Free I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios Page A

going by in the distance, and I closed my eyes and listened to its slow,
     clunking progress through the fields surrounding Creek View. I wanted to be on it,
     flying away from Mom and the trailer park and these strange feelings that were taking
     root in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to get out of there, under cover of darkness,
     hiding in a metal boxcar.
    “I used to jump them,” Josh said.
    I opened my eyes and turned around. He was sitting on the edge of the pool, his good
     leg dangling in the water.
    “Jump what?”
    “The trains,” he said. “It’s a fuckin’ amazing rush.”
    This was what country boys did, the Industrial Revolution’s answer to cow tipping.
    “Can’t you, like, die doing that?”
    “You can die doing a lot of things.”
    I hugged my arms, the wind suddenly too cold. I’d seen some pretty real stuff in my
     life—my mom, before she got sober, sitting in a pile of her own vomit the day my dad
     died, missing him too much to care about anything but dulling the pain; my best friend
     giving birth to a baby she was terrified to have. But what Josh saw in the war … I
     wasn’t sure how to touch on that. Or if he wanted me to.
    I’d heard the stories about Afghanistan. Guys coming home all screwed up with PTSD,
     lots of them killing themselves. I thought of the pictures in the paper, with the
     coffins being unloaded on airfields and the American flags folded into neat triangles
     at funerals for guys who weren’t even old enough to legally drink. But it had never
     been real to me. Now I could see the flesh and blood of it.
    I forced my feet forward and crouched behind him, then raised my hand, my skin inches
     from his, hesitating. Then I traced the letters on Josh’s back: Semper Fidelis . He sighed as I silently trailed my finger along the intricate letters.
    “Always faithful,” I whispered. “To what?”
    “The guys,” he said, his voice low. “I should be out there with them. I’m a fucking
     waste of space here, Skylar.”
    I swept my palm across the words. “No, you’re not.”
    He snorted.
    “You’re an excellent dance partner. A badass pool cleaner. Probably the best mechanic
     in town, but nobody will ever know that because—”
    I stopped myself, afraid of going too far.
    “You can say it,” he said, keeping his eyes on the water. “I know my dad’s a total
     screwup.”
    “Well. My mom has spent the past few weeks sitting in her bedroom, feeling sorry for
     herself and eating enough Little Debbie snacks to keep them in business. So, you know,
     it is what it is.”
    He turned to look at me. “Why’s that?”
    I shook my head. “She lost her job. Long story.” I stood up and started putting my
     shoes on. “Speaking of … I should get going. She’s probably mildly freaking out right
     now.”
    It was only eleven, but the longer I stayed out there with Josh, the more our night
     got hold of me.
    His eyebrows drew together. “What are you gonna do?”
    I swallowed the lump in my throat and made myself look him in the eye. “Work, like
     always. And try to … I don’t know—” My voice caught, and I turned away.
    “Hey,” he said. Gentle—very un-Josh-like.
    He reached out a hand and grabbed my wrist so I couldn’t run off like I wanted to.
     I almost missed the devil-may-care Josh who made stupid jokes and was sober for about
     three hours a day. He was so much easier to deal with.
    For a minute we stayed there, looking at each other. The wind rustled the orchard
     trees and whispered secrets to us.
    “I’m fine, seriously.” I shrugged him off and headed toward the back gate. “I’ll wait
     out front, okay?”
    When I got to his truck, I leaned against it, drinking the night air in great, heaving
     gulps. My hands were shaking, and my lips tingled, and the skin around my wrist—the
     part that Josh had touched—the skin was singing.

 
    chapter six
    “What the hell?” I muttered as Josh pulled into my driveway.
    A rusted truck