That’s when I hear a loud growl behind me, and I start to feel space opening up around me. Someone comes up behind me, drapes their arms over my head, and guides me through the ocean of reporters.
“I’ve got you,” Torrin says, steering me through them like he’s a sharp knife slicing through ribbon.
“What’s your relationship to Miss Childs, Father?”
Now that Torrin’s come into the picture, the questions are changing. The tone of them is shifting. There’s less pity in the reporters’ voices, replaced with skepticism.
We’re almost to the truck. I can just make out the front tires. I think Torrin has to shove a few cameramen away from the door so he can open it, but he does it without hesitating. He does it like he’s moving cardboard boxes instead of grown men.
Once the door is open, he shields my body with his until I’m all the way inside the cab. He slams the door, almost taking off a man’s hand when he sticks a microphone in after me.
Now the reporters are focused on him, slamming their mics in his face while cameras pan in his direction as he shoves around to the driver’s side of his truck. As soon as he throws the door open, he dives inside and fires up the engine.
“Stay down.” He has to shout above the noise, but his hand is gentle as it guides my head forward into my lap. The cameras don’t stop flashing.
Torrin blares his horn twice, then he presses down on the gas. I hear shouts of anger as we drive away. I wonder how close he came to running someone over.
It’s quiet for a while before he taps my back. “We dropped the reporters. You can sit up now if you want.”
I straighten up slowly and glance out the window. Flashes of buildings and cars pass by. Looking out the window like this makes me nauseated, almost motion sick, so I turn to face forward.
My hands are shaking in my lap. Not trembling—shaking. I stare at them and try to make them stop. I focus on them until I feel my teeth grinding together, but I can’t control them.
They won’t stop shaking.
I want to cry because I feel like my body is betraying me. I stare out the window again. I’d rather be nauseated than let Torrin see me cry.
He blasts through a light that’s more red than yellow and pushes the speed when we hit the on-ramp. The truck still rattles like it’s about to fall apart whenever it breaks fifty, but now there’s a whine coming under from the hood. This scrap of familiarity is calming. In a world I don’t seem to belong in anymore, a familiar truck’s engine sputtering and spewing reminds me that there was a time when I belonged.
An emotional tether. Even the way he glances at me from the driver’s seat, like he needs the reassurance that I’m still here, is familiar. He’s the one I’d tie myself to, but I don’t feel like I have anything left to be bound with. How can he tether me when vapor has more substance than I do?
The trip from Seattle to Sammamish isn’t a long one. It feels even shorter now.
He breaks the silence when he flies down the off-ramp for Sammamish. “Ready for this?”
“Yes,” I say because it doesn’t matter if I am or not. Life’s not going to slow down just because I can’t tolerate the pace. “Does your family still live in the same house?”
His head shakes. “No. Mom sold it a few years ago and moved into a little condo. After Rory graduated and she finally kicked Caden out.”
“How are your brothers?”
He turns down a familiar street. The one our high school was on. “Rory’s studying biology at U-Dub, and Caden’s . . . being Caden.”
“So you’re saying not much has changed?”
“Other than me going into the priesthood, not much has.”
“That still doesn’t feel real.” I twist in my seat to look at him.
He drives his truck exactly like he used to—one hand gripping the wheel, the other arm draped over the top of it, his legs spread wide and taking up half of the bench seat. “What doesn’t?”
“You.” I wave at his outfit. “This.”
He glances at his shirt like I just told him he spilled ketchup down the front of it. “Yeah, well, it’s kind of surreal sitting here beside you and talking about my brothers too.”
“Do you keep in touch with any of our old friends?”
He’s just turned onto Hemlock. My hands wring together.
“Not really. I see them around town every once in a while. A few are members of the church, but I think me becoming this . . .” He says it how I did, summing up a handful of words in a single one. “Was a little weird for them. No one wants to have their friend the priest over because they’re worried I’m going to tell on them to Jesus or something.”
The way he says it makes me laugh.
He smiles at me. “What? It’s true. No one wants a priest around when there’s a party, but if someone’s being born or dying, I’m on speed dial.”
I’m still laughing. He’s still smiling. The sun’s shining, and everything is green and lush. It’s the most perfect moment I’ve had in years.
It ends the moment Torrin turns down Madison Boulevard. My parents’ house is a few blocks down, but I can already see it. The street is lined with trucks, and the sidewalks are littered with people. It makes the scene at the hospital seem peaceful and puny.
Torrin curses the same word from the hospital under his breath. “What do you want me to do?”