“Okay,” he says, because it’s sure as hell better than Kmart. He lets his own gaze drift to the stream of people still coming from the gym doors in the distance: high school sweethearts and old-timers and young kids with stars in their eyes and dreams of state championships.
“You’ll have to cut ties with everybody you know,” he says.
Foster swallows. Tries to make a joke. “Good thing I never knew you.”
“By the time this is over,” Martin says, “you’ll wish that was still true.” He fishes a scrap of paper from the floor of the truck and scrawls a list on it. “Pack everything on here, nothing extra. Be watching for me at midnight. If you’re not there, I’ll drive away, and you can keep heading down this path you’re on. But if you come out, that’s like signing a contract. Next time you get in this truck, there’s no going back.”
Foster nods. Climbs out and runs away before Martin can change his mind.
This could be the end for either of them.
Or it could be the beginning.
Jake took more pills after the game.
Too many too many too many.
But not all of them. He empties the first-aid tin into the toilet. Flushes. Ditches the tin in the trash can outside.
The pills have brought the whole world into focus. He has a little more time before the crash, and he’s got to use every minute of it.
So he grabs his backpack. Kmart said not to bring much, and this is his first chance to prove that he’s willing to do whatever it takes, whatever Kmart asks. (Including not calling him or probably even thinking of him as Kmart. Phoenix, he reminds himself.) So he only packs a few clothes and a toothbrush before searching his mom’s medicine cabinet for the things on the list.
Gauze and bandages.
Antiseptic.
Imodium.
Sleeping pills.
Blood-pressure pills. (Jake feels an undeserved flush of pride as he drops these into his backpack. Phoenix will probably be surprised he could get them.)
There are other ways to get clean. He knows this—but he also knows his mom can’t afford any of them. He can’t afford any of them, and he’s not sure they work anyway. So he takes a permanent marker, thick and black, and explains all of this to her, page after page, in the note that he writes: how he’s got to go off the grid for a while, but he’ll be in touch when he can. How she shouldn’t worry, but he knows she will. How she’s got to trust him and not get the police involved. How he promises he’ll write to her when he’s clean, but not before then. How he’s sorry for this, just like he’s sorry for everything else.
He cries when he writes this part. He is sorry for absolutely everything. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that will be one of Phoenix’s twelve steps or something. He almost laughs, then he almost doubts this whole idea.
But no. Jake Foster is a man of faith, and his faith was never stronger than in that arena tonight.
He looks at the marker in his hand. He will get through this, and it’s that word that will carry him through. So he writes it in thick black letters down the length of his arm.
FAITH.
There’s a little space left in the backpack, so he grabs a few granola bars and Gatorades. It almost makes it feel like just another bus trip instead of a step into the unknown.
Later, he will look inside the backpack and wonder what happened to the granola bars and the Gatorades. He will look at the unmarked skin of his arm and realize that he must have imagined it.
He will not realize that the marker was real but he never uncapped it, that there was no note left for his mother at all.
I know sometimes
I ask too many questions
and it’s annoying,
distracting,
exhausting.
So I follow Daphne and Kolt as they sprint to the truck
and I don’t ask
Is Kmart bad after all?
Is Jake in trouble?
Is Jake in danger?
Is he getting ready to run?
Is he getting ready to die?
I keep my questions inside
while Kolt runs into his house
and comes back out with no lightsaber, no blaster,
only an envelope.
“He still gets mail,
and sometimes my parents forward it.
They think I don’t know.”
I’m not sure what any of this means
until
he points to an address crossed out
and a new one next to it
written in blue pen.
“Same town as the receipt.
Go there,” he says.
“We should be there in less than an hour.”
Even if that’s true,
it will feel like forever.
We go back to my house
to switch to Daphne’s car
because Jake’s truck
is sketchy on fast roads
(and sometimes on slow roads).
I make them wait
while I put Jake’s key in the ashtray—
and because the mail reminded me:
Jake has mail too.
Daphne’s car can go fast
but not fast enough.
Before we’re even out of town,
lights flash behind us,
red blue red blue red blue.
Daphne and Kolt just look at each other
and we go faster.
“They’re not coming for us,”
Kolt says,
but even I can tell
he’s not sure about that.
This is not good.
When the cops come, you pull over.
The sirens chirp, just once.
Daphne drives faster.
This is really, really, really not good.
“Maybe we should…,” I start to say,
until
at the edge of town
the cop cars turn down some side road
and we are alone again.
We all breathe out together.
But then I have to wonder:
If we’re going this way
and they’re going that way
and Jake is in trouble,
getting ready to run,
and my mom might have given them
a clue how to find him,
are we going light speed
in the wrong direction?
Or are they?
Or are they looking for someone else
and still not looking for Jake?
And will anybody find him
before he runs away?
Before something worse?
