Chapter Fifteen

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Unedited. 

The song attached is the song playing in the background

--

She was waiting for me on the porch, sitting on the top step. When the rumble of the engine announced my arrival she smiled, and before making her way towards where I idled.

"Hello!" She pulled the passenger door open with a flourish and scrambled up into the seat.

"Hey." I grinned putting the truck in reverse and backing out onto the road.

The strap of her tank top slid off the curve of her shoulder, as she buckled herself in.

"Where are we going?"

"I just thought we'd drive for now." She laid her head against the head rest and sighed.

"Sounds good to me."

--

How cliche was it that we wound up in an empty field? My truck sat atop a hill, looking down into a green meadow. The chill in the air was distinctly frigid, more of a spring wind then a summer one.

She had my hoodie on, sitting on the hood of my truck, looking out into the night with a serenity to her face that I envied. Half her face was hidden by shadows, the other illuminated by the golden glow of the light  in the truck's cabin.

My fingers turned the knob on the radio, searching for a channel that would keep us entertained. When I finally found one with the help of Kaye shouting: "I love this song!" I made my way over to where she sat.

Leaning my back against the curve of the front bumper, I watched the small speckling of houses in the distance, their lights blinking on an off like the stars.

Her legs were unfolded, swinging against the curve of the hood next to me, casting shadows across the ground. A long moment of silence passed while the country twang of a song drifted on the breeze.

"Living here is like living in a dream."

My eyes slid from the valley up to her face. She continued to stare over the slopes of waving green grass with a sigh, her shoulders slumping visibly, tension disappearing into the whispers of a cool summer night.

"I've never been to the city." I admitted quietly.

"You're not missing anything." She wove pieces of her hair between her fingers.

"There are no moments like this. There's always sirens wailing, dogs barking... yelling, laughing, talking. Nothing is ever still. No one ever gets a chance to look at the stars."

Arms stretched behind her, she slumps back into the hood and tilts her face into a breeze.

"Out here you can breathe. Be still... hear yourself think...Be quiet. Sometimes I need to just be quiet."

I turned back towards the scenery and tried to see it through her eyes, tried to put myself in her place and imagine that I had always lived in congested streets and busy places.

"What do you see?" I felt her sit up again, shoulder brushing against mine.

"I..." I could hear crickets chirping, could hear the country twang that rung painfully melodic into the night. I heard the whisper of crying on the wind. I saw a mess of metal, flashing police lights splashing against asphalt-

"Mistakes."

"Mistakes?"

"Yeah..."

"What mistake do you see?"

A very long moment passed between us. This wasn't what this was supposed to be, I can't help but think. We were supposed to laugh and talk about stupid shit. We weren't supposed to trip down memory lane - I wasn't supposed to emotionally bleed out in front of her. But the wound had been reopened, the pain both crippling and comforting. How morbid of me.

I could feel her trying not to look at me, like I could feel the moments when she backed off when we sat out back at the store staring into nothingness together. But I ... wanted to answer.

"Do you see that tree?" I'm pointing and she's looking, and my heart suddenly starts to race.

"Yeah."

"My dad... When I was 14 he went out driving and hit that tree."

"Oh," she breathed the word, still staring out into the gathering darkness.

"He... was drunk." Having to say the words aloud made my skin itch. It burned. A deep burning in my gut that wouldn't go away.

"Cole?" I look up at her face. I realized I had stopped talking. She was frowning, watching me, something gentle lingering in her eyes.

"Why did you bring me here?"

I inhaled through my nose and exhaled the bullshit churning in my head, the bad memories threatening to overtake me. The answer, was simple.

"I don't know."

We watched each other, that tentative line we'd been hovering around thinning, straining. And then it snapped. She crossed it with a tremble in her limbs and a sadness in her eyes seeping down into the lines of her face. I realize her defences are crumbling, and with the destruction of hers, mine all but disappear. 

It is the strangest feeling in the world to be fully clothed and yet feel stark naked. As she rests her cheek against the curve of my shoulder and wraps her arm around my waste, I feel an astounding amount of conflict. There is this yawning, gaping hole inside of me that is starving for the warmth Kaye radiates, and yet I am so distinctly uncomfortable with it that I want to throw up. But my bones are lead and my stomach has sunk right to the ground, but I couldn't leave even if someone pulled me away. In this moment, it feels like I've entered into a vast something that I can't name. 

When she begins to talk I pull her closer, with an arm around her shoulders, into my side, anchoring myself to her so that I don't fall apart.

"When I was 12 I walked in on my mom cheating on my dad."

We're both trembling now; my hand gently rubs at the goosebumps sprouting on her arms.

"I was so confused. I didn't really understand what I was seeing, even though it was so blatant, it was graphic, that now I don't know how I couldn't have understood..."

I picture a little Kaye, with her big brown eyes staring into a room, something modern and LA-ish, watching her mother scramble to pull on her shirt and button her pants while a man struggles to puts his dick back in his pants.

"Cole?" I'm looking back down at her again. I'd never noticed how small she was. Her presence was always so big, so overwhelming that even though she barely reached the underside of my shoulders with the top of her head, I never usually saw her as small. But right then, tucked into my side, staring up at me, Kaye looked small. As small as I felt.

"Yeah?"

"I haven't forgiven my mom." The gloss that sat trembling over her eyes finally broke, tears leaking down her cheeks. My thumb chased them away, as I tucked her farther into my side, and looked away.

"I haven't forgiven my dad."

It was the first time I'd ever admitted that out loud.

--

Our night had turned quiet by the time we pulled into her grandfather's drive way. She took a deep breath and released it with a little laugh, before glancing at me.

"Thanks for inviting me out tonight."

"You're welcome."

"I'll see you at work."

She got out of the car, bounding up the porch steps, and smiling one more time at me before she let herself in.

I sat in the silence in the moments after she'd disappeared into the dark house, and just breathed. Something suspiciously like contentment writhered in my chest.

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