“Breaker niner-niner,” he jokes. It’s the only trucker lingo we know and it’s probably not even accurate.
“I cannot believe we found two that work!” We laugh with a mixture of nostalgia and exhaustion.
The twins taught Lucas this trick when we were younger, and he’s the one who talked me into riding our bikes all the way out here one day to try it out. For whatever reason, the old radios have a setting that turns them into makeshift walkie talkies. It’s more of a channel, like what the police use, my dad explained when we told him. We didn’t care what it was. For us, it was like having a cellphone when our parents said we weren’t old enough. Of course, we could only talk to each other. And we had to ride our bikes out into the boonies to make the calls.
“It’s so dark, I can barely see you,” I say into the intercom.
“Mwahaha.” He drags out a devilish laugh that crackles through the microphone.
“Don’t be a jerk. You know I don’t like the dark.” I squat down and pull an abandoned crate close enough to sit while we talk.
“I wish someone would reopen this place,” I lament.
“Maybe I do that instead of go to MIT or Tennessee. Look, problem solved.” A bitter laugh slips out.
“I think you really want to go to MIT,” I say.
There’s a long pause before he breathes out a “Yeah.”
“Your dad has even less of a right dictating now.”
He coughs, and I can tell it’s forced.
“We can talk about other things.” I’m not sure what else there is, so I wait for him to lead.
“I’m sorry I was a jerk,” he finally says.
I was one, too, but I’m not ready to admit that to him quite yet.
“I miss us, Lucas.” I cup the radio in my palms and stare at it, willing him to say the same words through the microphone.
“What happened?” I wipe away a quick tear and wait again. The only sounds I hear are his occasional breaths from yards away over a barely functioning line. I don’t know why it’s easier to talk like this. It always was. The first time my parents had a blow-out argument that ended in my dad storming out and staying at a hotel for a week, I confessed it here and only to Lucas. And when he threw all our best glasses to the floor and told my mother she was a tramp . . . we talked about that here too.
“Do you think you could help me with something?” His ask feels heavy, partly because of his tone but also because he purposely avoided the things I asked. I kind of want to force a trade, a favor from me for a truth from him.
“One date,” I say.
His silence tells me it’s either a no or he’s confused.
“With me, I mean. I want to go out on a real date, in front of people.” I grip my bottom lip with my teeth and brace myself for rejection. I expect it, and if he does say no then at least I’ll know what this is and where I stand. I’ll know that our kiss was a moment of weakness on his part, and I’ll quit trying to break inside his toughest parts.
“One date,” he repeats, and I sit up straight, muscles tight at the thought that he’s actually considering it.
“Yes. That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”
The quiet lasts a little longer this time, and the dead space is filled with the occasional crackling sound of our connection. After a few final pops, the small green light on my device flickers off. Whatever residual electricity I was drawing on is gone.
“Went dead!” I shout, waving my hand.
Lucas drops his box, and it swings from the cord, banging into the post. I wait for him to come back, but he hasn’t moved. I can tell he’s standing, and his hands are either rubbing at his neck or on his face. The lack of response to my offer is starting to make me feel desperate, and the more seconds that pass without him moving or speaking, the less I want a yes at all.
I’m about to shout “never mind” when his voice cuts through the cool air.
“I get to pick the place,” he yells.
His body shifts, the shadow of hands falls to his sides.
“So you can pick somewhere nobody will see you with me?” I let out a guttural laugh after my fair question. I don’t want to be a secret. And I refuse to believe that kiss was anything other than real and honest. Whatever he’s afraid of in this world, it can’t be me. It can’t be us.
I can tell his head is bending down as he moves closer. He’s still too far to hear the crunch of his feet on the dirt, but with every stride he takes, I’m given a new detail. His right thumb is hooked in the pocket of his torn-up sweats. His brow is heavy and his focus is on the ground before him. His mouth is closed, but the usual tightness is gone.
Soon, I hear him. I smell him.
“You ashamed of me, Lucas Fuller? Is that what all of this is about?” I hold out my open palms, the harsh realization that I’ve been pushing aside for two years finally boiling to the surface.
He lifts his chin and his eyes soften with the slight tilt of his head.
“It’s nothing like that, June.” He shakes his head as if I’m supposed to understand, but I don’t.
“What’s it like then, Lucas? Because here’s what it’s like to me. We’re best friends, then we’re not. We live a hundred feet apart, and for two years, I see you only in passing, through open shutters and truck windows. I come back to school, and we’re enemies. I resent you, but only because you resent me, and I have no idea why. None of it—no clue. But then there are these few tiny moments when I see you. When I really see you. My Lucas shows up to take care of me, and he talks and he shares for one night. We kiss, then just . . . like . . . that.” I snap my fingers and his eyes flit to my hand. I hold my turned-up palm, thumb against fingers, in front of my eyes.
“You can’t tell anyone.” I throw his words back at him, the ones he said after the breathtaking night that left my lips raw and my heart even rawer.
His lips shut tight and he draws in a long breath through his nose, slowly shaking his head. I think it means he understands me, but at this point, who knows? Maybe it means he’s about to tap out and ditch me here. Wouldn’t be the first time in the last month he made me walk home in the dark. Though this is a hell of a lot farther than a block.
“You’re right.” His scratchy voice breaks through the quiet.
I blink.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that please?” I say into my broken speaker. He glances up from the ground and wears a brief crooked smile. His gaze holds on, and after a beat, his head falls to the side.
“You . . . are right,” he says again.
I’m skeptical, so I turn my head and glance at him sideways.
“So, is that a yes? To the—”
“It’s a yes to the date. And a yes that it won’t be in a cave. I will take you somewhere that has actual living, breathing humans nearby. There might be food, and there will probably be a movie because this is Indiana and our options are slim.”
I let out a short laugh.
“Come here,” he says, finger calling me to my feet. He drops both hands in his pockets and cocks his head to the side.
He can make me so damn mad, and then he looks at me like that. My stubborn side stays put because I hate that all it takes is a look.