Page 56 of False Start
“Stay the night,” she says again, this time, her voice sure and full of dangerous promises.
I’m running out of oxygen.
“I-I don’t know if that’s a good id?—”
She doesn’t let me finish. “Is the alternative getting high?”
I don’t know how to lie to her when it’s this sudden. I have no script, no defense. I’m unprepared. Lying is a practiced skill. With my mother, I mastered it after learning the ways in which she could disarm me. With Cat?
It doesn’t just feel painful.
I don’twantto lie to her.
“Come with me.” She gets up from her crouched position and extends her hand.
“I don’t know that I wanna go back out there,” I admit, shaking my head.
“K’s probably already left. We aren’t going back to the party anyway,” she reassures me.
For Kade to have left me here is a swirling cluster of negative thoughts I’m not quite ready to process yet.
So I take her hand and stand, following her out of the bathroom. Harvey doesn’t bother putting a new shirt over her sports bra; she just grabs her keys off a side table and waves two fingers at the crowd of skaters in the room. Some are paying attention, some already too shit-faced to care, but most are doing their own thing.
“We’ll be back later,” Harvey says to the room, still dragging me behind by the hand.
And then I’m in her car, shrinking to the smallest size possible as she fumbles with her phone to choose the right song. She notices the way my shoulders are hunched in, how I hold myself tight for warmth, and without a word, she blasts the heat on maximum.
Every song that plays is a new part of Harvey I’m discovering. She’s eclectic, and her music taste is a kaleidoscope of her range. Six or seven songs pass, and I realize we’ve driven far enough that we’re no longer in Devil Town. “Where are we going?” I finally speak.
“Does it matter?” she asks without looking my way.
I guess not, so I don’t bother answering either.
It’s another thirty minutes before she slows down, pulling into a dirt clearing. I officially have no idea where we are, which is a shock, because I know this state like the back of my hand.
She doesn’t stop driving once we get to the dirt road. Instead, she swerves her monstrosity of an SUV into the grass itself and starts traversing the mountainside. I’m notsure how legal this is, but I know there’s not enough funding in our area to employ someone just to keep us shitheads out.
Reaching for the volume control, she finally turns the music down just as the car comes to a rolling stop. We’re still at a downward slope, but she seems confident the emergency break can handle the job.
“What are we doing?” I look at her until she finally turns and unbuckles her seatbelt.
“We’re keeping busy.” She smiles, hitting the button that slides her moonroof open.
The chill is unforgivable, but the view? The view is breathtaking.
Her seat slides all the way back, and with a singular look, she's beckoning me over. Biting my lip, I fumble with my seatbelt until she reaches over, and with a quick movement, she unclips me.
I practically fall into her arms, the seat somehow big enough for both of us, but with her arms around me and my body pressed to her chest, I’m hardly anything, just a fleeting feeling in her hold. I stare at her until I’ve memorized every freckle on her face, connecting them with imaginary lines until my own constellations form above her nose.
“You’re supposed to be looking at the stars,” she whispers without turning her head my way. She’s got one arm folded behind her head now, but the other stays holding me into her, keeping me close.
“I am.” It’s still her face I see.
She squeezes my side.
I feel frozen, not from the cold but like a moment in time, like I could carve this one out and find a special place to hang it in my mind. It feels like the whole universe is onour side, giving us the space to be. I want to touch her, but I can’t ruin this.
So, I just stare, and her hand once gripping at my side now softens, the tips of her fingers grazing up and down until the smallest hairs on my body have all come to stand. I’m impossibly aware of her touch, and if it’s not on purpose, then maybe something is wrong with me.
