I can’t believe he’s defending Mike. Is this some kind of a bro code?
“Thanks for your thoughtful jersey chasing anecdote,” I say. “It was very touching. This is different.”
I sigh and stare out the front windshield. Maybe I shouldn’t have opened up his tight seal. Sometimes Gray’s opinions can be a little too candid. I can feel him watching me, reading into my frown. He taps his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Have your parents called the cops?” he asks.
I shake my head. “In her note, Serena said if we called the cops she’d never speak to us again. She wants to be with Mike. She thinks she’s in love.”
Gray nods. “Maybe the trick to ending your family feud is to start believing her,” he offers.
“She’s not in love,” I argue. “They hardly know each other. She’s just young and naïve.”
He smiles and looks at me. “Isn’t that what your parents used to say to you? They never took you seriously. Remember how frustrated you were?”
I reach for the music dial to turn up the volume because I’m sick of this conversation. Gray grabs my hand again.
“I’ve never seen you like this,” he says.
“Like what?” I ask him.
“Irritated,” he says and drops my hand. “You never let anything bother you. It’s Serena’s problem, not yours.”
“I don’t see it that way,” I say. “It is my problem. We’re family. This little baby is our family. Problems should never rest on one person. We’d get crushed that way. We all have to carry it now.” I look out the window at the green fields that tuck themselves under the cloudy horizon. “I’m mad because Serena is being so…,” my voice trails off because I hate saying the word. I hate to label my sister with such a terrible insult. I look at Gray for help.
“What do you think is the worst insult you can say to someone?” I ask him.
Gray leans his head to the side while he thinks about this. “That’s a good question,” he says. “Dick licker is pretty bad. Uncle fucker hits low. Although, I’m more of a purist. I think a well executed mother fucker can always cut deep.”
I give him a blank stare.
“I’m thinking more along the lines of selfish,” I say.
“Oh,” he says. “Yeah, that’s definitely insulting.”
“That’s my issue,” I say. “She’s not thinking about this baby. She’s only thinking about herself.” I look out the window and the sunset has dropped behind a wall of purple-black clouds. They glow with pockets of flashing electric lights. The spectacle matches the conflicting thoughts flashing through my head.
Gray
The horizon fills with clouds as black as soot and the sky is tinted a sickly shade of yellow. Thunder rumbles around us and the noise makes the car windows shake.
“I’m not a weather expert, but I’m sensing a very unstable air mass heading in our direction,” Dylan says, looking out the window at the menacing clouds.
I play with the radio tuner, trying to find a local weather report. My hand flies off the dial when a piercing alarm fills the car speakers. It sounds like a nationwide alert that a nuclear bomb is heading our way.
A voice comes through the speaker and I brace myself for the news that the US just declared World War III, but instead a meteorologist lists all of the counties currently under a tornado warning: Polk, Fillmore, York, Hamilton, and Merrick.
My stomach knots and I hand Dylan my phone. “Can you find out what county we’re in?” I ask.
She stares down at the touch screen like I just handed her a microscope and asked her to map the human genome.
“You want me to what?” she asks.
“Check our location on the map,” I ask her and point to my phone. “See what county we’re in.”
“How?” she asks me.
“It’s one of the apps,” I tell her. “Haven’t you learned how to use a cell phone yet?” I know she bought a flip phone last spring.
“I’m still in training,” she says.
A shower of rain starts to fall in heavy sheets. A stroke of lightening flashes next to the car, answered by a crack of thunder and my fingers instinctively tighten around the steering wheel. I look out the window at green-ish black clouds racing low in the sky.
I glance impatiently at Dylan and she’s scrolling through all the apps on my phone, fascinated.
“It’s like a journal,” she tells me. “What’s the Area 51 app?”
I rub my hand over my forehead. “It’s for extraterrestrial sightings,” I say.