Jenna Holloway's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The Honda's engine wouldn't start. Jenna turned the key again and heard clicking sounds but nothing else. Her friends leaned over from the backseat, watching her try three more times. They were parked at the abandoned office building, two hours past midnight, with no other way home. One friend suggested calling someone, but none of them wanted to explain where they were or why. Jenna got out and popped the hood, shining her flashlight on the engine. Everything looked the same as always—she had no idea what to check for. They waited another hour, trying the ignition every few minutes until the battery died completely. Finally they walked to the main road and caught a ride from a trucker heading toward town. He dropped them off near the bowling alley and they split up from there. Jenna walked home alone as the sun started coming up, her boots dragging on the pavement. The summer had felt unstoppable until tonight. Now it just felt stuck. She made it to her bedroom before her mom woke up. Her phone sat on the nightstand—a dark blue Nokia with its screen glowing pale blue. Three missed calls from home. All from last night. Jenna dropped onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. The car was still sitting at the office building with a dead battery and a broken starter. Her friends were probably already asleep in their own beds, but she couldn't stop thinking about how they'd scattered at the bowling alley without a real plan. They hadn't called anyone. They hadn't fixed anything. They'd just given up and walked away. She rolled over and looked at the phone again. The summer was supposed to be theirs—every night, every place, every moment pushing forward. But right now it felt like they'd run straight into a wall they couldn't climb. She got up and walked to the window. The apartment complex spread out below, windows glowing yellow in the gray morning light. Some people were already awake, starting their days while hers was just ending. The Honda was miles away with no way to get it back. Her mom would ask questions soon. Her friends weren't answering their phones. Jenna pressed her forehead against the glass and watched the sun climb higher. All those nights—the quarry, the caves, the office building with GoldenEye running until dawn—they'd felt like proof they could do anything. But one broken starter had split them up without a fight. She stepped back from the window and sat on her bed. The notebook with all their locations was still in the car. The summer wasn't over, but right now it felt like it was slipping away faster than she could hold on. She pulled open her desk drawer and found the old spiral notebook underneath a stack of magazines. The pages were covered in her handwriting—poems she'd written two summers ago, back when she thought words mattered more than actions. She flipped through them now and they looked small, like something a different person had written. The doodles in the margins were faded, the ink smudged from being carried around in her backpack. She closed it and shoved it back in the drawer. That version of summer—sitting alone and writing about things she wanted—felt further away than the Honda did right now. At least then she'd been moving toward something. Now she was just watching it break apart, one piece at a time, with nothing to show for any of it.