The Mendacity of Winnie Hart

Chapter Twenty-Four

I breathed in the fresh air as the wind whipped by me. Despite the night only getting colder, I rolled the window all the way down and leaned my chin against it so I could feel the breeze. I tilted my head to the side to glance at Noah, whose eyes were focused on the road in front of him. There was a slight concern when we got into his car that he shouldn't be driving since he had been drinking, but he didn't seem intoxicated at all. He must've only had a little.

The houses flying past me were ones I didn't recognize. The party was held in a neighborhood I didn't go to, the ones on a nicer side of town than I lived. These houses were the kind that had finished basements and green lawns and fencing. Even back in Utica, I hadn't had a house as nice as these ones.

It made me wonder where Noah lived. He'd been at my house quite a few times, but I knew nothing about his. Nothing about his family for that matter either. It finally struck me how little we actually knew about one another, and yet I didn't hesitate to let him take me somewhere tonight. Twice actually, if you count going to the party.

I looked at the little radio clock on his car. The red number flashed as the time changed to 11:32. It didn't feel like that much time had passed since I had left my house, but evidently it had. Realistically, there weren't many places we could go in this town that would still be open, even if it was a Saturday night. I couldn't help but wonder where he would be taking me.

"Where are we going?"

"Tallahassee."

I laughed before I could stop it. It wasn't funny, not really, but Noah didn't make jokes very often and the pure fact that he attempted one was funny in itself.

The corner of his mouth turned up at hearing me laugh and he shook his head. "Be patient," he continued. "I promise, it's nowhere exciting so don't get your hopes up."

Well, it wasn't like I was expecting him to take me to Disneyland.

"Nothing in this town is exciting," I commented, trying to push more of my head out the window while still staying strapped into the car.

"Yeah? Then why'd you move here?"

I paused, my mind already brewing with some kind of lie. The only problem was, I didn't know what to say. Rather, I had too much to say. Every single thing that I could possibly say were mixing around in my mind and overlapping with one another and I couldn't pick out a single line to use.

"I don't know," was the only phrase I could settle on. But I did know, and so did a lot of other people. Upon looking at Noah, he held a gaze that clearly wanted more of an answer than that. "Just because it isn't exciting here doesn't mean it's worse than where I came from."

Noah didn't respond immediately as he processed what I said. "What was so bad there that made you run?"

My cheeks were beginning to freeze and I'm sure my nose was red as a tomato, so I pulled myself back in the car and rolled up the window slowly. The lack of wind made everything in the car much more quiet, and somehow much more serious. I remembered that I was talking to an actual person, not just answering disembodied questions thrown at me. Noah was an actual person who could tell any other person anything I tell him.

"I didn't run. I just... left. There was nothing for me there."

"And there's something for you here?"

I thought about Wren. I thought about my mom and our strained relationship and it's irreversible damage. I thought about my school, and graduation, and my sad little house. And I thought about Noah.

Before I could give him an answer, I felt the car bump as it drove over gravel. I glanced at the darkness outside my window and saw us pulling up to a house, tethered to the road with a long, unpaved driveway.