Page 59 of Here We Go Again
Hale puts a hand on his shoulder. Her nail polish perfectly matches her dress. And her pale lips. And the soft pink of her cheeks.
“Okay, Joe.” Hale squeezes his shoulder. “But do you think we could make one last detour before Maine?”
He opens his mouth to protest, but Hale cuts in.
“Come on, Joe. Trust me.”
Breaking Badlied to her.
Albuquerque, New Mexico, isn’t a shithole. She thinks it’s evenprettier than Santa Fe. It has a quaint Spanish-influenced Old Town and beautiful tree-lined streets and staggering mountains every direction she looks. Logan is happy they get to see one more wonderful place before they spend the next several days driving on gray freeways.
Even though Albuquerque is technically west of Santa Fe, Hale convinces Joe to make a stop at something called Petroglyph National Monument using her favorite weapon, other than condescending tongue clicks: logic.
“It only adds an hour to our drive-time, and there’s a great spot for us to get breakfast after. It’s part of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, and they have authentic Pueblo dishes.”
Joe can never resist good food, and he seems more willing to go along with the plan since it’s Hale who’s making it. Hale drives them to the Petroglyph Visitor’s Center located in the suburbs just outside the main part of the city. It’s not even nine yet, but they’re hoping to beat the heat. Logan catches bits of Hale’s impromptu lecture on the subject—one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America, hundreds of years old, of spiritual significance to the Indigenous people of the region. But mostly, Logan stares at Hale’s mouth without hearing the words and wonders how Hale can act like the almost-kiss never happened.
But—Logan reminds herself—that’s exactly what Hale did with their first kiss.
“I can take Odie for a walk to use the bathroom if you two want to go inside to get a trail map,” Hale suggests, and before Logan can agree, she’s bounding off with the dog and leaving Logan to get Joe out of the car.
He insists on wheeling himself up the paved path, even though he’s already breathless and sweaty. “So?” he huffs, taking a break ten seconds into the journey. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on with you and Rosemary this morning?”
“Do you want to tell me what went on between you and Remy St. Patin forty years ago?”
Joe narrows his eyes like he’s cutting through her bullshit with a single gaze.
“Do… I mean… do things seem weird this morning? Between us?”
“I’ve never seen Rosemary volunteer to be on Odie poop duty before….”
Logan kicks the toe of her Vans against a crack in the concrete. “I almost kissed Hale last night.”
“Hot diggity dog!” Joe blurts with more enthusiasm than she thought he was capable of this morning. He holds up his hand like she’s going to high-five him over it.
“No, not hot diggity dog. The dog is very tepid. Hale dodged the kiss.”
Joe huffs, then continues his way up the path. “But you wanted to kiss her?”
“I don’t know! It’s all very confusing! Because I hate her, right? Except I also don’t? And also, she’s gay now, or was always gay, and she puked and wore sneakers and put a reminder in my phone, and now I feel like I’m back in middle school, desperate to find any excuse to touch her, analyzing every lingering glance, every word,” she blathers on uselessly.
Megan fucking Rapinoe, being in love with her middle school best friend had been utter hell. She hadn’t known it back then, obviously. They lived in a small town, and she had no framework to understand her confusing feelings for Rosemary. But then she kissed her during a game of Spin the Bottle, and all she could think about after was kissing her again.
And then Rosemary had kissed Jake McCandie right after their kiss in the garden, and the three years of confusing feelings suddenly made sense. She’d had a huge, fat crush on Rosemary.
Joe pauses on the path again. They’ve only made it halfway to the visitor’s center. “Would it really have been such a terrible thing if youhadkissed Rosemary?”
“Yes, because I will end up hurting her, or she will end up hurting me. Either way, kissing Rosemary ends in hurt.”
Joe adjusts his wheelchair so he’s facing out at the desert. The path is lined with indigenous plants and their adjoining plaques. He gestures to the closest one. “Did you know the prickly pear is my favorite plant? For parts of the year, it looks like any other cactus, but when it blooms—”
“I’m going to stop you right there. If this is the beginning of some metaphor that compares my sexuality to a blooming cactus, I will punch you in the tit.”
Joe ignores her threat. “This one—theOputina ployacantha—has sharp glochid, and if you get too close, it will poke you something fierce.”
“Glochidis maybe the grossest word I’ve ever heard.”
“But then the flowers appear after the summer rains”—he flourishes his hand toward the pink flowers—“and they transform into something achingly beautiful. And the flowers even taste sweet. Painful and lovely at the same time.”
