"San Clemente," I said. We lived in north Santa Monica.

"That could be tough on the old love train, Dani."

I punched him in the side and he chuckled.

"Is this serious?" The print was ready and he pulled it out, let it drift down in the water bath. He waited to transfer it to the next water bath along and then wash it under the tap. The whole process was slow and certain, a known ritual.

Finally I gave him my answer. "I think it might be, Dad."

He wiped his hands on his pants and pulled me into a hug. I rested my head against his chest, hearing his heart beating faster than I thought it should and I wondered if I'd upset him. But I couldn't be his little Dani forever.

He kissed the top of my new short hair and I hugged him back.

"Well, if he's who you want then I'm pleased for you. I take it he appreciates what a lucky man he is."

I giggled. "Of course he does. I tell him all the time."

"That's my girl."

"I love you, Dad."

He kissed my hair again, stroked my shoulders. "I know you do, Dani. And I love you more than anything in the world. You know that too, don't you?"

I nodded, unable to speak. Of course I did.

"Have you told your Mom yet?"

I shook my head and he felt my answer. His heart sounded loud and sure where my ear pressed against him, slowing now.

"You want me to be around when you tell her?"

"You can tell her if you want."

His chest hitched as he laughed. "No, Dani. You got to learn to handle the tough things in life as well."

Epilogue.

When the big semi hissed to a stop a thin blonde girl climbed down and dumped a guitar case and rucksack on the shoulder of the road. She turned back and waved at the trucker, an older guy near sixty with a grizzled white beard and long hair.

"Take care, Cherri," he shouted down over the noise of the idling engine.

"You too Bill."

With a final wave he put the semi into low and bounced off, each gear change rocking the cab. Cherri hunched down, using her rucksack as a seat. Evening was coming on and she was stuck out on the side of a god-forsaken road somewhere east of Dallas. The ride with Bill had been a good one, and he'd wanted nothing from her in payment. Made a change. Cherri'd gotten used to having to pay for her rides, one way or another.

Sitting on the edge of the road her stomach rumbled, the growl of hunger hurtling her back more than six months to when she sat peeling an apple on the side of another road, a long way from Nowhere, TX, a long way in time, longer it seemed than the number of days between then and now. The day she'd met Dani. The day that changed her life. She didn't really want to think about it, or about Dani, because thinking reminded her of the pain. Images of Dani in the hospital, her hair shaved and head wrapped in bandage, more bandage wrapped around her hands. Cherri'd sat beside Dani for eighteen hours straight, watching the girl she loved lie suspended in an induced coma while her wounds began to heal. Outside wounds, anyway. Cherri had no idea what kind of hurt was going on inside Dani's pretty head.

Cherri'd gotten up for coffee and when she walked back saw a man entering Dani's room, tall man with short-cropped brown hair going gray around the temples, strong face, strong walk, a man sure of himself and his place in the world but not a doctor.

Cherri stood outside the room looking in as the man sat on the chair she'd recently vacated. He reached across like he wanted to take Dani's hand then stopped when he saw the bandages. Shook his head and said, loud enough for his words to carry to the corridor, "Oh sweetheart, what have you done?"

Cherri put her coffee down on the windowsill and turned away, walked out of the hospital and out of Dani's life, meaning never to return. She'd hurt the girl she loved too much already. It was her fault Dani was lying in that hospital bed. If she hadn't been so goddamned horny she wouldn't have taken Brian to the barn and things wouldn't have escalated the way they did. She'd have been with Dani to help her and none of this would have happened and Sara would be alive, going to college, getting laid and having a wonderful time.

Sitting beside the road as daylight leaked away to the west Cherri shook her head and wiped a hand impatiently across her face. Fuck tears.

The sound of a truck got her to her feet and she put her thumb out. Maybe the lift'd need paying with a blowjob or only a handjob if she got lucky, but Cherri almost welcomed the fact, welcomed the humiliation as though it offered some kind of payment for the sins of last summer.

She'd told Dani she was going to be a singer. Some fucking chance. Drifting from town to town, getting a little work here, a little there, the occasional open mic night, but Cherri knew something was missing. She could sing and play guitar, sure, but she didn't have that thing people wanted to listen to, that hurt coming through her voice, that edge.

The truck drove past, for a brief moment its brights lighting up the short blonde girl dressed in ragged blue jeans and sweatshirt.

If only Greg hadn't done what he'd done.

Cherri'd rung Dani's number three times, each time hanging up fast before anyone replied. She wanted to hear Dani's voice again. Wanted to hold Dani in her arms, kiss those sweet, wonderful lips and bury her face in that thick lustrous hair. All gone. Cherri knew she didn't deserve happiness anymore.

Time passed, the west sucking all the light from the air.

A long way down the road another vehicle showed, formed into a rusted pickup truck with a blown muffler. The pickup slowed and came to a stop. Cherri hadn't even bothered putting her thumb out.

A thin black guy leaned over and rolled down the passenger window.

"You need a lift somewhere, honey?"

"Tryin' to get to New Orleans."

He chuckled deep in his throat. "Ain't we all."

Cherri didn't make any move, night cloaking her and the pickup, only the headlights carving away along the road.

"I'm going that way. You want a lift?"

"I guess."

"That a guitar or a machine gun you got there?"

"Machine gun."

"Throw it all in back. Make sure you pull the tarp over acause it looks like rain."

Cherri tossed her rucksack and the guitar case in back, lifted the olive tarp and drew it over her things, looked beneath and saw two other cases just like hers with that woman shape, another square case with Fender stamped on the side.

"You play too?" Cherri asked as she slid across the torn vinyl seat.

"I little." The black guy waggled the stick shift, working it past some grinding and started along the road.

Cherri watched him out the side of her eyes, good looking, older than she first thought. If he wanted paying for the ride maybe it wouldn't be so bad this time. Cherri wanted Dani so much but if she couldn't have her she didn't care too much who she had.

"I'm Buster." He twisted in his seat and reached over and Cherri shook his warm dry hand. Long fingers. "Ain't my real name, but it's the only one I answer too anymore."

"Cherri," Cherri said. "Ain't mine neither."

"We're a coupl'a ciphers. You any good with that thing in back?"

Cherri shook her head, relaxing, growing sleepy in the warmth of the cab. "Not so's you can tell. Not really. Guess I need to do a deal with the devil if I'm ever gonna make it."

Buster laughed that deep chuckle again. "I'll see if I can remember where I last saw him."

Cherri closed her eyes, said, "You one of the good guys, Buster?"

"Like to think so."

"If I go to sleep am I gonna wake up in one piece?"

"Why don't you just try it and see."

Also available at Smashwords by JT Harding.

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