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faces. He’s older than he should be, with sunken eyes and seeds of grey smattered among the buzzed hair on his chin.
    I shake my head and turn my gaze out the window, opting to stare into the moonlit darkness of the forest. My silent escape is shattered with the jangling of the keys and then a pop of a bottle top. I snap my attention back to him and shake my head in contempt. With one hand I roll down my window, and with the other, I rip the bottle of beer from his hand just as he’s about to take a sip. I launch the bottle out of the window, where it shatters against a tree stump.
    He bows his head and chuckles to himself before reaching into the brown bag between us and grabbing another bottle. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. The keys jangle as he maneuvers the bottle opener that’s attached to the keys to the bottle top, and pop.
    I throw the door open and jump out of the truck.
    “Where the hell are you going?”
    I slam the door shut. “I’m going to walk home.”
    “Don’t be stupid.” He leans across the seat of the cab and pushes the door open. “Get back in the truck.”
    “Nope.” I slam the door shut again. “I think I’ll pass.”
    “Stassi,” he scolds me and reaches for the handle of the door.
    I throw my weight against the door and hold it shut as he tries to push it open. “Go home, Coach.”
    “Fine,” he yells in defeat, his voice cracking. “You can sleep on the couch tonight.”
    “I’d rather sleep on the road,” I whisper to myself as I reach into the blue truck bed and retrieve a six-pack of beer. I pull one from the cardboard box and pop the cap off using the lining of the truck, leaving one hell of a scratch in the process. Oops. I step to the truck door, swing it open and toss the rest of the beer onto the passenger seat. “Try not to wreck into a tree.”
    He purses his lips and shakes his head at me. He wants to say something—perhaps scream something, but he’s holding it in. I wish he would just explode like I want to explode. I want to fight. I want to feel something. To feel something, I must fight. We must fight.
    Before I can shut the door, tires are kicking gravel into the air and against my jeans. I slam the door shut just as he begins to peel out, accelerating into the night.
    I take a quick glance down at the beer in my hand and decide I don’t need it. With all the force I can muster, I hurl the bottle of beer at his truck. It shatters against the tailgate. I was aiming for a window, but I’ll take what I can get.
    Brake lights paint the road in a foreboding light. The dirt, the gravel, and the trees—everything glows with red rage. I stand in the center of the road, my entire body basking in the soft light. I stand there waiting for him to jump out, to confront me.
    Just fucking do something.
    The moments tick by. Gravel crunches under my feet as I shift my weight from one foot to the other. Moments tick by. The exhaust from the truck sputters, polluting the road I stand on.
    He finally pulls away and I’m left unsatisfied, with nothing to drink and no particular motivation to walk to the house. Five miles out from home, I figure I’ve got plenty of time to think about going back. Best-case scenario involves an empty bottle of booze with Mr. Death Do Us Part passed out over the toilet by the time I walk in the front door.
    A girl can only dream.
    I push my cold hands into my jeans, curse myself for not grabbing my jacket before jumping out of the damn truck, and then begin the long walk home.
    Headlights flash behind me as a car rises over a tall hill. I step to the left side of the road so the car can pass by, but to my surprise, it comes to a slow crawl right beside me. Instinct tells me I should keep walking, and that I do. But the car continues it’s slow crawl with tires crunching against gravel.
    The window rolls down, and the driver—a familiar face—drapes his arm over the edge of the door. It’s the stranger from the football game driving in a seventies