“We’re good,” he said to Joan as if answering a question I didn’t hear her ask.

“Fine,” Joan said. “See you.”

The guy left with barely a backward glance toward me and Joan took a long drag on her cigarette like nothing was the matter.

Fine. We all had to pretend something, didn’t we? Out here in this shitty trailer park. We all had to pretend something so we didn’t look too hard at what a mess our lives were. We were all excellent editors of our own selves.

“I’m going to town,” I told her. “You need anything?”

“You’re not working?”

“It’s fucking Saturday, Joan. I’m taking a day.”

Joan held up her hands like I had a gun but she was still grinning at me. “I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t need a thing.”

I barely nodded at her and I walked over to Ben’s trailer and pounded on the shitty screen door.

It took a few minutes but Ben showed up. He looked better than he did yesterday, largely because he’d changed his shirt. He wore one of his unwrinkled tee shirts today and he’d showered.

“You look better.”

“I feel better.”

I remembered all the reasons why I was supposed to stay away from him. The warnings. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything. My entire life I’d spent caring…soaking up every mood, decoding every silence. So attuned to everyone else around me that I’d practically evaporated.

And I was done with that.

“You need anything?”

He shook his head and I nodded, swallowing back my need to be sure he was all right, to take on his illness like it was my own despite all the shit I thought I knew about him.

“Okay, see you.” I lifted my hand in a wave and jumped down off the small step, but then I turned back around.

“Ben,” I said. “Have you seen a doctor?”

The screen was a shadow over his face. “Yeah. Lots of them,” he said and closed the solid door.

Right, I thought. Not my business.

I got in my car and drove off to town with the windows down, my hair blown back by the wind.

I drove past The Velvet Touch and considered that I didn’t need Dylan. I didn’t need him at all. I had done all that stuff myself. I’d walked into that place on my own. Ordered that piña colada, watched Renee and that guy. Me. All by myself.

Those were my own hands on my body. Every goddamn time.

But you would never have done that if he didn’t ask you, a little voice whispered. Never have considered it if you’d never answered that phone call. You would have stayed locked up in that trailer, waiting for something that was never going to come.

“Shut up,” I muttered to the little voice and turned the radio up louder.

In the grocery store I bought stuff I usually never bought, Pop-Tarts and a bag of chips.

I still had Dylan’s money burning a hole in my pocket. Forty bucks could buy a whole bunch of stuff.

Oranges. The expensive ones.

A can of olives. I loved olives. I was going to eat olives for dinner.

I stopped in the wine aisle, looking for a bucket-o-something, but couldn’t find any. So I grabbed the largest amount of white wine for the cheapest price. It came in a box.

It was box-o-wine night at my trailer.

At the library I checked the Oklahoma papers. Nothing about me.

Though there was a front-page story about more windmills going up in the western part of the state. That’s where we were. Hoyt must love that.

And then I sat there and tried to be better than my instincts. Tried not to fall into some trap of girlish, woman-scorned curiosity. It was over. And I’d come to a good place in my head about this last night. Finding out about Dylan wouldn’t change anything.

Other girls do this—not you.

And somehow that was the argument that put me over the edge. And he wasn’t just Dylan anymore. He was Dylan Daniels and he’d dumped me.

I opened the search page and typed in his full name.

There were a lot of Dylan Danielses in the world. A Realtor in Las Vegas. A teacher in Maine. A ten-year-old spelling bee champion in Florida.

There was also a Dylan Daniels who had something to do with stock car racing.

I scanned through the links:

Car Explodes in NASCAR Nationwide Series Qualifier.

Driver Suffers Third-Degree Burns, In Critical Condition.

Vigil continues for NASCAR driver Dylan Daniels.

After that—nothing. No news. No mention after August 16, 2011. Not a word after the crash.

I scrolled back up and clicked on the first link.

Beneath the headline about the crash was a picture of a man. Close-cut hair, intense dark eyes. A square chin. But his lips…they made my breath catch in my throat.

Those lips were like…I didn’t even know. They were beautiful lips. On such a harshly masculine face those lips were like a wink from God or something.

The caption under the picture said: Dylan Daniels before the accident.

That was Dylan? My Dylan.

I leaned in closer to the screen, as if I could see him better. If I could reach through that screen, I would.

He was beautiful. Intense. Those eyes…those lips. The combination was nearly painful. Divine and wicked all at once.

I skipped ahead to the article.

The world of stock car racing was totally foreign to me and my brain was buzzing, but I understood that in a second-tier series NASCAR race four years ago, Dylan lost control of his car and crashed. He’d been burned in the fire. Badly.

I sat back and gasped for air. I’d been holding my breath. There was a photo of a car in the green area at the center of the track engulfed in flames. A crew in the corner, rushing toward the fire.

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

I clicked through and there were dozens more of those photos, the fire from every angle. Crews spraying down the fire, a body being removed from the window.

Dylan. That’s Dylan’s body.

There were tons of pictures of Dylan before the fire, of that man with the lips and the intense dark eyes and that chin that looked as if it had been carved out of granite. A thick, powerful body. He was often with a tall and willowy brunette, with a giant rack, their arms around each other.

I stared at those pictures, burning them into my brain because I was if nothing else a glutton for punishment.

What did you think was going to happen? I wondered. That by pretending to be someone else you would actually be someone else? You’re still you.

And what I had always been was unwanted.

“Excuse me, miss?”

Pulled from this strange horror show, I looked up to see the librarian behind the desk looking at me.

“Your time is up.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You signed up for a half hour. It’s up. If you’d like more time you need to sign up again.”

The library was nearly empty. There was no one standing behind me, itching to use the computer.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“We need to prove that the—”

“Computers are an asset. I know.” Truthfully, I needed to get going. I had a backseat full of groceries. And I’d found out what I’d come to find out. Dylan Daniels had been a handsome, playboy race-car driver.

But after the fire? Nothing.

Not a single image. Not a single word.

It was as if he vanished.

“I’m going.”

On my way out, I bought three more books from the book sale.

“Hey!” a voice said as I was leaving, and I turned around and saw a smiling blond guy walking in the door as I was walking out.

“Hi,” I said, stepping back.

I had, over the years living in the same place surrounded by people who were not stupid—who probably, if they didn’t know specifically, had a very good idea of what my life was like with my mom, and probably with Hoyt—learned how to keep this small sea of distance around me. By keeping my face calm, my eyes distant, by giving no one any reason to think that I cared about their concern, I could usually keep the questions at bay.