Greenline

17

Thursday, June 9th. 10:22 am.

I was more comfortable in that motel bed than I had ever felt on my own. I awoke with my arms encased around Isaac's midsection, my face warmed while I nuzzled against the back of his neck. He smelled of the mini ivory soaps that had been individually wrapped by the shower and I breathed it in deeply as it mingled with the tart, earthy notes that naturally wafted off of his skin. I've never been able to find anything that quantified the smell of Isaac Kingsley, even after years of absentminded attempts.

My panic threatened to poke its head up with every small shift that he made. The memory of his cold shoulder to my rejection the evening prior was fresh, and it taunted me. I was stressed for nothing, though. When he finally cracked open his eyes, his grasp fell on top of the hand I had resting against his stomach and he turned back to me with a gentle smile. It was impossible not to return it. The lazy "hi" he tossed over to my sleep-drunk self is a sound I will forever savor. 

I greeted him just the same until our dopey smiles bubbled over into sweet, soft chuckles. I held onto his thin frame and steeped in the comforting heat that his body offered against mine. The beat of his heart through his back and against my chest was like a spell that hushed all in my mind but the joy within this fragile peace we had created.

Perhaps it was how we woke up tangled together in the wake of our grand mistake that allowed us to remain flushed within our fantasy. I don't think I even dwelled on his condition or the people we had left behind as we bound out of bed with our next destination set.

Isaac had found a kitschy diner that went full throttle on the vintage desert chic of the seventies. Burnt red vinyl crackled while we sat amongst ugly dijon mustard walls that held so many frames and shelves of knick knacks that I genuinely pondered its structural integrity. I brushed crumbs of dark dust down onto the window sill that hid underneath the booth when the waitress wasn't looking and pinched the remnants off of the seat as she left us with menus. I didn't know what to make of the server's haste on this slow morning as she sped away, still bothered by our interaction with the motel manager last night.

Isaac's shoes clanked against mine underneath the table in that hollow way that pulled my eyes away from the rest of the establishment. The stained-glass granny light that hung above us had stolen his attention. He shifted back and forth in pure excitement as he tried his best to admire one antique at a time. It was an impossible expectation of himself in such a rich environment and his pupils were soon flinging up and down the walls as his feet tapped an absentminded dance around my ankles.

I admired him in much the same way. He was every small piece of historic scraps around us: polished cutlery, camping pamphlets, highway signs, flyers, postcards, photographs, and posters. A hundred and more beloved stories could be found within his lines. "What do you think you're gonna get?" I asked him while my fingers slid down the scratched plastic sheet that was our menu.

His eyes swept down to scan the options and a hum escaped him. It was always an adventure when he went over his choices for cuisine. I swore the direction of a draft indoors was enough to sway him into the perfect decision, and if his appetite stayed with him by the time it arrived, he would bear the widest smile and dig in. His lips spilled out his utterances of "pancakes, no - waffles. But the pancakes can come with bacon and eggs for no extra price..."

I enjoyed his process as his index finger curved against the page and he negotiated with himself. A laugh may have escaped me, which led to an annoyed glare that couldn't be maintained beneath his own amusement at our time spent together.

The bronze bell at the front door began to ring intermittently as a small crowd of regulars trickled in with kind calls back to the kitchen to take their time. Our server dropped our coffee off and Isaac ordered for both of us, insisting that we were going to share both dishes and enjoy our extra bacon reserve like royalty. The nerves that had risen from our initial interactions with our waitress began to subside as I realized she'd simply been preparing for her rush.

Relaxed against the ridged back of that tailored booth, I took advantage of Isaac's continued distractions in the collections and the cup of cream alongside his coffee. I hugged my phone close to the seat of the booth. As expected, there were missed calls and all-caps messages from my parents, but I was more focused on moving funds from my savings account without Isaac taking notice so we could continue our trip without my card declining. Hot plates were put down in front of us with a genuine "Here ya go, dears," and the wafting notes of the eggs, meat, and pastry left me to abandon my device as soon as my task was done.

We dug into our food as if that extra-thin-cut, over-baked, and stuck-in-a-giant-clump bacon was the most extravagant thing on the planet. I asked him what he wanted to do once we got our destination, which we were slowly closing in on. His gaze again became glued to the chaotic wall in one specific place. There was a photograph in the booth behind us shot with that dull-brown type of film, a decades-old image of the much unchanged lookouts of the Grand Canyon. A person smiled wide far out in the middle with a wide-brimmed hat and binoculars, where there wasn't yet a fence to break the view or keep hikers safely from its edge. The gravel of an unpaved parking lot mixed right into the sandy dust that had laid over the rim at that time, a scratch of penmanship denoting that a Jenny Lee C., aged 23 was the young woman in the frame, taken on May 3rd, 1933.

"I want a photo like that," Isaac announced. He seemed to get lost within the moment of that imagery, head tilting as he leaned his elbow back over the top of the booth.

I'd gone too far to deny him something so simple. "Then let's take it when we're there," I promised, addicted to the way he looked at me when I agreed to such a thing. Something caught the lamp light in his palm - his phone hadn't been in my sights for more than a few seconds outside of the map, or turned towards the passenger door so I couldn't read what he had been typing - only revealed to snap a digital copy of the photograph before he rushed it back to his pockets. My brows pinched and he noticed. I watched him lull in his bounce as he awaited the inevitable.

I wanted to ask if he had answered a single message from his parents, but I knew it was too hypocritical when I spent the same anxious energy on ignoring my own. I broke our awkward stare down to look over the table. We had nearly scraped all the food from our plates and our coffees were low. The waitress saved me from ruining our stupor as she showed up and asked if we were ready for the bill, a washcloth already in hand to swipe off the remnants of our meal. "Uh, yeah. Thank you!" I stuttered out as the thin paper fluttered out of her grip and a pen rolled against the table. I scratched out a thirty-percent tip underneath her and tugged my card out of my wallet for her to take back over to the register on the counter.

I fidgeted with my wallet awkwardly until she returned. Isaac watched me a lot, and though his glances were stuttered in between him drinking in the last decor he could memorize within the surroundings, I felt like I had been pinned back against a wall that I didn't think I was allowed to tear down.

My card was returned and we were told to have a nice day. We scurried out of the booth and back out into the sun, which had grown much more intense as the clock neared half-past-eleven. The sandy lot had been packed with old cars and work trucks that my bright green dented hood actually stood out amongst. As Isaac hopped behind me to return to the car, his voice returned with just as much anticipation as when we had begun our meal. "I think we can get there by tonight to camp if we stay out of traffic!"

I unlocked the car and watched him slink into my passenger side with the door swinging closed right behind his thin legs. He looked more at home than I ever felt in the first car I hadn't been fond of owning. I fell beside him and tried to keep my reasoning light with sarcasm. "We absolutely have all the right tools to camp in the middle of the wilderness right now," I exclaimed as I tilted my head over with a grin.

xMy confidence that he would let go of a single of his many whims vanished as his brows lifted with his shoulders. "There's a ton of superstores on the way for people to get supplies. Or there's cabins and trailers, but those are probably all booked already." He didn't catch a whiff of the irony that steamed up the car before I could get my A/C to kick on. His voice had gotten that drawl of determination to develop a plan that was always indifferent to my thoughts on the matter.

It was simpler to enjoy his passion than throw a wrench into its workings. "Maybe we'll see if they have a good deal on tents and water," I told him to placate him. I should have known that it would lead us right into whatever he wanted.