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THE PROLOGUE
June 22nd, 2018 INTERSTATE EIGHTY HIGHWAY STATE OF NEVADA
'The number you are calling is not available at this time. Please try again.'
A man was hammering his palm into the glass with a rampant thud. A million miles away. The glass—scratched, dirty, scrawled with graffiti—numbing the rush and yelling that was moving in real time beyond it.
'Lady!' he's shouting at me. 'You're holding up the line!'
I fumble the skin of my palm for more coins, slotting them in shakily. They trickle down into the machine delicately. I punch the number in again.
'Hello!' he demands, flecks of spit foaming in the corner of his mouth. 'I said, you're holding up the line!'
The phone begins to ring. Those awful bleeps filling the sound of the stuffy box, laced between the skips of my heartbeat, jumping rope with short breaths. The ringing stops.
'Are you listenin' to me?! Stop hogging the phone!'
C'mon, Winnie.
'The number you are calling is not available at this time. Please try again.'
I slam the phone back down on the holder. The man on the other side of the glass swings the door open forcefully, the outside world rushing up the volume scale. Shouts became crisp. Running was thumping along shards of gravel. Car tyres were screeching, tearing free from the gas station parking lot and swerving onto the highway, a long trail of distant horns sounding away.
'You wanna hold up the line any longer there, sweetheart? When everyone's got phone calls to make? Huh?!'
'Hey!' I hear him call out to me.
I spin around to the sound of his voice. He's half running, half striding towards me; a mountain of stuff he'd just bought pooled in his arms. Eyes wide, black curls untucked at his ears and falling around the sides of his face.
