dedicated to LoveMyWifi for the beautiful new cover!
six.
“Jasper?”
“Yeah, surprised? Isn’t it good to know that you’re not the only one who has the name of some motherfucking expensive green gemstone?”
The dusk has fallen into the steep of the horizon, slowly, dripping into the day. The digital clock on the dashboard reads a little after six o’clock, about an hour since their departure from the town, an hour since the girl – Jade – has been sleeping soundlessly on the passenger seat next to him. Her ignorance worries him,
Just the simple act of falling asleep amazes him in the most absurd way. He’s amazed at how quickly she falls asleep and there he is, needing to stare at the ceiling (or sometimes, the tapestry of the sky) for hours before his eyelids actually given up on staying open. He’s amazed at how a few years younger and vulnerable she looks when she sleeps, yet, the wrinkles on her forehead and the constant act of scratching the back of her neck or her throat or her chin, shows how tired she must’ve been – not just today, no, it seems like she’s been tired since – since forever.
He’s been stealing glances at her for every ten minutes now and he feels like Edward Cullen and he tries to stop doing that but her oblivious beauty made it so hard for him to do so. Because really, why look at the boring, vehicle-less road when there’s a pretty girl next to you?
He doesn’t find anything wrong with enjoying the company of something beautiful while it lasts; there isn’t much beauty left in his life, anyway.
They’ll arrive at Northampton in a few hours (or maybe tomorrow, because, well, as much as his insomnia kicks in, he needs a little rest) and there, after she solves whatever needs to be solved, she’ll take a bus or a taxi back to Maine and he’ll continue his still aimless wander.
“Jade,” he says, pulling in the hand break as they stop at a gas station, “hey, wake up. Hey!” he shouts at last. He hates to interrupt her sleep, but he isn’t sure when’s their next stop so he has to make use of the stops they have. She might just need a pee break.
Jade yawns the, her arms stretched up high, hitting the roof of the car. “Ow, shit,” she says, rubbing her knuckles. “Sorry,” she adds later.
“For what?”
“For that. Cursing.”
Jasper couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re apologizing for cursing? It’s not the first time you cursed in front of me.”
“Well, that’s different because – ah, whatever,” she yawns once more then takes in the view around them, blinking. “You’re refilling?”
“I suppose,” Jasper turns off the ignition and climbs out of the Impala to refills the gas. Jade goes out of the car, too.
“I’m going to the toilet to clean this up –” she gestures at her face like she has a splatter of spaghetti sauce all over it, “and then to the mart. Do you want anything?”
Jasper shakes his head and begins to refill the gas.
A few minutes later (after Jasper has refilled the gas and taken a piss), Jade comes back with a white plastic bag with the name of the gas station plastered at the front. She hands him a can of Red Bull and Mars bar. “I figured that you like Mars and you need the energy to drive, so, yeah.”
Jasper hates Red Bull. He doesn’t even need one to stay awake all night.
He accepts them anyway, placing the energy drink at the cup holder and unwrapping the chocolate bar. “Thanks,” he says.
Jade bought a mineral bottle and a tube of some butter-cookies with strawberry jam. When she nibbles on the cookie, small crumbs of it falls on her thigh. She brushes them off to the floor.
“Don’t mess my car up,” Jasper warns.
“I won’t, only if you promise not to litter the wrapper on the road.”
Jasper sighs. When she’s not looking (or at least when he thinks she’s not looking), he crumples the wrapper up and drops it in the bottle-holder at the door. Then he looks at her. She has her eyes closed and her lips curled.
✥
“Mmm-hmm. What do you have in here?” Jade asks, opening the compartment at the dashboard. There are a few albums of bands she never heard of. She picked up a case, her eyebrows crease at the strange cover art of the album. She slides it back in between stacks, careful not to mess the compartment up. Her hands then lands on something hard, cuboid sized, which is quite heavy when she pulled it out. A book. The front cover of the paperback book was curled up a bit, she has to press it down to read the title. Markus Zusak, it reads on the very top with red capital fonts, and at the bottom was the title, The Book Thief. Jade caresses the old cover of the book, her fingertips touched the outline of a skeleton in a heavy black cloak with a sclythe in one hand. Even without reading the synopsis, it doesn’t take a genius to know that the man is the ever so famous – Death. Its other hand holds a girl’s hand, her hair blonde and are tied into two low pigtails. The dress she wears overflows her small figure. Jade’s fingertips touched the drawn figure of the girl. She shudders.
Jasper looks at her with the corner of his eyes, judging her for rummaging through his belongings without his permission. But he’s too tired to pick up a fight with her.
Instead, he says, “My mom gave it to me on my fourteenth birthday,” pauses, eyes on the road, “I’ve been reading it a thousand times since.”
Jade’s eyes glimpses at him unconvincingly. She cracks open the first page of the yellowed-edges book. A page before the first chapter, under the title of the book:
“For Jasper, my heart always beats with you.
- Mom, 2008”
was crawled in cursive with a black gel pen that stood up against the old page.
“Is it a good book?” Jade asks and immediately felt like slapping her own cheek. Of course it’s a good book, she thinks, or else why did Jasper read it a thousand times.
“It is,” Jared answers monotonously, like he realizes that she knew the question was stupid.
“Your mom’s nice,” she says, because she felt the need to. Her Mom would never give her a present for her birthday, even in a million years. Minus the small buttercream cake she bought for her ninth birthday.
Jasper laughs and Jade hadn’t got the slightest second to admire his beautiful laugh, because right then, he says, “She died a year after giving me that book. Wasn’t so nice after all, huh?”
Jade blinks. “That sucks,” she says, placing the book back in the dashboard and closed the compartment.
She doesn’t regret for not telling him she’s sorry, because really, from experience, she knew Jasper wouldn’t want people to sending him condolences. Most men thought it’ll make them look weak.
Though they don’t say a word to each other for the next few hours, half an hour later Jade picked up the book again and scratches open the first page, the first chapter. The spine of the book is bent in million different lines, some pages are dog-eared and a stain of droplets of water formed between the pages. She wonders if it was his tears. Jasper tries to avoid looking at her wonderful features that quirks up in an interesting way when she reads. He throws a smile at the welcoming road that stretches far, far ahead.
