“Your real name. Your real driver’s license. That game of Twenty Questions. Why did you let me think I’d imagined all of that?”
“Because I needed to keep you in the car,” Josh says. “You looked like you were about to bolt, so I came up with something on the fly. I guess it worked.”
That it did. And Charlie feels stupid and angry with herself for believing it, even though she shouldn’t. It’s not stupid to want to believe the best in people. You shouldn’t get mad at yourself for thinking someone is good and not inherently evil.
“Is there anything you told me tonight that is true?” she says.
“That story about my mom. That’s all true. She left on Halloween just like I said. I haven’t told too many people about that.”
“Why did you tell me?”
“Because I like talking to you,” Josh says. “That wasn’t a lie, either.”
Inside her coat pocket, Charlie’s fingers continue to clench and unclench around the knife handle. Earlier, they did the same thing around the handle of the passenger-side door. Once eager for escape, now eager for a fight.
But Josh shows no sign of giving it to her. He simply drives, unhurried, ready to say something else he’s unsure about.
“My dad always blamed me for my mom leaving,” he says. “He said it was my fault. Right up until the day he died.”
“Another thing you lied about.”
“Not really,” Josh says. “He did have a stroke. It’s what killed him. And I would have dropped everything to take care of him, if I’d needed to. Even though he hated me and, well, I guess I hated him.”
“Because he blamed you for what your mom did?” Charlie says.
Josh shakes his head. “No. Because he convinced me to blame myself. It didn’t matter that my mother chose to leave all on her own. I thought it was because of me. I still do.”
Charlie knows that feeling all too well. So heavy and cumbersome and exhausting that she would do anything to rid herself of it.
Even die.
She knows because she almost did. Not tonight. Before that. Four days before.
“I almost killed myself,” she says.
The words surprise Josh. They surprise Charlie even more. She’s never admitted it before. Not even to herself.
“Why?” Josh says, shock still potent in his voice. Charlie notices something else there, too—a note of concern.
“Because I wanted the guilt to go away.”
“So that’s why you accepted a ride from a stranger.”
“Yes,” Charlie says. “That’s exactly why.”
Josh stays silent a moment, thinking. “How did it happen?”
“Accidental overdose,” Charlie says. “Sleeping pills.”
They were the little white pills, prescribed to offset the restlessness brought on by the little orange ones. Charlie hadn’t taken many, preferring to spend her nights indulging in revenge fantasies that bore zero resemblance to the real-life one she’s now experiencing.
But then came the night in which the human-shaped blank she normally fought was replaced by a mirror image of herself. It startled her so much that she put a movie into the VCR, crawled into bed, and downed a handful of little white pills.
She told herself that she just needed to sleep.
That it was just a coincidence the VHS tape she picked was Singin’ in the Rain, which she once told Maddy was the last movie she wanted to see before she died because it was as close to heaven as any film could get.
Charlie continued to lie to herself even after her body rebelled and she threw up the pills and then flushed the meager few that remained down the toilet. She let herself think every excuse in the book. She was too tired to know what she was doing. She wasn’t thinking straight. It was all an unfortunate accident.
That’s the real reason she needed to leave Olyphant immediately. Why she couldn’t wait until Thanksgiving or when Robbie was free. Why she went to the ride board and put up that flyer and jumped at the chance to share a ride with Josh.
Charlie was afraid that if nothing changed, she’d experience another unfortunate accident, this time with a different result.
But as the shame and sadness of that morning come back to her, she knows the truth.
None of it was accidental.
For a brief, soul-shaking moment, she would have preferred to die than spend one more minute weighed down by her guilt.
Now, though, she wants to live. More than anything.
“I’m glad that didn’t happen,” Josh says. “And I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet under different circumstances. I think I would have liked that.”
Charlie stays silent. It’s better to do that than admit she feels the same way. There were points in this drive when she actually liked Josh, before suspicion and fear kicked in. She felt a kinship with him, probably because he’s as much of an outcast as she is. Lonely, too. She can tell that even now. Like recognizes like. In a weird, twisted way, Josh seems to understand her better than even Maddy sometimes did.
Or maybe it’s simply Maddy who makes her feel tied to Josh. There’s a reason Josh chose her to be one of his victims. Perhaps he was drawn to Maddy for the same reasons Charlie was. And it’s possible that’s another reason she got back into the car with him at the diner, even though it defied logic and reason.
She wants to know why.
Why Josh picked Maddy.
Why he approached her outside the bar.
Why he decided to kill her.
But instead of trying to articulate all that, Charlie lets the silence grow. It fills the car, uneasy, the two of them never taking their eyes off the road, which seems to have narrowed. On both sides, the forest presses in close. Bare branches arc overhead, connecting like elderly couples holding hands. Bits of snow still sit in the evergreens. Occasional clumps of it drop from the branches and hit the roof of the car with a muffled thump.
“So what now?” Charlie eventually says.
“We drive.”
“But not to Ohio.”
“No, Charlie. I’m afraid not.”
“What’s going to happen when the driving stops?”
“I think you already know the answer.”
Charlie’s fingers again curl around the knife in her pocket. This time, they stay that way. Gripping it tight. As ready as she’ll ever be.
“Maybe you should stop driving now,” she says.
Josh gives her a look. “You sure you want that?”