MY HEAD SLAMMED against the back of the seat.
“Jesus!” A face swam into focus in front of me, warm hands on my shoulders, shaking me. “Wake up!”
The features crystallized. Soft, wide eyes. A tiny nose. Light brown skin. Short, bobbed brown hair.
“Jesus fucking Christ. Are you alright?” Mara’s face was electrified in confusion, as were the seven faces behind her.
I sat up quickly, orienting myself by the swirling balls of colors jumping around in front of me. It was still ink-black outside, but my yellow overhead light was on. My chest was pumping. My left hand was aching. It throbbed worse than it had when I fell asleep, and didn’t stop when I folded the cast over.
“Yeah, what’s, uh . . . what’s going on?”
“You were screaming in your sleep,” Mara said. “Really loud. We all thought you were getting murdered or something.”
I looked behind me. The entire coach car was awake and glaring in my direction.
“I, uh, I’m sorry. Sorry, everybody. I get weird dreams.”
“No shit,” Mara muttered. The crowd behind her began to drift back toward their seats.
“Thanks for that.” I swallowed. “I’ll, uh, I’m just gonna—”
“Yeah, like hell you’re going back to sleep. These people wanted to kill you.”
“What time is it?”
“Two o’clock in the morning.”
She was still crouched in front of me, and I could feel her arm against my leg. “Look, at least go sit in the observation car, okay?” she whispered. “That way, I can stop you if you go Lady Macbeth on us again.”
It looked like she wanted me to follow her, so I did, not entirely convinced she wasn’t in my head, another dream uprooting the first. She sat in the same booth I’d seen her in the night before, and she didn’t look upset about me being around, so I fell into the open booth across the aisle from her.
“You were here last night,” I said, my voice still groggy with sleep. “I saw you.”
“That was you on a different train and everything. You’re lucky I stopped in Reno.” She smiled, and I knew it was really happening. Dreams were never this vivid. “And where is your final destination, Arthur?” She strung out my name, her accent squashing the first r so it sounded more like author. “And why are you lying to your poor father about it?”
“You heard—”
“Yeah, and you should probably know, you’re a shit liar. You stuttered the whole time. I could’ve watched you have that conversation at a church camp or whatever and I still wouldn’t have believed you.”
“Well, he did,” I said, trying to wipe the sleep from my eyes. “He still has no idea I’m out here.”
Mara had been folding a napkin on the table in front of her, forward and backward, and she paused. “Probably better that way, right?”
“Where are you from?”
“Somerset, outside Bristol. England?”
I nodded. “And your dad . . .”
“Also doesn’t know where I am. I left a few years ago—”
“How old are you?”
She side-eyed me. “Nineteen?”
“You ran away from home when you were seventeen?”
“Sixteen, yeah, but my sister basically raised me, and she was living in America already, so I just followed her.”
“What about your mom?”
“Left when I was four.” She’d resumed folding the napkin, over and over so it stacked up like a tiny paper building.
“Where does your dad think you are?” I asked.
“Right now?” She smiled devilishly. “Australian boarding school. Or the Italian military. Or dating an American celebrity.”
I squinted.
“I send lots of postcards,” she said, and held up a glossy photo of a ranch in Reno, Nevada. “From all over the country, too. I figure it’s fun then, for him to try and put it all together, right?” She flipped it over. “‘Dear Dad. Howdy from the American West. No one rides horses anymore, but that hasn’t stopped me in my search for gold. Prospecting, they call it. I’ve got a lucky streak in me yet. Your daughter, Mara.’”
Mara’s smile was a kind that I wasn’t used to. It was bold and honest; it crept its way onto every line of her face, filling them with an understandable warmth and an impossible mystery at the same time. It gave me a strange, inclusive feeling, like everything she said was an inside joke, and the rest of the world was trying desperately to figure it out, but I was on the inside. At least I thought I was.
“So are you going somewhere specific, then?” she asked. “Or are you just running away?”
“I’m—” My tongue lurched, but I caught it. A small part of me wanted to try to impress her, but it was the stupidest, most impulsive part. “I guess both. I’m . . . trying to find something.”
“You know,” she said, cocking her head, “noncommittal and cryptic is really only interesting for so long, right?”
“Right. I guess I’m going to Green River,” I committed.
“You know, I was hoping to explore Green River. Maybe if the train gets in early enough—”
“Maybe you could help me,” I said, before I could stop myself. She buried her face away from me toward the window, probably avoiding me.
We both watched as a man in a black jacket, clearly drunk, stumbled from the dining car to coach. Three times, he looked back at Mara, and she rolled her eyes.
“What about you?” I asked. “Why are you here? Unless you really are . . . dating an American celebrity.”
“Well, no,” she laughed. Her accent was music to me. “Not yet. I have a job, in Denver. And I get to travel sometimes, so I’ll sneak off and go study your protest history.”
“Protest history?”
“Anti-Vietnam, Haight-Ashbury, the Summer of Love? My sister used to be really into it, traveling around the US and whatnot, so she gave me this amazing list of secret little spots that used to be important.” She didn’t make eye contact when she spoke, like she was always looking past me to the more interesting thing just beyond me. “It’s spectacular. If there’s one thing Americans are good at, it’s getting pissed off at yourselves for fucking things up. I find it . . . confusing and beautiful.”
Mara tried asking a few questions of me, so I told her about my Camaro, and Palo Alto, and everything that didn’t involve Kaitlin, or Mason, or my dad, or my restraining order, or my cast, or my life in general. Three times, she reminded me that I hadn’t actually told her anything about myself, but I knew it was better that way. Eventually, her head slipped to the table and her eyes closed. I didn’t want to risk sleeping again, so I sat up, staring out the window and watching the nothing fly by.
No one knew where I was. I could’ve been dead for hours, and no one would have noticed. I thought about texting Kaitlin, telling her I was okay, and I was in Nevada, and I was doing something, but I knew my number was probably blocked, and it wasn’t attention she’d give to me anyway. My stomach turned thinking about it, how I’d had to start competing for her attention when she used to give it to me so willingly. When we were sophomores, I never had to tell her when I had a tennis match but she’d be there anyway, the only one cheering whenever I lost the first point in a set, because she’d “always root for love.” She’d bring me orange Gatorade and drive home with me, she’d tell my dad how great I’d been, she’d stay until we both fell asleep. She always wanted to know where I was and what I was doing. Now that I was out in the world by myself, and no one knew where I was or what I was doing, it was hard to imagine anybody ever caring about me like that again.
The train ran forty-five minutes early into Green River. Mara’s head was still lying against the table, unmoving, and I thought about shaking her awake. She’d said she wanted to explore Green River; maybe I’d be doing her a favor. Then again, maybe she just wanted the sleep, and I’d be overeager and annoying. Also, again, there was Kaitlin. I shouldn’t have wanted Mara’s help. I should have wanted to see Kaitlin.
I didn’t have to. Mara rolled over and her eyes opened to me standing over her. I didn’t say anything, just stared back, watching her blink the world back into her view. “Arthur,” she said, almost as if announcing it. “We have a little time, yeah?”
“Um—yeah.” I didn’t have to say anything more. She rolled out of the booth, and before I could move, she was leading me off the train.