Always/Never

Chapter 14 / Stars or Satellites

For all intents and purposes, Accha, who had wings and likely flew more than any other method of transportation, should have been an awful driver, but she was probably the only person I trusted with the keys to my car.

Ugh. My car. I miss having a car. Being stranded on campus the first time around was a novelty, and not at all that bad, considering I didn't need to go anywhere else. Now I was stranded, and it was more akin to living on a desert island. I was perpetually retracing the same steps over and over, waiting for a car to answer my SOS and get me out of here.

Anyway, it wasn't that much of a surprise that Accha had gotten Jessamine's car, nor was it a surprise that she'd been given the key without fanfare. The hatchback was a soft, metallic crimson that reminded me of error red. Pine-scented air fresheners bobbed on the air vents and a plush pink alpaca waved from underneath the radio. Each cupholder lit up with the flush of neon flashes.

Accha had learned to drive, I recalled, older than most, by doing circles in the campus parking lot. She was like a pilot who needed a navigator to keep her on track, otherwise she got tunnel vision and missed crucial turn-offs. So, the radio buzzed about rugby finals, which had concluded weeks ago. In between, voices chattered about stocks and the weather, every twenty minutes of the hour.

Outside the passenger seat window, lush trees rolled past in droves broken only by the occasional burgundy of a gas station or the peppering of flat-roofed houses. The sky droned in static white, and the car swished through puddles of rain that scattered over the windows. Every so often, it stopped and started again, giving the weather update something new to remark upon.

My phone was in my lap. I didn't think directions were necessary for the beginning half of this journey, but Accha wanted to know when the highway exit was coming up, so the map stayed open, counting down the time until we arrived.

Her key chain bounced in circles.

"I've been meaning to ask... where is that from?" I pointed.

Accha's expression softened. "The one in my suit? It was the first thing I ever bought when I got here." She paused, as though to listen to the stocks again. Gold, silver, movie theatres, financial markets, the biggest companies in Havens: SOARS, Horizon, Empire Bookstores. "I don't know why I chose that, but when I got off the plane from Brazil, all I wanted was to find something that was truly mine. Something that would sort of cement that I was here. To think I was looking for belonging in souvenir stores."

"Almost sounds symbolic."

On the other side of the divided highway, lone cars shot past us. The last time I'd gone in that direction would have been when I'd first come to campus in a truck with the back windshield obscured by clothes I wouldn't wear and boxes I didn't need. It hadn't struck me before, but one day I'd gone on that road and never returned again. These roads didn't look the same while driving away from them.

"It probably was. The way you go searching for something you know you'll find, so that maybe it feels a bit like fate," Accha told me.

"Dalford is a good town for that. A very souvenir store town. Its only claim to fame is that it exists, and that is enough to plaster its name on a couple dozen t-shirts. I mean, I've got one, too."

She nodded. "I remember that one."

"It's part of a collection," I said. "I've got a shirt from every little town around this place, even my hometown."

"And Havens?"

I shrugged. The road below turned into a faster blur of gravel as Accha passed someone. "Think I stopped somewhere before then. Can't remember if it was because I realized I was buying them to have them, or because I'd gotten demotivated by the fact that my collection spanned places all in walking distance."