by Elia Winters
With practically the entire contents of her closet spread out on her bed, she flopped down on top of them with a sigh. She had brought the scrapbook into the bedroom with her, and she pulled it closer across a swath of T-shirts to flip through the pages. Scarlett hadn’t judged her out loud, but knowing Scarlett, all the judging was happening silently. She turned to later pages in the book, the ones she didn’t share with anyone, the embarrassing ones, and then pushed up into a sitting position to look at them better. They weren’t even that embarrassing. They were just photos she’d found in magazines of couples doing couple things: walking hand-in-hand on a beach, cooking together at a backyard barbecue, snuggling on the couch in front of a fire. The couple themselves didn’t matter; they all looked different, a whole assortment of genders and pairings, and none of them looked like her. None of her previous relationships had ever felt like the people in these pictures seemed to feel. The images were all staged, of course, clipped out of ads for cars or jewelry or cruises, but she could ignore that part. She wanted that kind of intimacy, but it had always eluded her. It was easy to tell herself she was unlucky in love, harder to face the uncomfortable truth she knew, the truth that love required vulnerability and trust and asking for what you wanted...all things Megan was pretty shitty at.
She didn’t do friendships well, either, come to think of it. She’d never resolved things with Scarlett, and now they were heading out on the road together for weeks on end.
Megan sighed, then got up off the bed and tossed the scrapbook into her suitcase. At least that was one thing she knew she could bring along.
Chapter Five
The clock was just ticking over to midnight when Scarlett pulled into Megan’s driveway, slotting her own shitty broken-down car alongside Megan’s much more reliable Toyota Camry Solara. Now faced with the prospect of spending a week or so in that car, Scarlett had to accept that it was older than she’d remembered. Did Toyota even still make the Solara? She had no idea, but this one had to be over ten years old. At least, knowing Megan, it was kept in good working condition. Scarlett’s was in such bad shape, the AAA guys knew her by name. But she couldn’t focus on that; she had to get Megan actually on the road without having her freak out. Not that Megan had ever been particularly anxious, but this was new, and they hadn’t spent much time together at all, and now they were going to be trapped in a tiny old convertible for days and days with no company but each other—
Oh, shit. Maybe Scarlett was the one freaking out.
Scarlett unloaded all her bags from the trunk, the two large suitcases she’d packed full of everything she thought she might need for this journey, a backpack to use as an overnight bag, and the tote bag of snacks. Knowing Megan, she wouldn’t realize you had to get snacks for an epic road trip, or she’d get really shitty ones like rice cakes.
Megan, of course, wasn’t freaking out. Megan was standing behind her car, carefully lining up her bags and appraising the empty trunk space.
“It is way too early for this. Or late.” Scarlett walked over to her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m figuring out the optimal way to pack the trunk.” Megan put her hands on her hips, then looked from her bags to Scarlett’s. “Bring your bags over here. I need to compare all the sizes and see which to put in first.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Scarlett hoisted her bags into the empty trunk space, ignoring Megan’s irritated squawk, and stacked them up. She’d put her backpack in the back seat. “There. Put yours next to them.”
“You have no system.” Megan grumbled, but she loaded them anyway. “You can’t do these things without a system.”
“My system is to get on the road on time so we get to your damn island by sunrise, like you wanted.” Scarlett stepped back from the trunk, but when Megan struggled with one of the bags, automatically reached for it to steady her. Megan looked up in surprise, and Scarlett stepped away again as soon as the bag was settled. “There. You ready to go?”
“I just need to load the snacks.” Megan hoisted her tote bag into the backseat alongside the one Scarlett had already put back there. “You brought snacks, too?”
“Of course. I can’t rely on your snacks.” Scarlett snatched her coffee out of the car and took another sip. She’d made herself a third cup of coffee to survive the drive tonight, but it was not going to be enough. She hadn’t slept well last night, either, always unsettled about the journey ahead and not sure what she was going to do about that unsettled feeling.
“My snacks are fine. It’s my coffee I’m not sure about.” Megan frowned. “I made some but it’s not very good. I don’t usually drink it, and the only time I make it is at the diner. I don’t think I made it well, but I didn’t want to fall asleep while I was driving.”
“I’ve had a lot of coffee. I can take the first shift.” Scarlett filed that weird little bit of information away: Megan didn’t know how to make coffee other than diner coffee, and she didn’t like it. How could anyone not like coffee? Scarlett had started drinking it as a teenager, so maybe she wasn’t the best example. “You got everything? Your playlists all loaded up on your phone? Got your chargers? Your atlas? Got your maps pre-downloaded to your phone in case we lose signal? Got your passport?”
“Oh my god.” Megan held up her hand. “Have you ever tried asking one question at a time?”
“No time for that. We’ve gotta hit the road. I need to know.” Scarlett gestured to the road. “Out there. We’ve gotta get going.”
“How much coffee did you have, Scarlett?”
Scarlett blinked. “I had like two cups before this one. But that’s normal. And they were big cups. So maybe a little bit more than usual.” She rubbed her hands together. “But answer my questions anyway. I’m not turning around once we get going.”
“I have everything we need.” Megan’s tone was long-sufferingly patient, the kind of patient that meant she wasn’t really feeling patient at all. “Except I don’t have any playlists, because my Bluetooth isn’t working. So I burned CDs.”
Scarlett stopped. “Excuse me?”
Megan stared at her. “What?”
“CDs? You didn’t fix the Bluetooth?”
Megan shrugged. “Why does it matter? I’ve got enough music.”
“But if I had known, I would have paid to have your Bluetooth fixed. I have so many playlists on my phone, and I’m not gonna be able to listen to any of them.” Scarlett paused. “Oh, wait! I have an aux cord.” She dug one out of her car.
“I’m still gonna listen to my CDs,” Megan said. “I worked hard on those.”
“Sure. I’m aching to get some mid-’90s twelve-at-a-time playlists into my life for this next ten days of driving.” Scarlett felt a wave of sickness, which might have been either anxiety or too much caffeine. “Let’s get on the road before I change my mind.”
Driving at night was miserable in the way that it kept you up all night, but way better than driving during the day because there was less traffic. Scarlett didn’t mind the night. She was a night owl anyway. And if Megan was going to just keep her mouth shut and stare out the window like she was currently doing, that was fine by her.
“You do this a lot?” Megan asked after a long stretch of silence, after they pulled out onto the highway and started zipping north through the desolate darkness.
So much for silence.
Conversation was probably better than silence, anyway. Silence got her thinking, and she tried to avoid too much of that lately. Scarlett adjusted her grip on the steering wheel. “Do I do what a lot? Go on road trips in the middle of winter?”
“Go on road trips in general.” Megan didn’t look away from the window, but in her reflection, she glanced up at Scarlett. Scarlett pretended not to notice.
“Not a lot,” Scarlett said. “I did one back when—” She stopped herself, not wanting to bring up anything about college. “Back a few ye
ars ago. When I moved to New York.”
“When did you move to New York?” Megan shifted in her seat. “I didn’t know you lived there.”
“A bit after I turned twenty-three, so three years ago. I only lived there a couple of months. It’s an expensive city.” She didn’t want to share more about that time in her life. It wasn’t a pleasant time, a time when she felt like she had to run away from everything familiar and start over. But you couldn’t ever run from the past, not really.
Megan didn’t say anything for a minute, and they drove on in silence. “Why’d you come back?” Megan asked after a few moments.
“I told you. It was expensive.” That wasn’t the whole story. She’d been too out of her league, up against all her insecurities, unable to hold down a job and frustrated by her own incompetence. She’d come home to lick her wounds. Like hell she’d ever admit that to Megan, though. Megan may not have lived a very adventurous life, but she was always together in a way that Scarlett was scattered. Even in high school, Megan was acing her classes while Scarlett was trying to get away with a C-minus average and lying about it.
Megan made a thoughtful noise and didn’t ask her to elaborate. Either she knew Scarlett was lying and didn’t want to push, or she thought Scarlett was telling the truth. Or, maybe, she just didn’t care.
Better turn the attention to Megan. “So what about you?” Scarlett asked. “You never thought about leaving the diner?”
Megan snorted. “Never crossed my mind. Each time the alarm went off at four, I thought, ‘Yes, perfect, I’m living my dreams.’ I never considered there was more to life than waiting tables.”
“Hey, hey, I’m not criticizing being a waitress.” Scarlett had done that herself, and she’d been shit at it. “I’m just asking. You want to do something else with your life, I thought maybe you’d have done it.”
“I didn’t do anything. You already know that.” Megan’s voice was a low mumble. She was apparently touchy about this subject. Scarlett was a lot of kinds of bitches, but not the kind who poked at somebody who was down. Not even someone who’d been previously untouchable, like Megan.
But Megan wasn’t untouchable now. Megan wasn’t as prim and proper and frustratingly immune to human failings the way Scarlett seemed instead to be entirely comprised of human failings. Megan was a person, and she lost her job and she was going on this road trip for probably a bunch of personal reasons. And the wedding or whatever. But along the way, she wanted to see some of the country, and Scarlett could help.
Maybe this was a terrible plan overall. But they were in it. They were headed for the Florida border in this tiny, mediocre car from 2008 or whatever, and that was that.
This Toyota Camry. Scarlett scanned its nondescript interior with all its boringness and its beige decor, matching Megan’s beige house. Everything was the worst color, and Scarlett could not deal with it any longer.
“Why do you still have this boring-ass car, Meg?” Scarlett waved a hand around at it.
That got Megan’s attention. “What?” She sat up straighter. “What’s wrong with my car? It’s a convertible.”
“It’s old.”
Megan seemed to be grasping for how to respond. “Well...it’s red.”
“Red? Yeah, it’s red, but the whole inside is beige. Everything is beige! Why do you live such a beige life?”
Megan shifted even more over toward her, an incredulous expression on her face. “I don’t live a beige life.”
“Yes you do. Your life is so fucking beige it’s killing me.” It wasn’t what Scarlett wanted to say. She wanted to say, You’re so much more interesting than this, or You’re the most capable person I ever knew, but those words slipped away in favor of the angrier, crueler ones, the ones that would make Megan actually react.
Megan folded her arms. “Fuck you, Scarlett. My life doesn’t require your approval.”
Scarlett fumed, because Megan was right and now they were fighting. They were fighting less than an hour into this drive, and it was her fault, because she didn’t know how to be around Megan anymore. “I just thought you wanted to make your life more interesting. Like you weren’t satisfied with how things were.”
“No, I didn’t say that.” Megan’s frown was sour now, more of a pout than a frown. “I said I’ve never been out of the state and have some places on my goal list.”
“Sure. You sounded real satisfied.” Scarlett snorted. So much for Megan showing any vulnerability at all. “You’re probably totally satisfied with everything. I bet you come every time you fuck, too.”
Megan spluttered, obviously shocked out of her words, and her skin flamed up fast with a complete blush. Scarlett never saw Megan blush like that. Then again, they’d almost never talked about sex. A few conversations in high school where Scarlett had tried to get Megan to tell her all her secrets the way Scarlett told Megan hers, but Megan never had anything to share and so Scarlett had eventually stopped asking.
Maybe some things never changed. Maybe Megan was still as shy about sex.
Oh, fuck, maybe Megan was a virgin.
Megan couldn’t be a virgin, right? She was twenty-five. Well, there was nothing wrong with being a virgin as long as Megan wanted to be one. Like, if she was waiting, or if she was asexual, whatever. But Scarlett wanted to know, and she wanted Megan to tell her. The desire for information bubbled up inside her like lye, burning her from the inside out. And it was one in the morning, and she was overtired, and hell, she wanted to know, so she blurted it out.
“Are you a virgin?”
Megan stared at her, open-mouthed. “You did not just ask me that.”
She could probably back away or turn it into a joke. That was likely the best decision. “I’m just fucking around. You don’t have to answer that. I just wanted to get a reaction out of you.”
“No, no, let’s keep going. I love this. First you tell me my whole life is beige, and then you ask me if I’m a virgin. It’s a delight. Just exactly the right conversation I want to have at one in the morning.” Megan scrunched down into her seat. “I should sleep if you’re gonna drive. Unless you want to insult me some more.”
“What? That’s not an insult. Being a virgin’s not a bad thing.” Scarlett didn’t want Megan to think she was making fun of her. They may not get along well, but Scarlett felt weird inside, thinking that Megan might believe she was being deliberately hurtful. She wanted to get a rise out of her, not make her upset. “I don’t care if you’re a virgin. It’s all right.”
“I’m not a virgin,” Megan finally said, harsh and sharp and all at once, like it burst out of her. “I’ve had lots of sex. Okay?”
“Okay. Okay.” Scarlett really should not have asked. “I told you, it was a joke. I was joking around.”
“Not everything’s a joke, Scarlett.” Megan turned away fully, and reclined her seat. “Wake me up when there’s a rest area.”
The interior of the car went silent. Beneath the tires, the road hummed, blending with the purr of the engine. Scarlett glanced over at Megan’s reflection, and Megan’s eyes were open the first time, but the next time she checked, they were shut. Megan looked all closed up and small on her side of the car.
“You should’ve brought a blanket,” Scarlett said. “You’ll get cold.”
Megan’s reply was mumbled. “There’s one in the back.”
“Put it on. You’re like some sad orphan, sleeping there without a blanket.” Scarlett hated seeing her like that, even with her sweater looking cozy and soft.
Megan grumbled, and then turned to grab the blanket out of the back seat. She tucked it around her and then went back again, quiet and solemn and closed-eyed in the passenger seat like she was sleeping. Maybe she was. At least she didn’t look like a Dickens character anymore. Scarlett enjoyed the peace and quiet.
Until, of course, she stopped enjoying the peace and quiet. She
couldn’t sleep, because she was driving, and she couldn’t talk to Megan anymore because Megan was sleeping or pretending she was sleeping. So she flicked the radio on and waited for Megan to complain about it.
She didn’t.
Scarlett poked through Megan’s presets. She had good channels programmed. Megan was always into music back in high school, so it shouldn’t surprise Scarlett that she still had good taste. She settled on some pop song and let the music play, tapping along on the steering wheel, humming quietly to herself. Maybe she could do this whole stretch, all the way to Tybee Island. Maybe she could let Megan sleep. She wouldn’t have to wake her up and deal with more conversation that she was sure to ruin.
Light snores came from the other side of the car, and Scarlett had to smile. Some people snored like they were terrifying beasts, a dinosaur eating another dinosaur, but Megan sounded like a tiny cat with little purring snores. She was adorable in many ways. That realization was kind of shitty, too. She didn’t want to feel like Megan was adorable. It was safer to think of Megan as frustrating, untouchable, stubborn as hell, holier-than-thou.
The pop song switched from whatever was on to an oldie, Joan Jett singing “I Love Rock and Roll,” and Scarlett had to sing along. She really wanted to sing loudly, as the song demanded, but she kept her voice down instead. Megan didn’t wake up, so maybe she could sing a little louder. She tried it out. It felt good.
When the song ended, a quiet voice came from the other side of the car. “If you didn’t want me to sleep, you could just say so.”
Scarlett grimaced. “I thought you were sleeping.”
“I was sleeping. But then there was a karaoke bar happening next to me, and so I woke up.” Megan flopped over, shifting to glare at Scarlett from her other side. “You couldn’t have waited until I was awake?”
