“I knew it,” Milo says as we pass the YOU ARE NOW LEAVING LISSIE, WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED YOUR STAY! sign. “I knew he was just fucking with you—”

“We don’t know anything,” I say, but even I know how weak it is coming out of my mouth. I don’t want to believe this. “Maybe he had a good reason—”

“We know he left you stranded in a fucking motel fourteen hours away from your home. What kind of reason would make that okay—”

“I don’t know. Pull over.”

“What?”

“Pull over,” I repeat.

“Why?”

I unbuckle my seat belt. “Would you pull over?”

He finally pulls the car onto the shoulder and we roll to a halt. I push my door open, get half out of the car, and vomit all over the gravel and the pavement. I swallow once, twice, three times, pull my legs in, and close the door. I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and lean my head against the seat.

“Okay?” he asks.

I nod, staring straight ahead.

He starts to drive again.

And then it starts to rain.

After a while, the sound of the rain falling against the car and the landscape blurring past the window suffocates me into sleep. Milo shakes my shoulder after I don’t know how long. We’re parked outside a gas station and it’s not raining anymore.

“I have to fill up,” Milo says. “I’ll get some drinks, food. Break for a minute. I’ll call your mom. Stretch your legs or get some air … or something.”

He gets out of the car. As soon as I can’t see him anymore, I get out my cell and call Culler. He must be there by now. It rings. It’s a lonely sound. Pick up, pick up, pick up. And then, after thousands of rings—it feels like—someone picks up.

“Hello?” Topher.

“Is Culler there?”

“I don’t know. Culler, are you here?”

And then I hear him. His voice in the background, asking, who is it?

And Topher says, “I think it’s the lovesick high-schooler.”

It’s quiet for the longest time, then the muffled sound of someone putting their palm over the receiver. He’s there and I want to scream into the mouth of my phone, I know you’re there. I know you’re there. Why are you doing this to me. How could you do this to me.

This kind of anger I’ve never known before. That I’ve gone from Seth Reeves’s daughter who meant something, to this lovesick high-schooler in the span of like twenty-four hours is so unbelievably cruel.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” Topher says, and I hear Culler in the background again: Topher, don’t. “Sorry, I mean, he’s not here right now.” He pauses. “But I’ll tell him you called.”

After he hangs up on me, I spend ten minutes in a sleazy gas station bathroom trying to keep it together. If I can get through the next ten minutes without crying, vomiting, or screaming myself hoarse, I can be in a car with Milo. But I don’t know what to do about this humiliation, this hot, uncomfortable sensation all over me like the world can see this on me. I close my eyes and I count, trying to work it out. I count until ten minutes have gone by. I’m shaking, but not crying or sick or screaming.

I make a decision.

When I step out, Milo is leaning against the car.

“I want to stop at Haverfield,” I tell him. “I want to see Culler.”

Culler does not just get to do this to me.