“Then run with me.”
“That means leaving the Jeep on the side of the road, which we can’t do.”
Her Jeep isn’t just any old car. It belonged to Adam Sully. Fans have even created an Instagram page for the thing. It’s famous. It’s sentimental. Akara and I know what the Jeep means to Sulli—what it means to her dad—what it means to the Meadows family and the public.
Leaving it behind is like deserting another person attached to Sulli.
We can’t.
I shut the hood, and Akara tells her and me, “Three options: we all three push the car to the nearest shop, or Banks pushes while Sulli and I run ahead, or I just run ahead and you two push.”
I hate making the tough calls, and luckily, it’s not my job to choose. “What do you say?” I ask him.
“We don’t need two people to run, but you’d gain more ground having two people push the car. So Option 3: I run. You two push.” He looks to Sulli. “You okay with that?”
“I wish I could be the one to run, but I fucking get it.” She nods, knowing she can’t run alone like us, even if she’s the fastest runner. It’s the fuckin’ pitfalls of fame.
With the plan in order, we get to work.
Hour one, sweat drips off my brow. Muscles ache, but I fucking push next to Sulli. Barely any cars pass us in the middle of the night on a mostly empty, deserted road. The few vehicles that stop only cause Sulli anxiety. I always block her. I always talk to them, and when they acknowledge they can’t help, they take off.
Hour two, we worry about Akara.
“He could’ve tripped,” Sulli says between her teeth, pushing the back of the Jeep next to me, “and broken his ankle or something,”
“We’d pass him,” I grunt. “We’re going the same way.”
Hour three, my legs start cramping. My fucking back throbs. I grit down, using all my force as I shove forward. The longer we keep at it, the Jeep feels heavier, like we’re trying to move a Humvee, then a tank, but I never stop.
Sulli never stops.
I’d push through any hell if I needed to, but the question is, is all we’ve got even enough?
“How many miles…” Sulli pushes the Jeep with her back, using her quad muscles, “do you think we’ve gone?”
Five klicks. “Maybe 3 miles.”
I check the time on my watch.
Zero four hundred hours. The sun isn’t close to rising. It’s early on October 31st. An Unhappy Halloween. Because my brother is supposed to be getting married bright and early at zero nine hundred hours tomorrow.
We have only a little more than twenty-four hours to make it back to Philly, and I’m currently hundreds of miles away.
Sulli takes out her phone. “No service.”
Dammit. Sweat drips down my temples, my jaw.
She switches around, using her hands again to push. Sulli grunts and bites down, her biceps cutting sharp as she shoves harder.
She knows.
She knows how important being back in Philly is to me. She’d probably kill herself to get me there.
“Pace yourself,” I say in a heavy breath.
“We can make it,” she grits down with all the force she exerts.
My eyes burn, holding something back. “Don’t hurt yourself doing it.”
She only applies more effort, her face reddened, shirt caked with sweat. “Let’s go…faster.”
I breathe harder.
Hour four, she glances over at me with reddened, glassy eyes.
“We still have time,” Sulli says, voice choked, “…if we just ditch Booger, we can run, meet up with Akara, call an Uber, book a flight—”
“No.”
“We have to leave her, Banks!” Sulli shouts tearfully, standing up and letting go of the Jeep for the first time in four hours. “I’m not letting you miss your brother’s wedding because of a stupid fucking car.”
I’ve never heard Sulli insult her Jeep before. It means something more to her than I can even understand. “It’s not a stupid fucking car,” I snap back. “Akara said you cried when you were sixteen and your dad gave you the one thing he had left of his best friend. You cried snot-nosed tears, and you’ve told me multiple times that you promised your dad that you’d take care of this car—Adam Sully’s car. You promised him.”
She’s crying now. Fighting more tears, she rubs a hand under her running nose. “And that’s your twin brother,” she retorts. “The guy you shared a womb with. The guy you went to war with. You’ve spent twenty-nine years of your life with your twin, and you’ve told me multiple times that you can’t wait to stand next to him on his wedding day. Your brother. Your twin.”
We’re both breathing even harder.
And I’m falling more and more in love with her.
“One is a memory,” Sulli says in tears. “The other is a person who’s still here. Please don’t miss his wedding to save a Jeep that might be fine on its own. Please.”
I’m used to taking the selfless roads where duty is concerned.
I’m bound to Sulli’s needs. Not my own, and she’s trying to throttle me, shake me, to place myself above her. I think about how much it’ll break my brother if I’m not there, and that just about breaks me. I’m placing him above the Jeep.
I’m about to step away from Booger when we hear a ding ding of a bicycle bell. Dawn is nearing, but even through the darkness, I make out Akara.
He pedals harder on a pink child’s bike, fit with a basket and ribbons out of the handles.
He’s in one piece. It’s one of the first times I almost smile.
Sulli exhales relief. “What happened? You’re alright?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. You both are good?” He jumps off the bike, coming next to us and assessing our ragged states. Sulli nods enough that Akara doesn’t press, and he just explains, “The nearest gas station had cell service. I called a tow truck, but the closest one available is really far away. It’ll take four hours to get here.”
“Fuck,” Sulli and I say in unison.
Akara seems less concerned. “The shop is actually closer. It’s only another mile away. I called them already. It opens in an hour, but no one picked up. So I bought a bike at the gas station—it was the cashier’s nieces, and I went to the shop, banged on the door, and got ahold of a mechanic. I told him the Jeep’s model, and he said he has the air intake boot and carburetor we need.”
Now I really smile. “What are we waiting for?”
Akara smiles, and we share a bigger one with Sulli before we all return our hands to the Jeep. One more mile to go, and we push together.
All three of us.
For once, the Jeep feels light as air.
45
SULLIVAN MEADOWS
We reach the small Minnesota town after pushing Booger for five hours. Exactly twenty-four hours until the wedding, I feel hope surge knowing that we can still drive to Philly in time.
Pumpkins are set out beside a burnt-red garage. Ghosts hang from the trees, and fake cobwebs are stretched between toolboxes inside. The sky lightens to a morning blue, but the sun is still hidden.