They rode for hours in silence, still processing, never having discussed it, not once, not a little, not even abstractly or by implication. Eventually she couldn’t stand the sound of the tires and the engine and the wind coming through the partially rolled-down window, and said, “Where are we going?”
“Does it matter?”
She didn’t have an answer, but she still wanted to know. “Yes. I suppose.”
“The cabin. Dad’s cabin, where we went that weekend after—”
“I remember.”
“It’ll be quiet.” There was a pause, after which he laughed nervously. “At least, you know, until…”
“The cabin’s fine.” She fished her phone out of a pocket, with it her earbuds, scrolled through her song library looking for something that didn’t make her feel like she’d wasted her life on terrible music. “What if you change your mind? What if I do? What if you suddenly want to be with your mother or Ben, or—”
“There are things I want to do with this thirty-six hours I can’t do with my mother.”
“Okay, fine, sure, but what if you change your mind anyway? One quick bang and you could suddenly feel like you want to see the old house, your brother, your action figure collection, I don’t know. That stuff.”
“Is that what you want to do? Find your parents?”
“Fuck my parents. But if you secretly deep down want to be with your family when the world ends I’d rather it not be a middle-of-the-night surprise, you know what I’m saying?”
“I want to be with you. At the cabin.”
“Okay.”
A car came up from behind, fast, slipped into the oncoming lane, shot by them like they were parked, and receded into the distance ahead. Ten minutes later they passed it wrapped around a tree; he slowed down but didn’t stop. “Jesus.”
After they were past it, she observed, “You have to wonder if they were half-trying to do that. Couldn’t take the suspense.”
“Or nobody to take to a cabin.”
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