“Yeah. Come in.” I scrubbed my hand down my face and sat up.

The door opened, and Meredith’s face was twisted in sympathy. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I scooted over wordlessly, settling my back against the headboard and folding my legs up to squeeze them against my chest.

Meredith crawled onto the bed and lay next to me. “You know that story about the big rig that gets jammed in the tunnel and only the kid can figure out how to get it loose?”

“Um, no. I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about my heartbreak here. If we’re going back to fifth grade physics, I’m out.” I sat up.

She picked up a throw pillow and tossed it at my head.

“Fine. Go on.” I settled back.

“So all these company executives and highway patrol come out, coz, you know, the damn rig has blocked the tunnel completely, like, really wedged in there. They organize a towing situation, but there’s just not enough strength to get it out. It doesn’t budge. They call the engineers, and the engineers talk about removing pieces of the tunnel ceiling. But that could cause a lot of structural damage and mean a lot of rebuilding. And at this point, the mayor of the local town is out scratching his head because this situation has blocked the road in and out of his town. People are upset.”

“Did you smoke something?”

“Shh. Someone says let’s get the blow torch in here and cut the roof of the truck off, and everyone thinks that’s a great idea. But then someone mentions sparks, and people worry the whole thing could explode. So of course, then it’s really getting out of hand because someone else is all ‘let’s blow up the mountain,’ you know?”

“Is there a point here?”

“Hush. So with all this going on there’s a bit of a traffic jam. And word is starting to travel down the lanes that there’s a truck wedged into the tunnel and no way to get it out. We all have to turn around and go home because they are going to blow up the mountain and we’ll be stuck in our town, cut off, isolated for years with no supplies until they can rebuild the tunnel.”

“Meredith,” I growled.

“Patience, grasshopper. So then this little kid—”

“Don’t tell me. Fifth grade?”