Roadside Crosses

false alarm. Feeling carefully—down his pants, behind—he realized nobody’d done anything to him—not that way. Though it made him all the more uneasy. Rape would’ve made some sense. But this . . . just being kidnapped, held here like in some kind of Stephen King story? What the hell was going on?
    Travis now sat up on the cheap folding bed that shook every time he moved. He looked around his prison once more, the filthy basement. The place stank of mold and oil. He surveyed the food and drink left for him: mostly chips and packaged crackers and Oscar Mayer snack boxes—ham or turkey. Red Bull and Vitamin Water and Coke to drink.
    A nightmare. Everything about his life this month was an unbearable nightmare.
    Starting with the graduation party at that house in the hills off Highway 1. He’d only gone because some of the girls said Caitlin was hoping he’d be there. No, she really, really is! So he’d hitched all the way down the highway, past Garrapata State Park.
    Then he walked inside, and to his horror he’d seen only the kewl people, none of the slackers or gamers. The Miley Cyrus crowd.
    And worse, Caitlin looked at him like she didn’t even recognize him. The girls who’d told him to come were giggling, along with their jock boyfriends. And everybody else was staring at him, wondering what the hell a geek like Travis Brigham was doing there.
    It was all a setup, just to make fun of him.
    Pure fucking hell.
    But he wouldn’t turn around and run. No way. He’d hung around, looked over the million CDs the family had, flipped through some channels, ate kick-ass food. Finally, sad and embarrassed, he’d decided, it was time to head back, wondering if he’d get a ride that time of night, near midnight. He’d seen Caitlin, wasted on tequila, pissed about Mike D’Angelo and Bri leaving together. She was fumbling for her keys and muttering about following the two of them and . . . well, she didn’t know what.
    Travis had thought: Be a hero. Take the keys, get her home safe. She won’t care you’re not a jock. She won’t care if your face is all red and bumpy.
    She’ll know who you are on the inside . . . she’ll love you.
    But Caitlin had jumped into the driver’s seat, her friends in the back. Being all, “Girlfriend, girlfriend . . .” Travis hadn’t let it go. He’d climbed right into the car beside her and tried to talk her out of driving.
    Hero . . .
    But Caitlin had sped off, plummeting down the driveway and onto Highway 1, ignoring his pleas to let him drive.
    “Like, please, Caitlin, pull over!”
    But she hadn’t even heard him.
    “Caitlin, come on! Please!”
    And then . . .
    The car flying off the road. The sound of metal on stone, the screams—Sounds louder than anything Travis had ever heard.
    And still I had to be the goddamn hero.
    “Caitlin, listen to me. Can you hear me? Tell them I was driving the car. I haven’t had anything to drink. I’ll tell them I lost control. It won’t be a big deal. If they think you were driving, you’ll go to jail.”
    “Trish, Van? . . . Why aren’t they saying anything?”
    “Do you hear me, Cait? Get into the passenger seat. Now! The cops’ll be here any minute. I was driving! You hear me?”
    “Oh, shit, shit, shit.”
    “Caitlin!”
    “Yes, yes. You were driving. . . . Oh, Travis. Thank you!”
    As she threw her arms around him, he felt a sensation like none other he’d ever experienced.
    She loves me, we’ll be together!
    But it didn’t last.
    Afterward, they’d talked some, they’d gone for coffee at Starbucks, lunch at Subway. But soon the times together grew awkward. Caitlin would fall silent and start looking away from him.
    Eventually she stopped returning his calls.
    Caitlin became even more distant than she’d been before his good deed.
    And then look what happened. Everybody on the Peninsula—no, everybody in the world —started hating him.
    H8 to break it to you but [the driver] is a total fr33k and a luser . . .
    But even then Travis couldn’t give up hope. The night Tammy Foster got attacked, Monday, he’d been thinking about Caitlin and couldn’t sleep, so he went to her house. To see if she was all right, though mostly thinking, in his fantasy, maybe she’d be hanging out in the backyard or on her front porch. She’d see him and say, “Oh, Travis, I’m sorry I’ve been so distant. I’m just getting over Trish and Van. But I do love you!”
    But the house had been