Chapter Text
“Cancelled.”
Will’s voice is tinny and fuzzy around the edges on the speaker of my phone where it sits on my desk while I do my last minute packing. And by last minute, of course I mean that I am doing all of my packing that Jason has been begging me to do for the last week, in the 30 minutes before we leave to drive home to my father’s house for winter break.
I pause in rolling the t-shirt in my hands as Will’s word sinks in.
“Cancelled entirely?” I ask.
There’s a lot of background noise from the holiday rush in the airport around him and I move closer to the phone, straining to listen for Will’s response. “Yeah, the entire airport is closing, no flights comin’ in or out. Kayla is in line to ask if they are rescheduling us to tomorrow, but I reckin’ it’ll be at least an hour before she even makes it to talking to a person…”
Jason looks up from where he’s on his laptop and cocks his head in question at me. We rarely need words to communicate anymore, although for some inane reason that doesn’t stop him from talking most of the time. I mentally count the seats in his SUV. We’d be one short, but Kayla and Hazel are both small, it wouldn’t be that much of a squish… Dad might be angry with the lack of seatbelts, but that’s a problem for future me, so.
“Come home with us for the holiday, we’ll swing by the airport and pick you up,” I say, as if it’s decided and nothing at all, resuming folding my shirt and shoving it into a duffel bag.
Scanning the room for anything else I might need during the winter break, I unplug my phone charger and throw it on top of everything else before zipping the bag shut.
“Home with you?” Will asks. I pick up the phone and turn off speaker, pressing it against my ear with one hand and tugging shoes onto my feet with my other hand.
“Yeah. The weather is going to be worse tomorrow, there’s no way you’ll make it out. I don’t want you being stuck in an airport for the next week hoping to make it back just to end up spending Christmas here at school.”
“So. Go home with you. And meet your family.”
I roll my eyes even though Will can’t see it. Family. As if I have much of that left. As soon as I think it, I see Hazel’s brown eyes and feel a twinge of guilt. “Yes, Will. Unless you’re scared.”
“No! ‘m not scared. Let me just. Find Kayla. And, uhh- yeah. Alright.”
“Cool. We’ll will pick you up from arrivals in maybe, 20 minutes?”
The snow is falling steadily outside, but visibility is still passable as Jason and I throw our bags, along with Hazel and Thalia’s, in the back of his truck. It’s actually closer to half an hour before we pull up under the covered loading zone in arrivals at the airport. A lot of shuffling and frantic glances toward the bored police officers patrolling the area later sees Hazel and Jason in the front, with Kayla, Thalia, Will, and I crammed into the backseat.
As we queue into the line to leave the airport, Thalia keeps grabbing Kayla by the head and pulling her face down into her lap, below the windows and out of sight. I’m pretty sure it has more to do with the way Kayla’s face flushes red every time than any actual concern for us breaking the law with four in the backseat, but I very graciously decide not to point it out in front of Will, and instead resolve to tease Kayla about it later.
Since Will and I getting together, and Kayla and Thalia doing whatever it is that they are doing, it has been a back and forth of blackmail between the four of us taunting and teasing. The way that she watches me while Will is on the phone with their mother—his drawl thick, voice slow and heavy, rumbling in his chest where he’s wedged up against me—doesn’t bode well and I attempt to school my features to disinterested, but Kayla continues to smirk like she knows something.
“-I know, Ma, I’ll miss you too. Love y’all. Okay. We will. Bye.” Will ends the call and slumps down lower where he’s leaning against my chest.
Kayla throws one of her legs over his knee and pulls Thalia’s arm tighter over her shoulders. “Hazel, crank the tunes!”
Thalia and I are very quickly outnumbered when it comes to what is acceptable road trip music and both of us groan as the other four begin to belt out slightly off-key versions of crappy pop songs and less crappy but still cheesy Disney songs.
Normally I would be irritated about spending several hours in a car while road conditions quickly deteriorate, without even having the solace of music to zone out to, but the way that Will smiles and laughs just leaves me feeling content. I know that he’s upset about not being able to make it home—he talks about his family almost as often as he does about my poor choices—but he’s treating this like an adventure.
Time passes quickly and easily with the car full of warmth and laughter. Everything is fun and games in the car, until the car ahead of us begins to fishtail.
At first it’s just a slight wiggle in the tail lights, nothing uncommon if you hit a small patch of ice or a bump of snow. Then the rear end of the car swings too far, before whipping back the other direction in way that is surreal. Everyone stops singing and and it all happens in the blink of an eye, but it feels like slow motion as the car in front of them loses control. Jason tries to brake, but the snow is too thick and he just slides. Thinking fast, he changes lanes, just before the sedan goes nose first off the side of the road into a snowbank.
For several beats no one says anything, Jason’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel, until he seems to snap out of it. “Shit! Should we pull over?! Do we call someone?”
Half in my lap, Will twists around peering out the back window. “Other people have stopped and are going down to help them. I think they’re okay.” His voice is steady, and when he turns back around he’s his usual picture of calm composure. I can’t help but flash-back to all the times I woke up in the school infirmary to those brilliant blue eyes and serene face watching over me. It always made it much less frightening and disorienting, the initial wave of fear pushed back by his serene and steady gaze.
None of it requires an answer, but the air still feels heavy, as if everyone is waiting for someone else to say something.
“Well, if Will says they’re alright, you know they will be,” Jason says, but his voice shakes and his bravado is fake. Go the Distance is still playing in the background, echoing in the silence of the car.
My heart has almost returned to a normal tempo by the time we pull into the driveway. Will, on the other hand, squeezes my hand hard enough to hurt and his jaw is tight despite his smile while we all pile out of the car onto the shovelled driveway as the front door swings open.