“Ready to go?” Mitta asked, pulling her blonde hair back into a ponytail.

“Yeah,” I said as I moved to get back in the car. “Where did you say we were headed now?”

“New York,” she said with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to go to New York.” I decided that wasn’t the best time to mention the 12 years I’d spent living in Brooklyn, so I just nodded and opened the driver’s door. My phone was still sitting on the seat where I’d tossed it last night. When I picked it up I hesitated to check it, but I needed to get it over with, so I tried to turn it on – dead. Again.

I plugged it up as I climbed in, and we left the rest stop parking lot, headed south. “So, Don’t Get Me Started?” she asked. I just groaned, not eager to display my failure yet again. “No no no – I have an idea. It’s just a hunch, but I think you might actually get behind this one.”

“How about you go first?” I asked as I reached a hand down to see if my phone would turn on yet. I pushed the button, and the only thing on the screen was the little picture telling me to plug it in. But it was plugged in. “Hey, can you make sure that’s all plugged in right?” I asked, gesturing to the cord. Maybe there was something loose somewhere.

She started fiddling with the wire, ending at the cigarette lighter. “Umm, Margarita? I think the thing’s fried.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, concerned. The charger? I could buy a new charger.

“Like, the cigarette lighter. It’s… black inside.”

“What?” How could that even happen?

“It was only halfway in the socket, and I guess that fried it. At least, everything’s plugged in and nothing’s happening, so…”

“Dios mío,” I said, mainly to myself. I was stuck. If I couldn’t charge my phone, I didn’t have any way to reach anyone outside this car. I couldn’t tell anyone where I was, and I couldn’t change my mind. It was done. I was officially stuck in this car, with Mitta-whose-real-name-was-apparently-Grace, until further notice.

She paused for a minute, letting me mourn the loss of my phone, and with it, everything from my past. Not everything, I realized as I glanced at the glovebox, though I wished it was. Good Lord did I wish it was everything.

“So… Don’t Get Me Started on religion. Go,” she said, apparently trying to distract me. She was looking at the cross hanging from my mirror.

I don’t know what it was, but something inside me switched. Maybe it was my phone dying and losing any chance of going back. Maybe it was just not wanting to fail again. Whatever it was, I let everything I’d pent up just spill out into the car.

“Religion? Okay. God is great, ya know? I’m all for God and Jesus, but the rules! Being a good person does not mean you follow every single tiny little rule that someone thought the Bible was laying down. It doesn’t mean that you have to apologize for every single one of them that you break to a man behind a curtain who you know is judging you. It doesn’t mean your mother has to scrutinize every single thing you do and tell you when you have to confess something. Dressing up for Halloween isn’t sacrilegious; eating too much isn’t a sin; sex shouldn’t be forbidden; same-sex marriage is perfectly valid. But you say any of those things and you’re done. Oops, sorry, you’re no longer a worthwhile human being because someone else thinks that God disagrees with that. Well who the Hell are they to say what God wants! They don’t know! That’s what the Bible is for, and-” I suddenly realized what I was saying. I could almost taste Mama’s soap in my mouth already. “Sorry.”

“Sorry? That’s how you do it! Now the real question – was that actually how you feel, or just a bunch of BS for the sake of the game?”

I thought about lying, trying to figure out what exactly had just happened. Where had all of that come from? “The first one.” It was quiet for a minute as she looked out the window. I could almost feel her thinking.

“You know what it sounds like? It sounds to me like you’ve never lived. Like actually lived. So that’s what we’re going to do – on our way to Mexico, we are going to make sure that you, Miss Margarita, live.” I almost laughed. Hadn’t that been almost exactly what I’d wanted to do when I left? “I’m going to make a second rule. Anything I suggest we do, you have to do it. That’s the only way to guarantee that you’ll actually try everything. Deal?”

I knew that the smart answer was no. It was like signing a blank check and handing it to someone I just met. Anything she suggested – what was she thinking of doing? And why did she care so much about what I did and didn’t do?

I was about to say no. I knew that was the smart decision, but somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice was screaming yes. It took me a second to figure out what the voice was. Was it some self-destructive part of my mind? Was it me just wanting to fight with myself? Indecisiveness at its finest?

It was me. Actual, real, me. That little voice was what I wanted to say. That was the voice I hardly ever listened to, but this was a new start.

“Deal.”