THE VISION IS A PLACE | ✓ {complete}

Chapter 61 : the end - part three

I can't tell if he's driving too fast, or if it only feels like we're flying because the road is black and the insects coming at the windshield look like stars.

His eyes are red, as if just coming back from some edge he was facing alone.

Glass shards litter the seat. I brush most to the floor mat, but keep a dime-sized piece. I close my hand around it, trying to make an anchor, in sync with how his fingers are squeezing the wheel, his knuckles flashing white.

My heart is still pounding, like an animal slamming itself against the sides of its cage, over and over, wanting to escape what it knows is coming.

We make it to the first main junction. There are no signs, but I recognize the trees.

He hangs a right without a second thought. Petersburg is the other way. Was he hoping I wouldn't notice? Then again, he never said where we were going.

"Maybe we should slow down," I say.

He moves his hand to see the fuel gauge, before letting his eyes drift to the clock of the car radio.

"Addison?"

"Yeah," he says, shortly, staring at the dim neon numbers, a little longer than what would be normal.

"You have a gun on you, and no papers or ID..."

The thought of getting pulled over is enough to make him let up on the gas a little, but I still feel like he's miles ahead and I'm just trying to catch up.

His hand finds the back of his head, his fingers lingering at his nape. He tongues the inside of his newly swollen lip, keeping his eyes fixed on the road.

I press my thumb against the glass. "...You're scaring me," I say softly.

"Sorry," he says faintly, putting both hands back on the wheel. There's a tremor in them that wasn't there before.

"I think we should pull over."

"...I kinda just want to drive right now, Case," he says, without looking over, his voice barely breaking a whisper, like driving is something he needs as much as air right now.

I wish I knew what happened back there.

I'm doing everything I can to keep my trepidation behind the flood walls I've built around my heart. I'm telling myself that the end in his eyes isn't our end, but I feel the weight of his next blink in my chest, and know the same thing he's trying to hold back is inside of me, too.

I pull my knees up inside his hoodie instead, and look out what's left of the window. There are no lights in the distance. Nothing to focus on except for the jagged black tops of trees, blurring past.

It's awhile before we break out of the maze, leaving the steep hills and sharp bends behind us. He's calmer now, as we turn onto a road that's straight and narrow.

Fireflies spark on and off in the marshy fields as we pass.

A tear rolls from my eye without warning.

I know he's never going to leave. Whatever this is—whatever we're doing right now—it's only temporary.

He's never going to give up the farm, or his brother. I've always known that, and I've loved him anyway. I know the outside is all the same to him now, and if Heath never sent him that book, or told him his plans, he might already be back in prison for some other thing. I get that being on the outside makes him angry; he doesn't know another way. But I guess, for a second, when he first came back tonight and said me and him were getting out—and again, when I saw his eye all fucked up on the driveway—I thought maybe him and I were going to leave all of this. Start over somewhere.