Say something started in Daya's head again. Again she pushed it away, like she pushed all other songs away. Her car's radio was off, something she had never done in her entire life.
Instead of music, she rolled the windows down, letting in frigid air and the noise of Transcanada Highway. She wanted to do the entire drive from Calgary to Toronto in silence.
The longer she watched the fields of Alberta, then Saskatchewan, then Manitoba roll on to the gray horizon, the harder it became. Black soil showed in stripes where the prairie wind blew away the snow. The rotting stubble of harvested wheat peeked through. Coyotes dashed out of sight. Black crows took off barren aspens around frozen sloughs. Dreary did not start to describe it.
Last time she drove Transcanada on her journey West, she was preoccupied with paperwork and the logistics of her move and her quest for freedom. Rental place this, university transfer that, what Calgary was like, when should she call mom and dad...
This time she was going to Shanti's place, with her degree certificate tacked in her skating bag and a resume, though the VITAL's program director did not gasp, "Oh, no, don't you even think of leaving!" when she had asked her for a reference.
She already knew that the towns dotting Transcanada weren't rustic charmers with boutique shops and hotels. The staff in the motels sounded like they would greet her by name when she showed up, because there were so few customers in February.
Yet, she persevered in keeping herself from filling the boring trek with the music, and it wasn't just penance. She didn't want to substitute someone's songs for her own feelings.
Four days on the road had to be enough to cut through the brambles and understand what she felt.
The checklist of her failures bounced around the cold silence of Corolla's interior. And until she truly knew it, could tell it in her own words, instead of borrowing the sentences she snatched from others, she couldn't do better... or fail better, whatever the case might be.
Somewhere in Manitoba or Ontario, a day's drive away from Toronto, Daya stretched on the lumpy bed. She ignored the name of the place, but it had a ubiquitous CN rail service crew staying in and three sets of traffic lights.
The Wi-Fi lagged, and the room had an unpleasant smell of heated dust and something unwashed. Her body was stiff from driving, no matter how long she stretched every night. Instinctive revulsion she felt at the sight of the bathroom prevented her from taking a shower.
She scrolled through the videos of her old practices to select the ones Pavel can forward to Belousova. The uploads went after a few Internet hick-ups. He replied in the blink of an eye with the text made up of three emotes and an exclamation mark.
Daya propped her chin on her fist and sighed. If it were Mike, it would have taken a while to hear back and read like a novel.
Gods, she missed Mike... and his phone was in her cell's phone book.
But she couldn't do better yet and she wouldn't accept failure where it came to Mike and her.
***
The first thing Daya did after dragging her packed-up life into Shanti's house was to take a shower so hot, it nearly boiled her skin off.
Next, she slept into the late morning and hopped on the train to go downtown.
Pavel waited for her at the Waterfront. He looked picture perfect in faded jeans and a beige suede jacket. The faux fur almost matched the color of his hair ruffled by the breeze from Lake Ontario. A bunch of carnations he held in his hands livened up his pastel palette with an infusion of pink, purple and red.
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Winners Don't Have Bad Days (Watty 2020 Winner, Romance)
ChickLitWhen a total stranger knows what eats you, maybe they are your one true love. Even if you don't know it yet. || On Friday the 13th, two twenty-something, Daya and Mike, end up in a mutually beneficial arrangement: she is his caregiver after he break...
