Shift by Ginger Scott
25
My eyes blink open. The bright room startles me. It’s unfamiliar at first, all of it. I flail my arms around, tossing the knitted blanket to the floor as I realize where I am. I sit up in a flash when I do, my hands flattening on the cushions of the couch on either side of me. My hair is ratted and covering my eyes as I blow at it to clear my view.
“He’s gone,” Tommy says.
“What?” I grumble. I run my fingers through my hair, taming it into place. My brother is sitting on the arm of my dad’s recliner, and the front door is wide open. I point at it and Tommy glances over his shoulder.
“Yeah, he’s gone,” he repeats. “I guess he took off in the middle of the night. Dad’s pissed.”
My body rushes with adrenaline, my mouth waters, and I sprint to the back bathroom, pausing with my arm folded over my mouth as my feet feel the damp evidence left behind on the tile floor. Dustin took a shower in here, and it could not have been that long ago. I hunch over the toilet and heave out bile.
Tommy appears in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. I flip the lid of the toilet down and flush, laying my arms over the seat and resting my cheek on my arm as I blink at him, wide-eyed and terrified.
“What do you mean he’s gone?” It’s a stupid question, and leave it to my fucking brother to call me on it.
“Uh, he’s not here? Va-moose. Poof!” He snaps his fingers.
I stand and shove him out of my way, rushing to the driveway where my dad is closing the passenger side of his truck.
“What happened?” I blare out.
My father grumbles and presses his key fob, locking his truck as he marches past.
“Dad!” I shout, getting his attention. He spins on his heel, his open mouth snapping shut to stop himself from blurting out a knee-jerk answer that probably wasn’t going to be kind. He shakes his head instead.
“I don’t know, Hannah. I just . . .” His eyes move to the highway, and before he can stop me, I run inside, grab my keys and race back to my car. I’m peeling backward in my driveway when my brother slaps the hood of my car, causing me to punch the brakes and screech to a stop. He pulls the passenger door open and hops inside.
“I’m going with you,” he announces, buckling up. “It’s better if we’re both looking.”
I nod to him in panicky agreement. We tear down our street, ruling out everything we can think of. Tommy calls Dustin’s number over and over, every call going right to voicemail. My stomach feels tight again, but I don’t have time to throw up, so I swallow down the burn and stress bubbling up my esophagus.
“Why would he take off? Where would he go?” I keep asking these same questions, over and over, mile after mile, and my brother is kind enough not to answer and not to stop me from asking them.
We barrel into the gas station, cruise by Dustin’s trailer, the entire park now roped off with police tape. We zoom through the center of town, to the Straights, which are empty and desolate in the bright light of day.
School. Restaurants. The grocery store, the small urgent care, Earl’s garage—each place comes up empty. His car is still in the impound lot, both doors torn apart from whatever the police did to it. He has nothing—nobody.
My heart sinks with each passing minute, and as those minutes turn into hours, my grasp on hope falters. My parents call my phone, but I send every attempt to voicemail. Finally, Tommy answers on his phone and stares at me through their one-sided conversation.
“Yeah.”
“We did.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“She is.”
He hangs up, tosses his phone in the cup holder, and reaches forward, gripping at my dashboard before letting out a monstrous growl. The sound of my brother breaking stops my heart, and I pull to the side of the roadway. The rush of cars heading north for the weekend whizzes by us, the wind from eighteen-wheelers shaking my small vehicle as they roar past.
“Dad wants us to come home,” my brother finally says.
“No,” I blurt out.
He nods.
“Okay.”
We sit in silence, not even my radio on to fill the space. Every engine that rumbles by makes me think of him. Every car that’s shaped like his brings his face to my mind. Every beat of my heart reminds me how he could make it rush. My lips burn from missing him. My hands curl along the steering wheel, wishing they were holding his hands instead of this plastic piece of shit circle.
“He’s really gone,” I finally admit after several long minutes of quiet.
My brother doesn’t answer out loud, but I hear his thoughts.
He is, Hannah. He’s family, and he fucking left.
“Let’s go home,” I say, not bothering to look at my brother again as I check my mirrors and signal. I pull onto the highway, and about halfway through our trip, Tommy flips my stereo on, turning it all the way up and losing himself to his own thoughts.
* * *