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soldiers on the side of the road, leaning against the trucks smoking, eyes darting back and forth. Some of them look my age.
    â€œWhat are they there for?” I can’t help myself.
    â€œWater, rations, emergency care, it’s not clear,” Harlan says.
    If we get caught in it, out here in the open? My heart starts to misfire. There’s no way they can have enough supplies for everyone. Is it all for show? Like the government’s trying to do something or look good? What would my mom say? I start to call her and then stop. What difference will it make? Anyway, she’s busy. Too busy to talk to me now.
    Out of nowhere I think of my dad, wherever he is in the world. Is he watching TV now like the rest of the country probably is? Does he think about all of us and realize where we are? He has to know that we’re at the center of this. Does he feel guilty? Indifferent? Or is he in total denial? And what if he were here? What if I still had a dad? Would he be with me, or would he be out covering the story too, leaving me exactly where I am now, on my own to fend for myself?
    I hate myself for still thinking of him. He doesn’t even deserve that, but I can’t stop. I don’t deny I share his DNA. You can’t pretend that doesn’t exist. But the sad part is that, after all this time, I can’t get beyond the pain.
    I used to think it was my fault and him leaving was my punishment. I didn’t listen. I was always starting fights with Ethan, with him, even with my mom, because I always wanted my own way. If I behaved better and never fought, maybe my dad would have stayed. I asked Ethan once what he thought.
    â€œDo you think he left because of all the fights? Was it my fault?”
    â€œRight,” he said, looking at me like I was crazy. He took the book he was reading and threw it hard across the room. Then he walked out, slamming the door.
    All around us, people are getting out of their cars. They’re all feeling trapped too. We’re together in this, we’re all stuck on the highway, but really we’re all feeling more alone than ever. Everyone trying not to think about the real issues. Like whether we’ll survive. Whether we’ll have homes to go back to if we do. Whether life will ever be the same again.
    In the meantime, everyone is acting cool. People stand up and eat sandwiches, drain soda cans, change diapers on backseats, or do jobs to keep busy like pouring melted ice from their coolers, cleaning windshields, or shaking out floor mats, pretending they’re being productive and moving forward with their lives. But it’s all pretend, like I used to say when I was little.
    My world creeps to a halt. The universe is a giant still life with touches of indistinct movement around the perimeter. The earth has stopped rotating. I am an alien watching a movie about terrestrials trying to exit the planet in the face of a giant meteorite.
    Yes, I am going batshit crazy. The blistering heat is frying my brain.
    Harlan stops the car. I get out and talk to the guy in the next car because it means doing something rather than nothing. “Do you have any idea what the holdup is?”
    â€œI don’t know,” he says. “Maybe just too many people.” That doesn’t exactly help.
    I go up to the car in front of him. “Have you heard anything about what’s tying everything up?”
    â€œI heard that a tractor-trailer truck broke down a mile up,” he says. “But I doubt that’s the problem.” He shrugs. “Could just be volume.”
    So much for fact-finding. I get back inside.
    River groans. “Why are you bothering?”
    â€œThere has to be some reason for this. It doesn’t make sense.”
    â€œMake sense? What makes sense?”
    I reach for my diary.
    The world is divided into two kinds of people—those who are insecure and live twisted up in their fantasies, and everyone else. No doubt