The Art of Being a F*ck Up

39. Yours

Maddy lays on her horn as she swerves around the car in front of us, her foot almost pressed down all the way on the gas. She curses loudly at the other driver like he can hear her when he flips her off, while I hold onto the dash for dear life. I would say I owe her everything for doing this, but finally, after all that we've been through, we're just friends. And this is the kind of things friends do for each other. She didn't even debate it with me when I called her, in fact she hung up before I could finish telling her the whole story and showed up right after, ready to help me catch Jonah before he disappears. She's dedicated to making that happen now, as evidenced by how she blows through the next intersection without stopping.

"Jesus, Maddy! Slow down before you get us killed!" Nobody wants to get there faster than I do, honestly, but I'd like to be in one piece when we do.

"I know what I'm doing! Do you want to make it or not? Geesh, I thought maybe you'd be a little more thankful that I agreed to shlep your ass all the way across town," the sun glints off of her designer sunglasses when she shoots a glare my way. As soon as I start to protest she yanks the wheel dramatically until I hit my head on the window, and whether it's intentional or not, she shrugs, "it's fine, I do this all the time—we'll get there."

"If you say so," I grumble, looking down at my phone to see if anything's changed, if maybe Jonah or Lilah or anybody has decided to call me back. They haven't, which only hammers in what a huge help Maddy really is, so I bite my tongue and use up all that blind faith I've never been good at keeping on her and her driving abilities. "Thanks again for doing this, it means a lot."

"Oh stop, it's the most exciting thing to happen to me in months. Which is really sad come to think of it, but at least I can rub it in Devin's stupid face that I was here to help and he wasn't." Another of Maddy's talents—finding the silver lining in anything, no matter how bitter. After I don't laugh at her obviously hilarious retort she catches me looking at my phone again and rolls her eyes. "Make yourself useful and see if you can find a faster route."

"Just take a left up here, get on the freeway."

"What? The airport's in the complete opposite direction!"

"We're not going to the airport, we're going to the house."

"Why the hell are we going there? Don't you know how this is supposed to work? Seriously?" When she looks at me now, incredulous, it's for longer than a glance, and I'm more than a little nervous that she won't keep her eyes on the road.

"I mean, what else do you expect me to do? If he's already at the airport he'll be gone before we get there, and even if he's not what am I supposed to do then? Jump the fucking gate and make a break for it through customs? This isn't some goddamn Nicholas Sparks' movie, get real." It's a novel idea, and I'm desperate enough that I would probably even try it if it came to that, but this chance—this one, slim chance that they haven't even left the house yet—is the only one I have.

"I love Nicholas Sparks." Maddy says defensively.

"Of course you do. Now would you turn left here, please?" Even though I throw the please in there at the end to be polite, she still mutters about it under her breath as she turns. For the rest of the way there I mostly ignore her commentary, choosing easy one word replies while I unconsciously wring my hands and tap my feet on the floorboard. I've never been a particularly anxious person and I've been in plenty of situations like this before, but nothing has ever felt quite so dire—not even coming out. I don't have to wonder why that is, not when I know what's on the line.

My heart sinks when we pull into the driveway and I see that Jason's car isn't here, but hope refuses to die just yet when I also see that Lilah's still is. I tell Maddy to wait for me as I hop out, almost tripping when I get tangled up in the seatbelt in my rush to get to the door. I knock as calmly as I can my first try, but before I even give Lilah a reasonable chance to waddle to the door I ball my hand into a fist and pound on it frantically instead. She appears then, bewildered, softening only when she sees that it's me.