When we cross the state line, only a few hours into our trip, he starts complaining again.

“It’s not too late to turn back,” I remind him. We’ve pulled over at a fast food place off the highway. I dip a cluster of fries into my barbecue sauce and point them at him. “I’d rather make the trip alone than hear you gripe the entire time.”

“You have to admit, this situation is a little...weird. Two complete strangers on a road trip that was, for all intents and purposes, a whim. Who does that?”

I finish my fries, then steal some of his. “We’re two people who happen to be looking for the same person. It makes sense that we take the trip together.”

“Technically, I’m not looking for Tillie.”

“You’re looking to get out of town,” I point out. “Besides, aren’t you curious where she went, or if she’s even okay?” When I turn to him, he’s picking sesame seeds off his burger and won’t look up. “If you just vanished, wouldn’t you want people looking for you?”

“No. When I disappear, it’ll be for good.”

“When, not if?” I tilt my head. “Is that why you want to get out of town—you’re trying to disappear?”

He takes a breath, but doesn’t say anything. I’m not sure why I expected him to answer: he hasn’t been very forthcoming about himself, so far.

When we’re back on the road, him still stubbornly manning the wheel, I decide to try at least one more question. “What’s your last name?”

His brow furrows. “Why?”

“You said we’re complete strangers, and that’s apparently the biggest hang-up you have about this trip.” I put my feet on the dashboard. This time, he doesn’t make me move them. “So let’s fix that. Two days in the car is a lot of time to get to know each other.”

Shepherd twists his mouth, half-smiling at my logic. “Jones. Happy?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you for humoring me.” I look out the window and watch the trees, bare and jagged against the February sky.

“‘Shepherd Jones,’” I repeat. In the reflection of the glass, I see him look my way. “It suits you.”

“Thanks.” I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. He turns down the radio. “But I gotta say, ‘Kathryn Davidson’ does not suit you.”

“Really?”

“‘Lila Ashbury’...I don’t know, it just sounds like your name. If I pictured a Lila, she’d look like you. Or at least act like you.”

“What do I act like?”

Shepherd sips his soda. “Strong-willed,” he says, around the straw. “Nice, but not a doormat.” When he sets the cup down again, his hand brushes my arm. I’m a little surprised at the flutter I feel in my stomach. “Am I way off?”

“No, I think that’s pretty true.” My hands don’t know what to do now. I flip down the visor and put on lip balm, so he won’t see how fidgety I am. “Donnie, that guy that stopped us, was probably the one exception.”

“Ah. Mind if I ask why?”

I look at myself in the little mirror, eyes blank. “I don’t know. That question’s kind of been plaguing me ever since we broke up.”

“Let me guess: he cheated on you.”

“Yep. As soon as I moved out of our apartment, so I could help my dad when he got sick.”

Shepherd’s hands tighten on the wheel. “Mighty big of him, waiting until you were gone.”

“Right?” I try to laugh. Donnie and I are through, recent hookup aside, but I still get depressed talking about the whole thing.

I steer the topic elsewhere. “So, uh...you don’t like your name? Seemed like you didn’t believe me when I said it suits you.”

“It was a hassle, growing up,” he says. “Which I guess is true of anyone with a weird name, but still.”

“Your name isn’t that weird. I like it.”

“Thanks.” I feel his eyes on me, but I keep mine on the road: I’ve already learned he’s more apt to talk if I don’t make eye contact. “Thing is, my dad’s a pastor, so ‘Shepherd’ is too on the nose. He might as well have named me ‘Christian’ or something.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” he prompts, “like, herd the flock, be a fisher of men, all that.”

“Well, there you go,” I offer. “It could be worse: at least he didn’t name you Fisher.”

Shepherd goes silent.

I try to stifle my laugh, but he catches it. “So your middle name....”

“Fischer, with a ‘C,’” he says, nodding gravely. “It was my mom’s idea.”

“Oof.” I slump in my seat. “Okay, yeah, you got screwed. But it’s not like kids made those connections, right? I mean, they probably made fun of your name because it was different, but not because of that.”

“If I’d gone to public school, you’d be right, but Christian schools are a different ballgame.” He sips his drink again. “The teasing didn’t get to me much, though. The real reason I don’t like my name is because it’s, like, this constant reminder that my dad had my life planned out for me from Day One. He just assumed I’d work in the church. Anything else? Nope, not good enough. I think that’s part of why I started fucking up the way I did. If I was going to disappoint him anyway, why bother trying?” He shakes his cup, rattling the ice. “Not that I blame him for my mistakes.”

“Wow.” I’m as surprised by this information as I am that Shepherd willingly divulged it. “That must be hard. My parents were the complete opposite—over-praising me for any little thing I did.”

“That was probably tough in its own way, though.”

I think he’s just saying it to be nice or make conversation, but I still nod. “It sort of was, actually. It always made me wonder if I was doing my best, because they never pushed me.”

I think of the day Dad died, nurses mistaking me for his granddaughter. “They weren’t like normal parents in a lot of ways, though. They were in their late forties when they had—” I stop and close my eyes. “When I came along.”

He’s quiet. I decide to cut our Q&A short, my make-things-awkward quota apparently fulfilled.

When I reach for the radio, he says, “I don’t get why they didn’t just tell you. Not judging them or anything, but...that’s kind of messed up.”

I feel the knot in my chest unwind itself, relieved to finally hear someone, anyone, acknowledge this. After Betty’s unsatisfying answer of, “Folks just didn’t do that in our day,” in all its forms, and the agency worker forcing a smile while she told me, “Not divulging it until the child is older is pretty common,” it feels incredible to find just a single person who agrees with me.

“I get why you want to find Tillie,” he goes on. “Really. Like...just because I think this idea is crazy, doesn’t mean I don’t understand.”

“You do?”

“Of course. Who wouldn’t want to track down their mom or dad, if they found out something like that?”

I smile, keeping it to myself, as we pass a truck and pick up speed, nothing but the road ahead of us.

The last time I told anyone that much about myself—besides Jess, who forgot most things as soon as I shared them—it was Tillie.

“Heard your dad kicked you out.” We were in the break room at work. I knew her, but hadn’t talked to her beyond general chitchat, and was surprised when she set down her bag of chips and took a seat. “I’ve got a spare room, if you need a place.”

I was about to dismiss her charity, the way I did to basically anyone. Back then, I had a habit of taking advantage of people. I burned bridges, bled their kindness dry.

Before I could turn down the offer, though, she said, “Now I’ve got to tell you, this isn’t some charity case: you need a place, I need money. It’s business.” She tore open the chips and ate one, adding, “Five-hundred a month. Four if you do some chores around the place for me.”

She stuck out her hand. I reached for it.

Then, I pulled it back. “How’d you know I got kicked out?” I’d only told one person besides Jess, and that was one of the truck throwers, who was letting me crash on his couch for the weekend.

“This is retail,” Tillie said. “News spreads quick. So? We got a deal?”

“If you knew why I got kicked out,” I said, staring down at my lunch, “you wouldn’t want me renting from you.”

Tillie narrowed her eyes, like she was analyzing my features. As if my face could tell her all she needed to know, with one quick scan.

“I’ll take the chance,” she said. “You look like a good kid. But I’m also not going to twist your arm over it, so hurry up and decide.”

I shook my head. She waggled her fingers at me until, slowly, I reached across the table and accepted.

After I moved in, Tillie gave me plenty of space—but, when we did cross paths, she had a way of drawing information out of me. She was determined to get to know me, no matter how hard I refused, no matter how guarded I was.

Lila, I realize, is a lot like her mother.

We get a motel room. It’s midnight; I’m too tired to keep driving, and she’s yawning even as she offers to take over. I sit with her on the hood of the car after check-in while she smokes a cigarette.

“You don’t have to sit with me,” she says, teeth chattering. “Isn’t that a perk of quitting? You get to stay inside all cozy instead of getting hypothermia.”

“I’m okay.” In the pool of light from the street lamp, she looks like she did that night at the house, with candles everywhere. The night she called me cute. “I actually like cold weather.”

“Not me.”

“Here.” I shrug off my coat and drape it on her shoulders. She thanks me, her smile faint, a little shy.

“Back in Indiana,” she says, “you said that stuff about changing. How you used to be like Donnie.”

“I never said I was like Donnie,” I correct, hating the thought of her associating me, in any way, with that jerk. “You asked if I ever liked someone knowing they were bad for me, and I said yes, and that I’ve been that person, too.”

“Okay, okay. So you were ‘bad’ for someone.” She hesitates, pulling my jacket tighter around herself. “What did you mean, exactly?”

Yep: like mother, like daughter, I think. “I just...wasn’t a good person. For a lot of reasons.”

“Like?”

“I’d rather not say.” My face gets hot. “I’m really ashamed of who I used to be.”

She flicks her cigarette out into the darkness, where the streetlight can’t reach, and digs a mint out of her purse. The cellophane crinkling is the loudest thing out here. “I won’t judge.”

“I know,” I say, even though I’m not so sure she wouldn’t. How could she not? “I’m just not ready to go over all of it.”

I expect more questions and prodding, but she says, “That’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Thanks.” I sigh, my body suddenly aching all over, like the truth is venom I won’t let her extract. Maybe a partial truth is enough, for now. “Anyway, the being bad for someone part...there was this girl. I kind of derailed her life.” A car pulls up a few rows away. We watch a man and what’s probably a prostitute head into the office.

“Then again,” I add, “she dragged me down, too. We were both bad for each other. Just…a lot of dysfunction, really.”

“You’ve changed, though,” she offers. When she rests her head on my shoulder, just like the night we met, I feel my heartbeat spike. “I think you’re a nice guy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You didn’t have to give me Tillie’s car to use, or come with me on this trip, but...you did. Even if it benefits you, too, that was really nice.” I feel her look up at me.

How old was I, the last time I considered myself a good person? Sixteen? Seventeen? I didn’t think I was a bad guy; I don’t even think I’m a bad guy, right now.

That’s the mistake everyone makes, though. They think as long as they aren’t bad, they must be good. They miss the entire gray area in the middle. That’s where most of us really fall.

I’ve been stranded in that gray area for years: refusal to get worse, but doubt that I can get better. And pawning Tillie’s stuff, especially that locket, probably put me back a few points.

But Lila doesn’t think so. Here’s this girl, right in front of me, who says I’m a good guy. No matter how little she knows me, there must be something in me with worth. Some redeeming quality that could pull me higher, right out of the gray space, if I just try to see whatever she sees.

When I turn my head and kiss her, she stops shivering. Even when I touch her face, my fingers ice-cold, she doesn’t flinch.

Shepherd parts my lips with his tongue and touches my teeth, just a graze. I push my mouth into his and slip my fingers up into his hair. I want more, and I want him to know that.

It’s not revenge on Donnie, proving to myself I’m finally over him, or even just a distraction, like my motivation before. It’s that I like Shepherd, plain and simple. I’m not sure why.

Maybe it’s something I can’t put into words, which my brain would normally refuse to believe: everything can be put into words. Everything can be explained, in clear, concise sentences, bits of information to process and fit into the rest of your life, like little boxes.

When I slide off the car’s hood and he follows me inside, I comb the database in my head for Reasons to Like a Guy. With Donnie, right away, I knew it was because he was dangerous. At the time, I’d found it exciting. I was desperate for something fun.

With Javier, it was the fact he dressed so well and traveled a lot; dating him made me feel worldly. Then there was Finn, who was just so good-looking, like a model, that I couldn’t resist, even if we had nothing in common.

With Shepherd, I just like him. I like how he looks. I like that he doesn’t smoke, but doesn’t judge me for doing it. I like that he knows a little about cars and cares a lot about being a good guy.

And I like the surge I feel in my chest and stomach, all the way to my toes, when he kicks our motel door shut and grabs me, kissing me so hard that I forget to breathe.