Chapter 107

With Sugar Creek behind us, the road seems to open up, the sky stretches away like a blanket draped over the tops of the trees, clouds hover above as if eavesdropping on us. Too bad there’s nothing to overhear—even the radio is turned down low, I can barely hear it. I feel confined, claustrophobic despite the open fields that line the road. The trees keep back behind tall grasses, empty stretches of land, but I feel them closing the distance between us, I feel them nearing the road. I can’t fight this feeling of helplessness that clings to me. I just know that we won’t get far enough away from Sugar Creek to talk things out between us, up ahead the trees will form a barricade across the road, keeping us in, keeping us here, and we’ll never work things out. I’m scared we’ll never be as good as we were, we’ll never be more than we are at this exact moment in time, we’ll never be loveagain.

That thought terrifies me. We have to get out.