Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

Roger shook his head. “No,” he said. “I just think that maybe you should talk about it.”

My heart was pounding in my chest. “Well, I don’t want to,” I said as firmly as I could.

“I just …” He looked at me, and I saw that his glasses had gotten smudged again somehow. I could practically see a whole fingerprint on the right lens. I chose to focus on this, and not the way he was looking at me. Like he was disappointed in what he was seeing. “You can talk to me, you know.”

“I know that,” I said carefully. “Haven’t I been talking to you?” I asked, deciding to deliberately misunderstand what he was saying. “Have we not been talking?”

He sighed and looked out at the road, and I knew he hadn’t bought it. Of course I knew what he meant. But it was one thing to tell Walcott, since I knew I wasn’t going to see him again. Opening up to Roger would be a wholly different thing. I’d have to sit with him in the car afterward, for miles and miles and hours and hours. And what if it was too much for him?

“I just …,” I said. I took a breath, so I wouldn’t break down before I even started. “It’s just hard for me. To talk about this. I mean.” Or to complete full sentences, apparently. Amy! wouldn’t have had this problem. Amy! would have had no issue with sharing her feelings and the things that scared her most with the person who was offering to hear them. But then again, Amy! probably had no issues. I really, really hated Amy!.

“I know it is,” Roger said quietly. The mix ended, and he didn’t start it up again. The iPod’s tiny screen glowed for a moment, then faded, and the only sound in the car was the rhythmic thwapping of the wipers across the windshield, which remained clear for only a second before the rain engulfed it again.

“It’s not that I don’t want to talk,” I said without thinking about it, and as soon as the words were out of my mouth I realized that they were true. I did want to talk. I’d wanted to talk for months. And here was someone who was offering to listen. So why did this seem so impossible? Like I was being asked to speak Portuguese, or something equally difficult? “I just …” I didn’t even seem to possess the words to finish that sentence. I hugged my knees into my chest and looked out the window.

“All right,” Roger said after a moment. “I’ll start, okay? Twenty Questions.”

“Oh,” I said, a little surprised that we were switching topics so quickly. Because to be honest, I’d almost felt ready to talk to him. “Okay. Is it a person?”

“No,” Roger said, smiling. “I mean, I’ll ask you questions. And that way it might be easier for you to talk. Maybe?”

I was both relieved and anxious that we were staying on me, that I would have to talk. “Twenty seems like a lot,” I said. “How about five?”

“Five Questions? Doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it.”

“And I get to ask you, too,” I added on impulse. “It’s only fair that way.”

Roger drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Ready?” I nodded. Mostly, I wanted to just get this over with. “Why don’t you want to drive?” he asked.

I swallowed and concentrated on the wipers going back and forth. And even though Roger could see me and I him, I was suddenly glad for the darkness in the car. It made it easier to pretend that he couldn’t see that I was trying hard not to cry, that my chin had apparently taken on a life of its own, and I no longer had any control over it. “There was an accident,” I said finally, forcing the words out.

“A car accident?”

“Yes,” I said. I was working very, very hard to keep control of myself, but I was on the verge of bursting into tears, and there was nowhere to go if that happened. No bathroom stall to hide in, nowhere to run.

“When was this?” Roger was asking me these questions gently, and quietly, but he might as well have been shouting them at me, that was how it felt to hear them, knowing I would have to answer.

“Three months ago,” I said, and felt my voice crack a little on the last word. “March eighth.”

“That’s all?” Roger asked, sounding surprised, and sad.

“Yes,” I said. I took a deep breath and tried to take a lighter tone. “That counts as one of your questions, you know.” From the way my voice was shaking, and the way it sounded thick to me, I had a feeling that my lighter tone had not been successful.

“Last one,” he said. He glanced at me again and asked, more quietly than ever, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

I’d known this was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear him ask. Because there was a piece of me that wanted to talk about it. Deep down, somewhere, I knew that it would be better in the long run, to face it. That the bone would have to be set in order to heal properly, not weak and crooked. I had seen a flash of the Old me in Bronwyn’s mirror in Colorado. I wanted to see her again. I wanted to try to get back to who I had once been. And the rational piece of me knew that not talking about it was keeping me from sleeping and was probably making my hair fall out.

But there was another piece of me, the part I’d been listening to for the past three months, that told me to turn away, not answer, pull the covers over my head and keep on hiding.

Because Roger didn’t know what had happened. If he had, he wouldn’t be looking at me the way he had been. Once he found out, he’d turn away from me, then leave me altogether, just like Mom and Charlie had done. And I didn’t want to have to face the look in his eyes when I stopped being whatever he thought I was and turned into something else. I unclasped my knees, placed my feet on the floor, and looked at him. “No,” I said quietly. But my voice seemed to reverberate in the silent car nonetheless.

Roger looked over at me, then back at the road, pressing his lips together, nodding. Then he brought the iPod to life again and turned up the music, beginning his mix again.

I felt like I’d let him down, but I knew that it was better, in the end, to keep this inside. I’d gotten good at that. And soon he’d stop asking. Soon this would just be who I was. Soon Old me would be dead too. I tipped my head against the cold glass of the window. When I felt myself begin to cry, I didn’t fight against it. And when I caught my reflection in the dark window, I wasn’t able to tell what was tears and what was rain.