Give Mason a try?”

“No. I saw too much,” she says. “I have to buy an RV now. Recording equipment.”

“Waders.”

She closes her eyes. “Fucking waders.” She looks over him, toward the road.

“I can come back. I’ll call and—”

“Don’t,” she says. “Please.”

He wants to stitch this back together. He leans in past the point of no words, and Dakota does something she has never done before. She turns away.

“I can’t kiss you, Wildman,” she says. “Our kisses are like a million hellos.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s what awkward hugs are for,” she says.

So they hug. He squeezes her so tight he expects her to gasp, tell him to stop, but she doesn’t. Her lips are beside his ear. Breathing. She hangs on until it’s over and he’s climbing into his car. He turns the key and the engine fires. And he will leave now and not look back.

But he looks. Then he waves. Then he rolls down his window. The Lance Hendricks Machine is not following orders. He cannot make it drive away.

The engine hums, his foot on the brake.

“I hate this ending,” he says.

“Classic fade-out,” she says.

Those eyes. His memories will be worthless because they can’t be her, and they can’t be now. Dakota is real fire, and he’s driving back to Bend with a suitcase full of ashes.

“You got an alternate ending?” he says.

“I do. You ask me if I’ll come with you.”

“And what do you say?”

She’s staring and he is biting his cheek. Eyes, stinging.

“I think I say Yes. Then you say: Grab your bag, Dakota. We’re leaving.”

“And you come running out your door?”

“Like I’m on fire.”

“And jump in the Buick.”

“Yep.”

“And then?”

“Music.” Dakota smiles. “Roll credits. That’s the end of the movie.”

Lance nods. It’s like he’s back under the willow tree. He can’t say what she needs him to say, or touch what she needs him to touch. He must leave. His nose and eyes are stinging and he just needs to feel the wind through his hair and play some music. He’ll drag this shitty goodbye over mountains and swing it around turns for six hours until it pulls its claws out. He’ll leave this goodbye on the side of the road, and bury it in the wilderness.

He is nodding. She knows this cannot work. She moves her hand away from the window so he can roll it up. And he’s just driving.

She is not leaving. Not walking out of the parking lot. His turn signal is clicking. She will never walk out of the parking lot. She will never climb out of his rearview mirror.

The Lance Hendricks Machine keeps moving. He is on rails to Bend. A speech, a summer job. It has always been this way. Nothing has changed. The Buick is running like a dream.

He is barely out of the parking lot when the shaking starts. It begins with his hands. They tremble on the wheel until the tremors move up his arms and shoulders, spreading down to his knees and then his foot stomps the brake.

One quick U-turn removes Dakota from the rearview mirror. He can barely breathe as he presses the pedal until she is real again, right in front of him, and he is shifting into park and leaping out of the car.

“Say it,” she says. “I need you to say it. Say it.”

“Grab your bag, Dakota. We’re leaving.”

She pinches him.

“You’re supposed to ask.”

“Will you come with me?”

She looks at him. He stares back.

“Yes,” she says.

Her eyes brighten until they aren’t the same eyes, won’t ever be the same eyes, and she walks back to her door and disappears. He waits halfway between her and the Buick. Inside, things open and slam. People talking too low to hear. He rubs his hands on his jeans. Remembers to bend his knees. Can’t pass out. The door swings open and Dakota has a suitcase. He’s never seen her run before, and she’s breathing hard when she reaches him.

“You’re packed?” he says.

“I’ve been packed.”

They race to the car. Their footsteps are a two-piece arrangement of light percussion, and it sounds like a symphony. Dakota is in his car and she has a suitcase.

It’s all terrifying. It’s all possible.

“What happened to We don’t have any money?”

“We do have money,” he says, turning the key. “I have a thousand dollars.”