Free Are You Seeing Me? by Darren Groth Page A

hidden, but her slumped body and the tone of her voice tell me she is not enjoying the conversation. The fun we were sharing on our drive has disappeared.
    I knew something uncomfortable was coming—I should have been prepared. When we first stopped, I didn’t like the dark-colored, all-metal toilet building. It looked like a prison, or one of those observation huts where scientists watch nuclear explosions from a long distance away. I did a quick seismic reading on the ground beside the car.
    “Earth behaving?” asked Justine. She spoke over her shoulder as she walked between two parked Dodge Ram trucks toward the toilet.
    “I’m not sure,” I replied.
    She waved and opened the door to the block, which had a jammed lock and graffiti written on it. I did a second reading, this time placing the seismometer on the gravel at the edge of the paved parking lot. The result was no different from the first, but I felt incorrect , like I’d watched The Accidental Spy without any subtitles.
    And I still feel that way now, only worse. Justine leans back in her seat, changes the phone to her other ear. “Marc, I do know how you feel about it. I knew the week before we got on the plane! You made your feelings very clear and your concerns have been duly noted. It doesn’t change our plans…”
    I can see most of her face now—it’s red and glistening. The muscles in her cheek and jaw are tense.
    “You’re worried—I get it. You’re looking out for me and Pez, you don’t want me—us—to get hurt. That’s very nice, Marc, very noble. You’re being the good, dutiful boyfriend. You’re also being the interfering, frustrating boyfriend…”
    I don’t think she is going to cry. That is a relief. I don’t cope well when she cries.
    “Do that. Take some time to think it over…Yes, try to see it from my perspective. Please…That’s sweet…Okay, bye.”
    She presses the button to end the call and says four swearwords quickly, one after the other. She begins massaging her temples.
    “All we need right now is a bit of time and space—not a guardian angel hanging over our shoulders. Right?”
    “Right,” I say. I don’t really understand what Justine is asking, but I suspect that is the right answer.
    “A boyfriend. That’s all he needs to be, not a hero.”
    “Not a hero,” I repeat.
    We sit in silence. I count off the seconds in my head. Fifteen. Thirty. Forty-five. The roar of a truck braking on the highway upsets my count at fifty-two. Tires scream. I see the white-blue smoke, the long skid marks. I smell the burning rubber. There’s a crash—the guardrail. It’s no match for a forty-eight-ton semitrailer veering off the road, out of control. Nearing the edge of the cliff, the driver jumps out of the cab. He hits the dirt and rolls as the truck flies off the edge of the cliff, hanging in the air for a second before plunging down into the rocks and trees below. The giant sounds of destruction shrink and shrink and shrink until there is silence. Someone else witnessing the accident might think it’s over. It’s not over. I count backwards from three, then cover my ears. BOOM! The explosion comes through the ground, up through my feet. It shakes the mountains. It blackens the sky. It pulses in my head like a—
    “Boyfriend,” says Justine.
    I take my hands away from my ears, wipe my nose on my sleeve, sneak a look at my sister. She is staring ahead, through the windshield and out to where the road gets swallowed by the mountains. Whatever emotions she is feeling, I don’t immediately recognize them. Her face is somehow smaller, duller, like a camping lantern with the flame turned down. It doesn’t even really belong to Justine. I take a deep breath and ask an appropriate question. “Can I do something to help?”
    “Wanna drive?”
    “What?”
    “Kidding.” She blinks twice and lets her head flop forward. “Thanks for the offer, Pez. I’ll be okay.”
    She lifts her head and turns. She pulls the