When I wake up, Shepherd is gone.

Admittedly, I panic. I’ve been left by guys before: at parties, strangers’ houses, the police station. Donnie, in particular, was a master of the sneak-away. But Shepherd wouldn’t do that—would he?

He folded my clothes for me, lined up on the other bed. I shake my head at myself as I get dressed. I do know him. Maybe not every detail, maybe not even most of them. But last night, I felt something beyond just pleasure when he touched me: I felt comforted. There was the typical, heady thrill of being with someone new for the first time, but wrapped up in that, there was a strain of the familiar, too. Like being with a friend.

He wouldn’t leave me like this, out in the middle of nowhere. I comb my hair with my fingers and relax when I remember how he kissed the top of my head, just before I fell asleep.

He’s probably at the vending machines, I think, or getting coffee. I open the door, ready to join him, but stop short.

The car is missing.

“Can I add two coffees to the order?” The woman at the register blinks at me a second, like my request is so complicated I should know better than to ask. Finally, she nods.

I check my watch. It’s barely 7:00, but we should have left already, if we want to get the most driving in that we can. I guess I could have woken her, but even while sleeping she looked exhausted, and I didn’t have the heart.

While I wait for the coffee, I look around. The diner near our motel is a little seamy, but there’s some charm to it: jukebox in the corner, milkshake menu by the door. A local makes eye contact and tells me good morning. I say it back.

“It’ll be a minute,” the waitress calls. “Gotta brew a new pot.”

“That’s fine.” I sit at the counter and study the television propped behind it. It’s nice to watch the news and know Jess’s mug shot won’t pop up.

I wonder how her parents, the quintessential socialites, manage to spin the scandal to their friends. It’s possible they just ignore it, not one bit surprised this is where their little girl ended up. Jess always was pretty wild.

The night we met, at a party in someone’s backyard, she walked up to me in her sundress and took my cigarette right out of my hand.

“I’m Jess.”

I watched her lips purse around the filter before I answered, “Shepherd.”

“That your real name?” she asked, slurring a little, blowing the smoke close to my face. She was drunk. We both were.

“Of course. If I was going to lie, I’d pick something cool.”

She smiled, but didn’t laugh.

It was summer, but the night had a snap to it. She shivered. I gave her my jacket and she kissed my cheek.

“This party sucks,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the crowd and then at me, like she expected me to chime in with complaints of my own.

“Seems okay to me.” I knew the guy throwing it, so I felt a little offended. Who was this girl to judge? Apart from her eyeliner and my cigarette between her lips, she looked like she’d just come from the salon with Daddy’s credit card.

“Nope. Sucks.” She ashed the cigarette into an abandoned drink. “You got anything to make it more fun?”

I shrugged, my head feeling heavy, suddenly, as I patted down my pockets, trying to remember what I’d brought. When I handed her a joint, still in the baggie, she shook her head.

“Uh, well....” I looked around. “Pete’s always got rolls on him.”

Jess finished the cigarette and stomped it out on the ground with her flip-flop. “Buy me one?”

“No. I don’t even know you.”

She smiled, putting her hands into my jacket pockets. “You could.”

I know, deep down, it wasn’t all me. Jess wanted to try everything she could get her hands on. She wanted to spiral. I didn’t make her do any of it. I just made it easier.

“Your dad hates me,” she giggled, the night I brought her to dinner. My mom was still trying to mend the rift between my dad and me, even though I’d been kicked out for two months without a word. Jess and I decided, as revenge, we’d show up in jeans and hoodies, reeking of weed.

The lines of coke we did in her car beforehand, parked right in front of the rose bushes my mom won actual ribbons for, made her talkative and touchy all through dinner. She kept putting her hand on my dad’s arm while she told stories of her high school lacrosse team, which she led to State twice.

I’d been doing coke for a long time, by then, so I just sat there and forced a smile whenever Mom loaded more sweet potatoes onto my plate. Under the table, my feet wouldn’t stop bouncing. The chirp of my sneakers on the hardwood tore through the dining room.

“I don’t know what you’re on,” Dad seethed, as he ushered us to the door right after the meal, no dessert, “but you’ve got some nerve, walking in here like that and thinking we wouldn’t notice.”

Mechanically, my shoulders shrugged. I knew he would notice. I wanted him to. Only now, I couldn’t figure out why. We thought it would be funny to get under his skin.

Jess, apparently, did find it funny. Hilarious. When we got back to Tillie’s house, I checked that she was asleep before letting Jess in the back door. Right away, she sat on the kitchen island and packed a bowl, laughing the entire time. “Did you see his face when I hugged him goodbye?”

“We were probably pushing it.” I thumbed my lips. They were numb. “Did you notice my mom went straight upstairs? She didn’t even say goodbye.” She’d probably done it so she could cry privately, safe in their bedroom with her collection of Precious Moments figurines. She had hundreds: doe-eyed, porcelain kids who offered all the wholesome mischief a mother could want, with none of the heartache.

“Fuck them,” Jess blurted, bringing the bowl to her mouth. After her hit, she passed it to me. Smoke trickled past her lips as she added, “They kicked you to the curb over a little coke.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, but I knew it was about more than drugs. I’d changed. The day Dad made me leave, he’d just caught me stealing from Mom’s purse. The lowest move of all.

“...and honestly, now that I’ve tried it?” Jess coughed into her elbow and hopped off the island, holding her arms overhead, gymnast-style. “It isn’t a big deal. I like it. It’s like a ton of caffeine or something, but I don’t feel jumpy.”

“Give it time.” I set down the bowl without taking a hit. The chair creaked as I sat, rubbing my face with my palms. “After you do it enough, it stops feeling so good.”

“Maybe for you.”

That was the thing about Jess: she wanted me to get her whatever drugs she felt like doing, show her the right parties, introduce her to the right people—but still acted like she knew better than I did.

Even so, if it weren’t for me, things wouldn’t have gotten so bad for her. She might have stopped there, had her fun, and gone home to her rich parents with her experiences locked away. Part of her forever, but all in the past.

I can’t do that to Lila. I might be nicer now than I used to be, but my foothold in this area, this new me, is shaky. One slip, and I’m right back where I started. I can’t risk dragging her down with me.

I drive back to the motel slowly, one hand on the food in the passenger seat, and tell myself bringing her breakfast isn’t that big a deal. It’s not a “boyfriend” thing, just common courtesy.

When I get to our room, the door is open. “Lila?”

She pokes her head out of the bathroom. She’s been crying.

“Where did you go?” she snaps, then sucks in a breath and wipes her eyes with a handful of toilet paper. “I thought you’d left!”

“Hey, don’t cry.” I walk closer and reach for her, but stop. That’s not in my jurisdiction.

At least, it shouldn’t be.

I motion behind me, to the food on the table. “I stepped out for breakfast, that’s all. I got you pancakes.”

Lila sniffs, looking between the food and me, like she’s trying to decide if she should believe me.

“Okay,” she says, after a minute. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions, I just....”

“I wouldn’t leave you without a car in the middle of nowhere,” I tell her. “Why would you think that?”

“It’s not like I know you all that well yet,” she mumbles, taking a seat. I don’t know what else to do but sit, too. “I mean...we’re still kind of strangers. And you were complaining about the trip so much.”

Her words hurt, even though they’re true. Rather than show it, I take a sip from my coffee and let it burn my tongue.

“Sorry,” she says again. She opens her food and pokes at it with a fork, not eating.

“You know,” I point out, “my luggage is still here.”

She follows my eyes to the duffel bag on the floor. Her cheeks redden. “Oh.”

“You’d make a great detective,” I smile.

Lila doesn’t find it funny. “It’s just...I’ve been left like that before,” she says.

“Seriously? That’s so shitty.”

“Yeah, well...I’ve had really shitty relationships.”

Her use of the word “relationship” reminds me of the speech I rehearsed all morning. I clear my throat. “You know that we’re not...together, right?” It’s not the smooth opener I planned, but at least it’s out there.

Now she does laugh, tilting her head at me. “What, like, boyfriend-girlfriend status? Because of one night?” She shakes her head and, finally, takes a bite. “It was awesome, don’t get me wrong, but I know it doesn’t mean things are at that level, yet.” After a pause, she adds, “And by ‘yet,’ it’s not like I’m assuming they’ll go that way. I’m just saying...we should get to know each other more. See where things go on their own.”

She starts adding cream and sugar to her coffee, while I sit there and try to remember what, exactly, my perfectly crafted speech entailed. I didn’t expect her to say that.

“Uh...I’m not sure we should do that, either.” When she looks up, confused again, I mess with the pull-string on the blinds. “We can be friends, but I can’t...you know. Get involved.” I take a breath. “Romantically.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Can I ask why?”

“It’s...hard to explain.”

“Nothing is hard to explain. That just means you don’t want to explain it.” She stabs the fork back into her food. “Which, if that’s the case, is fine—but I think I deserve to know why you seemed to like me so much last night, when you really don’t. Was it just about sex?”

“No, no, it’s not that. I do like you.”

“Then I don’t see the problem. But whatever, if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”

This, I did expect: the anger, the hurt ego. Nobody likes being rejected. I thank her, but she just shakes her head, finishing her breakfast in silence. My appetite is gone.

After checkout, I carry our luggage to the car. She steps around the bumper with her hand out. “Keys.”

“I don’t mind driving.”

“Keys,” she says again. I dig them out of my pocket and drop them into her palm.

When we get on the road, I consult the directions list. “There’s a turn-off, somewhere up here,” I say, “but if we follow it for a few miles, it’ll—”

“I’m taking you to the bus station.” She glances in the rearview, hitting the gas to clear some distance from another car. “I’ll buy you a ticket back home.”