“Have you?” Ed challenged. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m not a queer or anything. So if you’re thinking something’s going to happen, just stop.”
He spoke without thought, but he couldn’t have anticipated Sammy’s reaction. His face collapsed, his bright eyes darkened, and he leaned back, putting several more inches between them.
“I was just trying to be nice.”
“No, you weren’t. You planned out this whole thing, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The car. I bet it’s not even really dead, is it? You probably loosened the battery cables or something so I’d think we’re really stuck here.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You’ve admitted it yourself. You’ve been obsessed with me for like your whole life.” Ed hated every word out of his own mouth, but they made him feel powerful. Instead of being knocked off center, he was the one who left Sammy upset and disoriented. Instead of feeling like the world was out of his control, like he was nothing but a leaf drifting from unknown place to unknown place, he had somebody’s destiny in his hands. “Which is sick, by the way. You need to get over it.”
“Ed…don’t. This isn’t…don’t.”
“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you’re not some sort of pervert. Tell me you didn’t sabotage my car.”
“I didn’t sabotage your fucking car!” Sammy pushed Ed’s shoulder and scrambled to the tailgate, his long limbs slowing his progress. “Do you want me to prove it to you?”
“What are you going to do?”
Sammy pulled the latch free and kicked the tailgate open. Rain immediately swept into the car, like a wave crashing onto the beach. “I’m going to Wendover.”
“In this storm? You’ll catch your death. Or get fried.”
“I’ll risk it.” He slammed the tailgate shut before Ed could speak, leaving him alone with the booming thunder and the constant rhythm of the rain on the station wagon’s roof. It was pounding as hard as his heart.
Chapter 2
Sammy walked along the shoulder of the freeway blindly, his face burning, his head pounding, his hands curled into fists. His face was wet, and he tried to wipe the moisture for his eyes, but no matter how much he tried, it was a losing game. So he gave up. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him, and as far as Sammy knew, there were only two people left in the world. Him and Ed. And now he didn’t even have Ed.
It was stupid. He had been stupid. But when Ed invited him to run away to California, Sammy had thought that meant Ed knew. Ed knew what Sammy wanted. What Sammy had always wanted for the two of them. More than that, he thought Ed must have wanted the same thing. Why else even ask him? They weren’t friends. Despite Sammy’s best efforts, they had never been friends. So what on Earth had been going through Ed’s brain when he asked Sammy if he wanted to go to California?
The cold rain ran down the back of his neck. His shirt clung to him, and his jeans were so tight, he could barely move. No matter what Ed thought, Sammy hadn’t done anything to sabotage his car. But he would sure as fuck do something to fix it. He didn’t care if it took him all night to get all the way back to Wendover. He could find a garage there, send a tow truck out for Ed, and then find his own way back to Evanston.
Ed had flung his words like weapons, carefully choosing the sharpest edges, and aiming them at the most vulnerable places. Sammy had thought that Ed, of all people, would be different. Now, he didn’t know why he was so certain of that. Perhaps because Ed had always been an outsider himself. Maybe because he had sensed a kindred spirit in the other man—something he had sensed when they were both boys.
Ed had always seemed to embrace the element that made him an outsider. That thing that warped him just enough that he didn’t fit in any one place properly. Sammy had always felt that way on the inside. Even if on the outside he was perfectly normal. With a perfectly normal family, perfectly normal friends, perfectly normal interests and hobbies, and a perfectly normal life. But he never felt perfectly normal, and fuck Ed anyway for throwing everything back in his face.
“You hear me?” Sammy shouted with all his strength, but the words flew back in his face. “You hear me, you fucker? Fuck you, too!”
It didn’t make him feel better, but he shouted again and again. The rain ran into his mouth and he swallowed convulsively, easing the burn in his throat. What was he going to do when he made it back to Evanston? Maybe he would never make it back to Wyoming. Nothing stopped him from going on to California himself. Ed didn’t own the state. And nothing stopped him from continuing east. There was a whole fucking country out there. He could see some of it before Uncle Sam called him to ‘Nam. And if Ed got called up, too, then maybe their paths would cross at some point in the jungle, and they’d both talk about Evanston and pretend this whole, ridiculous day never happened.
The thought of meeting Ed in the jungle someday almost—almost—made him smile. Until he realized what he was doing. When or how his stupid crush on that boy started, Sammy didn’t know. It had just always been a part of him. He always thought he would outgrow it, somehow. Only, he never had. Even though Ed was clearly nothing special. Not anything worth walking in the freezing
