“You’re leaving so what do you care?!” The words like a whip, lashing out into the night. He threw himself into the Jeep, rain still coming down in buckets. I ran to get in, still trying to convince him.

“Zander. You can’t drive. Okay? This is a really bad idea.”

“What do you expect you’re gonna find there?” He blurts it out.

This stopped me. “What? What do you—”

“What’s so great there, Daffy? What’s gonna be so great? What’s gonna be better than this?” He looks up at me, his ocean eyes and his T-shirt so wet it’s stuck to his shoulders. “Better than us. Better than you and me? Do you think you’re gonna find that just everywhere?”

I hadn’t really thought of it like that.

“Zander, what are you? I can’t just stay in this place.”

“This place? What’s so wrong with it, Daffy? What’s so fucking terrible about it? Cause if you ask me, it’s pretty good.” Then, in a whisper. “The first time I saw you it got good.”

The rain still pouring down, ceaseless.

“Right there by the Zipper.” He smiles.

“Wait. So you did see me then! I always thought you did but I thought I was crazy. I thought there was no way you did.” I couldn’t believe it. I never thought he saw me that night.

“Are you kidding? I asked every person I could find who that was. Who you were.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I fucking did. I, like, made a fool of myself. Asking everybody. Who is that slightly albino-looking girl.”

“Shut up!”

He laughs. “No, I mean it. I did. And nobody knew. It was so frustrating. I even told my mom about it.”

Gasp. “No way.”

“Yes way.”

“And then that day when I saw you in class, in the doorway of Mr. Eckdahl’s class, I freaked out. I couldn’t believe it. Cause I found you. It was like the universe brought you back to me. Like it was meant to be . . .” He started shaking his head, upset again.

“Zander—”

“And now you want to leave. You just think that this is, like, normal. Like this comes around every day. And it doesn’t. I’m telling you, Daffy. It just doesn’t.”

“I can’t stay here, Zander. It’s just—I have a whole life I want to turn into something. I just don’t—”

“Just get out.”

“That’s not fair. What are you—”

“I said get out! Get out and get away from me! You want it over, fine! Make it over!”

“I’m not getting out. You shouldn’t drive. You can’t drive, Zander.”

But then he wasn’t even looking at me. Just staring ahead, seething.

And that is when he gunned the engine, hurling us down the dirt road, heading back into town. The roads were muddy then, the wheels of the Jeep spinning this way and that in the mud.

I remember suddenly wishing I had just jumped out. What was I thinking? And then the lightning again, in the distance. The thunder not too far behind. This terrible idea became more terrible by the second.