The bell rings, but nobody moves. Not really. It’s the last one—final period, final day, final everything—and everyone just kind of sits there like the world hasn’t already tilted underneath them. Mrs. Gable pretends to shuffle papers, and we’re all pretending not to count the seconds we have left of being high school kids.
Cal sits two rows ahead of me, his shoulder nearly brushing the window. He’s absently spinning a pen between his fingers, the same way he used to during film strips in ninth grade. I don’t even think he realizes he’s doing it. It makes me smile.
He looks back at me. Just for a second. I probably imagine it, but it feels like it lasts longer than it does.
Everyone bolts the second we’re dismissed—laughing, shouting, clapping each other on the back. I wait until the noise empties the room. Cal is still at his desk when I pass him.
“Hey,” I say, barely above a whisper.
He looks up. “Hey.”
I don’t say what I want to. Instead, I continue out into the crowded hallway. I make my way through the sea of excited girls gossiping about who’s going to the prom with who. The boys are trying to impress each other with how they’re going to end prom night. Over the shrill voices is the almost indecipherable babble of the principal, wishing everyone a safe summer. I find my way to my locker. A quiet corner. A refuge. And I just wait.
I don’t walk out with the main crowd. Haven’t in years. Too many eyes. Too many people who’d ask too many questions if they ever saw me talking to Cal like I want to talk to Cal. So instead, I loop through the back hallway past the janitor’s closet and slip out the gym exit, where the bleachers cast long shadows and the air smells like hot rubber and old chalk.
The sun's still high, but everything's gold-tinged, like the world’s been dipped in honey for a second. I check my phone. One new message.
Cal: Side lot. Five mins. Wear that black shirt I like.
I smirk. The one with the tiny silver buttons he once called “weirdly hot.” I wore it this morning on purpose. Had a feeling. The kind of feeling you get when something’s humming under the surface and you don’t know what it is, but it’s his fault.
I walk to the side lot, the one teachers use—the half-cracked stretch of asphalt where grass tries to punch through. A few of the older teachers are packing their cars. Mrs. Lembley from English waves like I’m her nephew. I give a polite chin nod and keep walking until I’m alone again, leaning against the brick wall under the “No Parking” sign no one listens to.
I cross my arms, then uncross them. Kick a pebble. Glance at my reflection in a vending machine glass. I press down my bangs, then decide I look like I’m trying too hard, so I mess them up again. Cal never makes me feel stupid. But waiting for him always makes me feel like a cliché in a romcom.
I pretend not to be watching for his truck.
I am absolutely watching for his truck.
Then I hear it—the low rumble, that uneven rattle it always makes when it turns. I’d know that sound anywhere. Like a cough wrapped in a growl. He refuses to get the muffler looked at because he says “it’s got personality.” So does he.
The red pickup rolls into view, half sun-faded, with a duct-taped mirror on the passenger side and an air freshener shaped like a pine tree even though it smells like anything but pine. The window rolls down, and there he is.
Cal.
Buzzed hair, smirk in place. His eyes are hidden behind a pair of dollar store aviators, which only makes me more annoyed and more into him at the same time.
He lifts two fingers from the steering wheel in a lazy hello. Like we’re nothing. Like I’m just a dude he’s picking up after school.
But when I open the door and slide in, he hands me a grape soda without a word.
He remembers.
Of course he does.
Cal’s truck always smells like sawdust and mint gum. The door creaks like it always does—loud enough to make me wince, but Cal never apologizes for it. The bench seat groans when I sit down, and he reaches over me to pull the door shut tighter. For a second, his arm brushes mine and doesn’t move.
As the electricity I feel from that touch subsides, I turn back to him and he’s holding out a grape soda.
"Didn't think they still sold these," I say, taking it.
He shrugs. "I hunted. You’re worth the weird looks from the gas station guy."
I crack it open and take a sip, the fizz tickling my throat. It's room temp and perfect.
"You been stalking my childhood or something?" I ask, side-eyeing him.
Cal finally glances over at me—brief, but enough. “Maybe. You talk in your sleep, y’know.”
My brain short-circuits for a second. “Wait—what? When have you ever—?”
He laughs, leaning back, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Relax. You muttered something about ‘grape stuff and dumb hearts’ once during that movie night. I took a shot in the dark.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you make me watch The Notebook.”
He grins wider. “You cried.”
“I had allergies.”
“You were sobbing.”
“I was choked up.”
He turns to look at me fully now, tilting his head, that stupid-gorgeous grin softening. “It was cute.”
I roll my eyes, but I can feel the heat behind my ears.
His hand twitches near the gear shift, like he wants to do something with it. Touch my knee. Brush against me. Instead, he starts the truck with a low growl.
I steal one last look at him before he pulls out of the lot. He’s wearing cologne. Barely-there, but I know it — the one from that fancy sample bottle I gave him as a joke for Christmas. “In case you ever wanna smell like you read poetry,” I said back then.
He uses it today.
Now I know something’s up.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “You gonna tell me where we’re going, or should I just assume this ends with us ditching school and becoming fugitives?”
“Do I look like I have a plan?”
“Yes.”
He lifts one shoulder. “Then... maybe.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “If you’re taking me to a Trump rally, I’m jumping out.”
He nearly chokes on his own laugh. “God, no. You think I’d wear cologne to something that cursed?”
“I don’t know, maybe you wanted to impress the tractor crowd.”
He reaches over and flicks my wrist lightly. “Have a little faith.”
“I do,” I say, and I mean it. I mean it in the way you can’t say out loud, not in a town like this.
The air between us quiets, but it’s the kind of quiet that has a pulse. I hold the grape soda in both hands and try not to grip it too hard.
He hums something under his breath—one of those old songs his dad plays from the garage radio, something with twang and soul—and drives us toward nowhere, windows down, wind in our ears.
That’s Cal’s way. He never says more than he has to. I used to think that meant he was guarded, but now I know it just means he’s careful with the stuff that matters. And whatever tonight is? It matters.
And I think: this could be everything.
Cal pulls into the gravel lot surrounding the gas station. He doesn’t park it exactly — just eases off the gas and lets the weight of the vehicle settle into the gravel with a sigh. Outside the windshield, the old gas station glows like something from a memory I don’t have yet.
The crickets don't seem to care that my entire body has short-circuited. I’m still staring through the windshield, brain spinning, trying to make sense of it.
“This is—” I start, then stop.
It’s not just a gas station anymore. It's... something else. Something sacred.
The gas station has been transformed. String lights hang from the roof like stars have been shaken loose. In the center of the lot, a table for two waits—covered in a white cloth, plates, silverware, even a little mason jar candle flickerin’ in the breeze. A speaker sits on one of the old pumps, hummin’ low with some soft, dreamy song I don’t recognize yet.
He reaches over and takes the soda from my hands, placing it gently into the cup holder like it’s part of the ritual.
The silence grows between us — not empty, not awkward, just thick. Full of things we haven’t said yet.
I finally manage to breathe out a whisper.
“You’re gonna make me fall in love with you all over again, aren’t you?”
He doesn’t look at me.
Just watches the lights with a quiet, crooked smile.
Then, softly, “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”
The air between us bends.
Like it wants to pull us forward.
Like even the night is holding its breath.
The town gets smaller in the rearview mirror. We pass MovieMania with the flickering sign beggin people to come rent their movies, the gravel lot where the carnival used to set up in fall. We pass the intersection that leads toward his house. I watch it slide by through the mirror. He doesn’t even blink.
“Um,” I say, dragging out the word like a speed bump, “You just missed your turn.”
“Nope,” he says, casual.
“Okay,” I reply, “so either you’ve been replaced by a pod person who doesn’t know the way to your house, or you’re taking me to the woods to kill me.”
He lifts a brow. “You always ruin the surprise part.”
“You always make it suspicious.”
Cal taps the steering wheel with the side of his thumb, his expression smooth and unreadable. “You trust me, right?”
I hesitate, just enough for him to glance over. He raises both eyebrows now.
I exhale dramatically. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Then relax,” he says, grinning. “You’ll like it.”
The truck rumbles over a patch of uneven road, jostling my soda. I lean a little closer to the window, watching fields pass by in a blur—dried grass and scattered barns, a few cows with that same lazy look they always have. We’re heading west now, toward the edge of town. Toward the hills.
“You’re not taking me to the lake again, are you?” I ask. “I swear to God, if you try to fish...”
“No lake.”
I squint at him. “Are you building me a house? Is this a reality show? Are you going to propose? Oh my God, is it a goat farm? Am I getting a goat?”
He laughs loud enough to make the truck echo. “You want a goat?”
“I want answers, Cal.”
“You’ll live.”
“That’s what you say,” I mutter. “And then you take me to places with bugs and moral ambiguity.”
He looks at me sideways. “Do you remember the last time I took you somewhere?”
I try not to smile. “Barely. You said it was a ‘shortcut to a sandwich place’ and then somehow we ended up at a hilltop with Christmas lights strung from tree branches.”
He hums. “And?”
“It was…” I pause, twisting the soda cap. “It was really nice.”
“You said it was ‘romantic in a deeply illegal sort of way.’”
“I stand by that.”
“Well,” he says, flicking on the blinker for a dirt road that veers off to the right, “tonight is like that, but better.”
The truck kicks up a trail of dust as we make the turn, gravel popping under the tires. We pass a faded wooden sign half-swallowed by vines. I can’t read what it says, but something about it makes my stomach do that stupid little flip.
“I’m not dressed for climbing anything,” I warn.
“You won’t have to climb.”
“There better not be livestock.”
“No livestock.”
“If a raccoon jumps out of the glovebox, I’m suing.”
“You say that like I have anything.”
“I’ll take the truck.”
He snorts. “You wouldn’t survive three days in this truck alone.”
I open my mouth to argue but then—
Then I catch him smiling again. Soft, kind of crooked. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
And just like that, the words dissolve in my throat.
Something’s coming. Something big. And I don’t think it’s a goat.
The road narrows as we roll farther from town, the gravel giving way to cracked pavement, then a stretch of old tar patched like quiltwork. On either side, trees lean in, branches hanging low like they’re eavesdropping.
I glance over at him again.
His shirt is pressed. Like, actually pressed. Not his usual "shook it out over the bed and prayed for the best" kind of look. It’s white with thin blue stripes, tucked into dark jeans — not tight, but clean. His hair, buzzed short, has just the faintest shimmer. Gel. He used gel. That alone is enough to make my stomach twitch.
He’s dressed like he’s meeting someone important.
And I’m the only one in the truck.
I swallow a little too hard. Take a quick sip of soda. It's too sweet now.
He adjusts the rearview mirror again, even though there’s nothing behind us but dust.
“You keep checking the mirror,” I say casually. “Looking for cops? Or just making sure I’m still here?”
He shrugs. “Habit.”
“You nervous?”
He smiles, but doesn’t answer.
Okay. Now I’m nervous.
Not bad nervous. Not the kind that says run, or hide. It's the kind that sneaks in through your ribs and makes your hands too still, your breathing weirdly careful. The kind that says: This could be the moment everything shifts.
I look down at the soda in my lap, then back at the road.
This isn’t a prank.
This isn’t a detour.
Something is happening.
“I don’t like how quiet you’re being,” I say.
“You never like when I’m quiet.”
“I don’t like mystery-Cal. Mystery-Cal is worse than Football-Cal.”
“You like Football-Cal.”
“Football-Cal wears too much deodorant and calls me ‘dude’ when people are around.”
“That’s strategic,” he says with a smirk. “Gives us plausible deniability.”
I roll my eyes, but my throat’s too tight to keep joking.
Because now he’s turning down a road I recognize. Sort of.
It’s an old access road—one I used to bike past as a kid, trying to find the spooky places grown-ups warned us about. The ones with broken fences and old Coke machines and vines that crawl up through floorboards.
“I swear,” I say, slowly, “If this is one of your haunted buildings again…”
“It ain't haunted,” he replies.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“It’s... retired.”
That earns a snort from me, despite myself. “Buildings don’t retire, Cal.”
“This one does,” he says, and the truck starts to slow.
I sit up straighter. I feel the air shift.
And then, through the trees, I see it—
A rusted old gas station, tucked behind a curtain of overgrowth. The one that hasn’t pumped no gas since long before we came along.
The sign above it’s all busted up — just the letters G S remain, like a whisper. The windows are boarded but not broken, the side lot swept clear. And...
Wait.
There are lights.
Strings of lights.
Hanging from the overhang where cars used to park for fuel.
