Free Ravaged by Ruthie Knox

CHAPTER ONE
    “Take the next exit,” Ashley said, gesturing toward the green interstate sign as they passed it by.
    MIDWAY. EXIT 2 MILES.
    “What for?” Roman asked.
    “We need to go to Hinesville.”
    “The sign doesn’t say Hinesville.”
    “Take it anyway.”
    He sounded suspicious, which was an improvement. At least he was speaking to her again.
    The not-speaking-to-her phase, which had lasted for a few hours, had been a matter of irreconcilable differences. Of course Roman turned out to be the kind of person who liked to get started on his road trips bright and early. He’d had his Escalade packed and the Airstream hooked up by six a.m., but Ashley had seen no point in rushing through breakfast. With Grandma gone, she didn’t know when she’d make it to visit her friends at the Georgia commune again. She wanted to dawdle a little.
    As if sensing this desire, the commune residents had made the most of the morning meal, lingering over their mimosas and breakfast casserole. Drink in hand, Kirk had climbed up on the porch railing and shared a rambling series of loosely connected thoughts about journeys and leave-taking, which naturally led others to make their own pronouncements—all while Roman sat inside his Cadillac and idled his way through a profligate amount of fuel.
    He was on his cell phone the whole time, talking or tapping at the screen. Telling his people that he was going to be away for a while, she imagined.
    When she clambered into the Cadillac around eight feeling cheerful and chatty, buzzed from a few too many mimosas, Roman had nothing to say but “Which way?”
    And then, several miles later, “Which way?” again.
    He’d sounded like one of those recorded assistance menus you got when you called for customer service. But Roman’s automated-menu voice was better than what she got after they hit the interstate, which was mile after mile of silence.
    An uncomfortably expansive amount of silence. The mimosa high quickly wore off, and then there was only I-95—a broad, flat swath of pavement cut through a carpet of dark green trees. The sky a hazy blue. The soothing sound of tires on blacktop, and her restless spirit, unsoothed.
    She wondered if he knew that the worst thing he could do to her was leave her alone with her thoughts.
    “What’s in Hinesville?” he asked.
    “Supplies.”
    “We have everything we need.”
    “Are you kidding? Not even close.” How many years had it been since she and Grandma took a trip in the Airstream? She would have been, what, seventeen that last summer? She had seven years’ worth of spring cleaning to do. “We have to get the trailer outfitted, which means cleaning supplies, pots and pans, bedrolls, food, toilet paper, a sun shelter, one of those red-and-white checked tablecloths for the picnic table, dish soap, clothesline and clothespins, maybe a bear box, matches—”
    “A bear box?”
    “If we camp in the Smokies. I mean, we can probably keep all the food and the toothpaste and whatnot in the trailer at night, but I figure if we want to go backpacking for a day or two, we might—”
    “We’re not going
backpacking
, Ashley. I don’t go
backpacking
. You said we were taking a trip. Driving. In the Cadillac. You said nothing about
backpacking
.”
    He pronounced the word a little differently each time, as though he couldn’t quite figure out how to make it sit in his mouth properly. For those few sentences, his voice perfectly matched his appearance—cultured and beautiful in his now-slightly-rumpled gray suit and the white dress shirt with a thick-and-thin red stripe he wore underneath.
    “A little backpacking won’t hurt you. Neither will some camping.”
    “I don’t camp,” he said flatly.
    “You do now. What did you think, we were going to stay at hotels? That defeats the whole point of having the trailer.”
    “I thought the point of the trailer was to be a boil on my ass.”
    “Well, that, too. But mostly it’s to sleep