Page 32 of Here We Go Again
As she stands under the hot shower water in a hotel where they narrowly avoided getting shanked in the parking lot, all Rosemary can think about is Logan’s arm around her shoulder.
The way it settled there, stayed there, like her arm remembered their past so easily. Logan often draped her arm around Rosemary like that when they were young. Jokingly, whenever Rosemary said something funny. Protectively, whenever Jennifer Platt or the other mean girls teased her about her compulsive need to answer every question a teacher asked, correctly and first. Encouragingly, whenever she wanted to convince Rosemary to do something reckless. Lovingly, whenever it was just the two of them.
Rosemary thoroughly scrubs her arms and legs like she can scrub away those memories along with the feeling of Logan’s skin.
“Holy Dickensian antihero, what are you wearing?” Logan blurts when Rosemary steps out of the hotel bathroom.
She gestures to her pajamas. “This is a sleep dress, and I’ll defend it with my life.”
She’s always cold and hates having her legs restricted while she sleeps. Discovering that Land’s End makes long-sleeved flannel nightgowns was a godsend for her anxiety-induced insomnia. She owns this sleep dress in four colors.
“It hasfrills. You look like you’re about to be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
Logan is her Ghost of Middle School Crushes Past, and that is so much worse than anything Ebenezer had to deal with. She’s sprawled out on her hotel bed, scrolling through TikTok, based on the annoying bursts of sound that change every thirty seconds. She’s wearing a “Read Banned Books” T-shirt and a pair of TomboyX underwear and absolutely nothing else. Rosemary looks anywhere but at Logan’s long, naked legs. She pulls out her pink toiletries bag—pink for skin care—and begins her nighttime routine of lotions, moisturizers, and serums in front of the mirror.
There’s something calming about the regimen, about slipping into the same steps she performs every night in her own home. Change is difficult for her, but this routine anchors her to the familiar. It helps her forget that she’s here, in a strange hotel. That Joe is sleeping in the adjoining room with a baby monitor by his bed in case he needs anything in the night. That Logan will be sleeping in the adjacent bed.
She gets lost in her skin-care routine, then switches to her hair-care routine (purple bag). When her hair is dry enough, she twists it into a French braid and climbs into bed with her silk pillow. It’s after one in the morning, and even though every inch of her body is exhausted from the long day of driving, her brain is amped up. She pulls out a copy of a new Elizabeth Acevedo book she wants to teach next year, but then she remembers she got laid off, and she can’t seem to focus on the words.
From the other bed, Logan scoffs. “We get it. You’re smart. Now put away that boring-ass book and fall asleep watching TikTok like the rest of us. I won’t tell anyone.”
“You shouldn’t use screens in the hour before bed.” Rosemary drapes the book across her stomach. Her skin feels itchy beneath her sleep dress. “And those videos will destroy your attention span.”
“That inattentive ship has already sailed.”
Rosemary tries to read her book again, but after ten minutes, she realizes she’s been staring at the same page the whole time. She puts down the book and clicks off the light beside her bed. She fluffs her pillow and tries to get comfortable, but she’s too keenly aware of Logan, ten feet away, still on her phone. “For how much longer do you intend to watch those videos?”
“Christ on a cracker,” Logan huffs. “Dangle your prepositions, you robot.”
Logan plugs her phone into its charger and rolls over. The hotel room is dark except for the glow of red alarm clock numbers and parking lot lights filtering through the curtains.
“Hale?” Logan asks into the dark. Rosemary isn’t sure why, but she holds her breath. “Don’t pretend you’re asleep. I can hear your anxiety.”
She sighs. “What?”
Logan goes quiet again, and Rosemary counts her heartbeats while she waits. “You… you did a good job, choosing this hotel for the night.”
Rosemary waits for thebut, for the punch line, for the underhanded compliment, but it never comes.
“You did a good job planning this whole trip, okay? So go easy on yourself.”
Rosemary has no idea what to do with this unexpected kindness. “At least we didn’t get murdered,” she says back. For a moment tonight, Logan’s arm was around her shoulder, and it felt like they were on the same team again.
“Don’t count your murder eggs before they hatch,” Logan groans into her pillow. “I still fully plan to kill you in your sleep.”
Twin Falls, Idaho to Cheyenne, WyomingChapter Ten
ROSEMARY
Logan doesn’t murder Rosemary in her sleep, but she looks on the verge of homicide the next morning as they pack up the van for another day of driving.
“It’s so fucking early,” Logan moans. She’s wearing her sunglasses and holding a thermos of terrible hotel coffee, leaning against the van like a tortured teen.
“It’s seven. This is a perfectly reasonable time to get on the road.” Rosemary hugs the binder tightly against her chest. “It’s a nine-hour drive to Cheyenne, and I don’t want to get off schedule like we did yesterday.”
“Can we stop in Yellowstone?” Joe squints up at her in the early morning sun.
“No… Yellowstone is not on the way to Cheyenne. It’s in a completely different part of the state.”
