Chevelle's Story

chapter 2

"C'mon, let me drive you back to the diner, Chevelle. It's cold as shit outside."

"Look, I'd say yes, but I don't want to have to explain to my dad who you are. I mean, I don't even really know that myself."

"Ouch."

Chevelle laughed. "Sorry! It's true though, we did just meet. Also, you're crossed, so I'm not that sure I want to get behind your wheel. Risk your life, not mine, you know?"

With a reluctant sigh, Abel conceded. "Okay, fair," he agreed. "If that's what you want, then sure."

"It is," Chevelle said. "But this was fun. I probably won't ever follow another stranger to their car again, but I don't regret doing it this once."

"And we should do it again."

Chevelle chuckled, opening the car door, and shooting Abel a smile that told him his attempt hadn't gone over her head. She stepped out of the car and back into the snowy night, leaving with one last, "Merry Christmas, Abel."

↠ • ↞

Even though this was his first time seeing it and they both knew he was thinking about it the entire ride home, Chevelle's father didn't mention her haircut once.

He greeted her, looked up at her buzz-cut head, lingered, and then opened the car door for her silently. This was better than him lecturing her about it or making any half-handed comments, but still, Chevelle didn't like the silence. It always meant that something more was brewing, and she had been hoping to get through the next four days with minimal drama. She wanted to sleep through tomorrow morning, get lightly buzzed before the midnight mass her parents were determined to drag them to, and then stay drunk and hidden in her room until she left on the 27th.

And yes, Chevelle knew she was making a statement by leaving the day before her birthday, but it was honestly for the best. Her parents hadn't fought her on it when she told them because even they knew it would be better for everyone if Chevelle spent her birthday away from home.

"Did you leave your car unlocked?" Chevelle's father finally asked as he pulled into their driveway.

"No, Papa. Of course I didn't," she muttered. "Why would I do that? Mwen pa sòt."

He clenched his jaw. "You don't have to be stupid to make a mistake," he said.

Chevelle sighed, disarming just a little. She didn't like the way he'd asked the question like an accusation. As though he'd been thinking about it for a while and slowly convincing himself that she did, in fact, leave her car unlocked. And how would that have helped someone steal the car battery anyway?

"Okay, well I didn't," Chevelle assured her father. "Thanks for coming to get me."

Her father acknowledged her thanks with a nod, and then he turned off the car and the darkness of the Christmastime night finally settled.

Their house wasn't as lit up and festive as some of the others around it, and it became painfully visible at night. The Etiennes enjoyed celebrating Christmas, but just in less flashy of a way than most Americans were used to.

Chevelle looked at her father and marveled at how silver his hair had become—and in less than a year. It was obviously from stress, that much was a given, but Chevelle liked to believe that the silver was also a way for all the secrets in her father's head to find an outlet. He had become a person who left so much unsaid nowadays, and so she figured that creeping through the black coils on his head and finding a home there was the secrets' way of showing her father that they were not dead. That even his silence could not kill them.