Dare Me to Live

Chapter 17 (Part one)

"Damn it!" Tyler smashed his fist against the steering wheel. It didn't seem to produce the release he wanted so he hit it again and again and again. The dull thudding gave the car its own heartbeat.

I had never seen him so worked up. He couldn't seem to sit still, as though the car was slowly closing in on him, suffocating him. The speedometer edged up mile by mile, the tires spitting out gravel behind us as we sped through the dark streets. It was only when I let out an involuntary gasp of fear as we took a sharp turn that he seemed to remember I was there and eased up on the gas.

"Dash, shit—I'm sorry." The fist he had been abusing on the steering wheel opened and slipped into my hand. His skin was hot and swollen against mine and I instinctively interlocked our fingers, as though maximum contact will allow me to draw the heat and anger out of him.

"I'm sorry," Tyler said again. He looked almost ashamed. "They shouldn't have—I mean I never thought they would fight again—not with you there and—" He stumbled over his words like there were giant potholes in his train of thought, rattling him from the inside out. The pulse in his fingers beat quickly, too quickly, against my own.

We rumbled down a dark road, only our headlights cutting a swath through the shadows. The silent radio display cast a reddish haze on Tyler's face, sinking his eyes into deep, dark hallows. I squeezed his hand and he took a deep breath, one long enough to fill all the recesses of his lungs.

"I thought they had finally put everything behind them. They haven't fought in almost two years—at least not while I was around to hear it."

I stared straight ahead, concentrating on the point where the headlights were swallowed by the murky night. "Mia must have been close with your family."

There it was again, that strange thread of jealousy of a girl dead and gone. Saying her name felt wrong, like a curse word, sticky and forbidden. But I've never had trouble swearing. This felt worse, as though it was taboo, as though saying her name aloud was bad luck.

"It was hard on all of us," said Tyler. "And I didn't handle it well. It put a lot of strain on my family."

I didn't want to talk about Mia, didn't want to feel this great chasm between us where the memories and ghosts of our dead friends linked us with a bridge made of smoke. A bridge we could see but couldn't cross.

"Were you—were you with her when she died?" I asked. I felt rather than saw him flinch.

"No," he said. "She died alone." I was thrown off by the sudden harshness in his voice, like every syllable had barbed wire wrapped around it.

"Tyler, is there something—"

"Shit!"

I jerked forward hard as he slammed on the breaks. On instinct I threw my hands out and my fists collided with the front of the car, knuckles stinging as they connected with the hard plastic. Screeching filled my ears, an endless shriek of rubber and asphalt. The seatbelt knifed into my chest and I cried out, my voice rivaling that of the skidding tires.

Just as quickly as it started it was over.

Air shuddered in and out of my body and there were tears flowing freely down my cheeks. Frozen in the beam of the headlights was an enormous deer. Huge dark eyes stared impassively at us and then, with a flick of its tail, it bounded away. Mist swirled in the headlights where it had been.

I dropped my hands, rubbing my sweat-slicked palms up and down my jeaned thighs, shaking from head to toe. I couldn't seem to get enough air. Color danced along the edge of my vision. Everything seemed to be in working order, but it felt like I was having a heart attack. I hadn't even noticed that Tyler had thrown his arm across my chest to try and hold me in place.