Dare crawled out of the bed of the truck and closed the tailgate with a solid thump that echoed in the pre-dawn street. He hadn't wanted an audience for this, while he packed what he owned in the old blue Chevy. He'd cleaned out his bank account yesterday, so he had traveling money. The rest of the food from the refrigerator he packed in a cooler and put in the cab, so he wouldn't have to stop for breakfast.
For a moment, he stared at the small pile of belongings under the camper shell. He'd sold everything that he could, gave away most of everything else, and packed the rest. Not a whole lot to show for twenty-seven years living in the same town.
Doubts didn't rush over him at the sight, like they had before. He didn't know where he was going, but he did know what he was doing. It was time to go.
*****
It wasn't a sudden bolt from the blue that told Dare it was time. It was the little things, like the whispers that still followed him two years later. The glances when he showed up for church on Sunday. Losing a chance at the foreman's job for the second time.
And then there was the embarrassment in his mother's eyes when her friends talked about their grandkids. His father's silent disappointment. The flare of pain in Amanda's eyes every time they bumped into each other in town. That hurt him the worst of all.
*****
He got in the truck and fired it up. The post office came first, so he could drop the three letters into the mailbox outside. He'd be two hundred miles away by the time the envelopes saw daylight again. One to his boss, although Dare figured the man would get the point when he didn't show up for a few days. One to his parents, because he really didn't want to leave with the memory of another argument if he told them in person. And one to Amanda, because he had to tell her why it all went to hell nine years ago, and he couldn't say it to her face.
*****
It didn't matter to anyone that he hadn't touched a drink in two years, or that he'd quit raising hell in the pool hall and started working two jobs. If he wasn't working, he was either helping out on his dad's farm or reading in the room he rented over the laundromat. At first he kept busy so he wouldn't think, and then he'd lie in bed all night staring at the ceiling. Some nights he thought about grabbing a shotgun and heading out into the woods one last time, but in the morning he'd remind himself that he'd hurt the people he loved enough already.
So he forced himself to bring it all out piece by piece. Dating Amanda through high school, getting married a week after graduation because that's what he was supposed to do. Fall in love with a woman, get married and start a family. That's how things were done around there, and he'd never known he had a choice.
He did love Mandy. She was his best friend, the one he could always count on when he was arguing with his dad. Why shouldn't he want to hold her, kiss her, make love to her until they couldn't breathe?
But he didn't.
*****
He'd left the key to the room in his landlord's mailbox, so he had time for one last drive around the sleeping town. Past the squat red brick high school, the empty storefront that had been Amanda's favorite clothes shop before the Walmart out on the interstate ran them out of business. Mona's Diner, just starting to open for the early risers. Main street, with its fifty-fifty blend of empty buildings and businesses that had been there since his dad was a baby. He'd bought his baseball cards and Matchbox cars in the dime store, had his hair cut at the barber's on the corner. Everything around him had made Dare who he was. When did home stop being here?
*****
It took him over a year sober to deal with his past -- the drinking, the gambling, the fighting. Anything to prove he was a man, anything to make it Amanda's fault that he couldn't get it up for her most of the time unless he was nearly too drunk to get it up at all. Slowly he came to terms with everything he'd done and all the people he'd let down, but he never really asked himself why.
The night he finally faced that last demon, he cried and screamed out denials until his voice was gone and the sheriff was banging on his door. By the time he'd convinced Jeff that he wasn't drunk or high, he'd gone numb from the shock.
*****
He pulled in front of the little cottage that Amanda had moved into after she left him. While he waited for the kitchen light to turn on, he rounded up the last of his courage. If anybody had a right to blow his head off, his ex-wife did.
The light over the sink finally came on. He could picture her standing there in that green robe, light brown hair still tangled and face still soft with sleep, waiting on the coffeemaker before she bothered waking up completely. It made him smile.
Closing the truck door as quietly as possible, he walked around back and knocked. He knew the door probably wasn't locked, but he'd lost the right to just walk in when he signed the papers.
"Dare?" Her eyes went wide with surprise, and he gave her a reassuring smile. Damn, she was beautiful.
"Hey, Mandy. Can I come in? I need to talk to you, sweetheart."
He expected her to hesitate, hell even refuse to let him inside. Instead she threw the door open wide and pulled him inside. "Is everyone all right?"
"Far as I know. Nothing's wrong, I just need to talk to you for a minute."
"Come on in, grab a cup." Her hand pushed at the unruly curls falling in her face. "Give me a minute to get presentable."
He stopped her with a gentle touch on her wrist. "You look wonderful, baby. Come and sit down." He found the cups right over the coffeepot and filled two, taking the time to fix Amanda's with two teaspoons of sugar. Sitting down across from her at the tiny kitchen table, he concentrated on drinking without scalding his tongue.
Originally he'd planned to just take off, without letting anyone know until he was long gone. But something inside wouldn't let him do that to Mandy. Before they hit puberty, they had been best friends. Despite the mess he'd made of their lives, he couldn't just disappear on her.
He kept his gaze on the coffee in the old pottery cup, until Mandy's hands surrounded one of his. "You're going, aren't you?"
The coffeecup and their hands blurred; he had to take a deep breath to keep it in. Just like Mandy, to know what he couldn't spit out, and say it for him. "Yeah. I've got a job picking apples at a place up north until November. After that, I don't know where I'll be."
Her hands tightened on his. "You won't be coming back."
He lifted both their hands, until he could press his lips to the back of her hand. "No, darlin'. People around here have long memories, and I gave 'em a lot to remember. They mean no harm, but they're never gonna let me change, no matter how long I stay sober and fly right."
Both hands gripped his as tears spilled down her face. "Then they're wrong, Dare. You're a good man and a hard worker. They ought to judge you by who you are now, not who you were before--"
"Aw, sweetheart..." He rubbed the tears from her cheek and watched more flow over his thumb. "This is the most important reason. I want you to be happy, and I keep hurting you. I want you to have a man to stand beside you, and a family, and a life. It'll be easier without me in the picture."
"And what about your life?" she whispered. "I don't want you spending it alone either, Dare."
He ducked her gaze for a moment and watched the coffee go cold. "That might be the way my life supposed to go," he said with a shrug. "But it's not waiting for me here anymore."
There wasn't much more to say. Amanda dried her face on her robe sleeve and stood up. "You'll need something to eat on the way. I've got some of that zucchini bread you like, and you might as well take some peaches before they spoil."
"Don't go emptying your refrigerator," Dare warned her with a shake of his head. Her mama had taught her well -- when in doubt, put on a spread. "I've got food, I'm not gonna starve." He stood and took the cups to the sink. Amanda turned to him, a loaf of Saran-wrapped bread in one hand and a pack of lunch meat in the other. He held out his arms.
One second she was biting her lip, the next she was holding him so hard, the food still clenched in the hands around his neck. She smelled like blueberries, and felt like Sundays in bed reading the comics. He pressed a kiss to her hair and whispered the words he had to say before he could go. "It was never you, Amanda. And it was never from lack of loving you."
He didn't let go until they both stopped shaking.
"You got everything you need?" he asked. He'd be proud of how steady his voice was, if his face wasn't so wet.
Amanda gave him her fiercest glare. "You just be sure you write me so I know you're alive. I'll be okay."
He trailed one finger down her cheek one last time. "Yeah. You're the strongest person I know, sweetheart. You're gonna be fine."
*****
Dare was a small-town boy who'd never traveled farther than southern Illinois his whole life. Suddenly he wasn't the person he'd thought he was for twenty-seven years. What the hell did he know about being a gay man? All he knew he'd learned from the insults thrown in locker rooms and a few movies with cross-dressers. The town library wasn't damn likely to have anything at all that would tell him what he was supposed to do now.
So he just kept doing the same thing that had held him together when his seven-year marriage shattered. He worked. He helped on the farm. He read, sometimes driving to Evansville and bringing back books stowed under the truck seat like contraband. Slowly it settled into him. He was James Darren Mitchell. He grew up in Shadewell, Illinois. He liked Dr. Pepper and pork roast with pineapple. And he was gay.
*****
He stopped at Chuck's Fina at the edge of town to fill up on gas and coffee. The sleepy-eyed woman behind the counter was the mother of a friend of his. By the time he made Eldorado, the gossip would be making the rounds.
No one was behind him when he pulled up to the stop sign, so he let the truck idle. He felt the burdens he'd carried for so long -- the blame, the grief and anger with himself that had kept him trapped in the past. He couldn't carry them with him where he was going. It was time to let them go.
He still had regrets, probably always would. But sitting there as the sun rose on the cornfields, Dare felt content with them for the first time. Maybe somewhere down the road, he'd even forgive himself.
Grabbing his sunglasses from the dash, he took a deep breath and headed north.