The Road Home by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 32

With Eli and Aurora looking on, Jackson continued walking Maya back to the RV. While still being violently ill, she was also upset and trying to hold back a flood of tears. She was especially close to Nathan and sometimes called on him for advice. At one point, she began to develop feelings for him, but seeing that as a liability to her budding career, she managed to stave them off by distracting herself with schoolwork. Eventually, those emotions faded as her mind conquered what her heart was screaming for. Now, her sense of loss was likely stronger than the others, even though they had always been a tight-knit group—almost family.

After entering the RV, Maya grabbed a bottle of water and uncapping it washed down the acidic taste of grief. She sat on the couch off to the side trying to maintain her composure, but one can only be so strong and with the suddenness of an oncoming train, Maya’s pain flooded to the surface. Without the distraction of life’s busyness, her heart fractured into a million tears, and she was finally able to acknowledge her true feelings. “Oh, my fucking God!” she said. “I loved him so much.”

Her voice choked through a torrent of tears while the others tried to console her. But no words, however well-meaning, could cleanse a wound that would never heal, and up to this point no one knew the torch Maya carried for Nathan had burned with such fury. Still, it was a fire that would likely never be extinguished.

Exhausted, Maya strained to get to her feet. Caught up in their sorrow, Eli, Jackson, and Aurora watched as she slowly made her way to the back of the vehicle where she laid down on the queen-sized bed. In spite of it being rather firm, Maya noticed it provided some degree of comfort and quickly drifted off to sleep. She awoke a few hours later to find the RV in motion and off the bed walked up to the front to find Jackson at the wheel. He didn’t drive often. As a grad student, he was accustomed to carpooling or taking the bus to class, but having taken the driver’s seat, he seemed to feel quite comfortable navigating the roads. Except for Maya, Eli and Aurora had drifted off as well, leaving her and Jackson for a much-needed talk.

“So what’s next?” Jackson asked. This had been on Maya’s mind since they arrived at the cabin, and she was still at a loss for a plan. “Luke,” she began. “To be honest, I don’t have a fucking clue.”

She was a thinker and was always several steps ahead of whatever life threw at her, but the idea that Maya was now at a loss of what to do made Jackson more than nervous. He was terrified. Aurora was too fragile to think straight when out of her element, and Jackson always had his head deep within the microscopic world of nanoscience. Fighting for survival was something that he had never expected to do, and was still not able to wrap his mind around what had happened. A slight breeze of helplessness drifted through the RV with the knowledge that two of their group— their family—were now dead. For the most part, they would stick to their plan and follow route 90 not knowing what their journey held for them.