15. Jacinthe
Jacinthe
I stare out the windshield, my eyes glued to the white line winding up the middle of the twisty highway. The truck’s headlights cut through the darkness like a tunnel, like we’re clearing a path into the night towards dawn.
Or something like that. I’m a little tipsy.
I’m tipsy enough that I couldn’t drive myself home, so I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Tess’s truck, doing everything I can to keep myself from looking at her.
I have one hand clutching the shoulder strap of my seat belt, the other resting a couple inches from the door handle, like I’m braced to jump out onto the asphalt. My jaw is clenched so tight my teeth are aching.
The radio is on, the volume low enough that I can’t make out the words of the song playing. I risk letting my eyes flick to the clock in the dashboard. The glowing blue numbers say it’s thirty-eight minutes past midnight.
“You good?”
Tess’s voice seems to boom through the silence even though she’s barely spoken above a murmur.
“Uh, yeah,” I stammer. “Why?”
She chuckles. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see she’s switched to driving with one hand.
She shouldn’t be allowed to do that. Everyone knows driving a truck with one hand is incredibly sexy. She does not have the right to sit slouched in her seat like that, thighs splayed open, the smooth material of the steering wheel gliding across her palm.
“Because you haven’t said a word the whole drive, and you’re holding onto your seat like it’s a rollercoaster.”
She pauses, and when I steal another glance at her, I see she’s frowning.
“You’re not going to be sick, are you?”
I huff. “ Voyons, là . I had three beers. Just because I can’t drive, doesn’t mean I’m gonna spew like a drunk teenager.”
She chuckles again and shakes her head. “Fair enough. Just checking. I can always pull over if you need me to.”
“I do not need you to,” I insist. “I am fine. Maybe I’m holding onto my seat because you’re taking all the corners way too fast.”
I nod my head at the window, where we’ve just careened around a bend in the road.
Tess raises her eyebrows. “Oh, am I? You’re telling me you drive slower?”
I give up my grip on the seatbelt and cross my arms over my chest.
“I’m telling you that you do not know the roads like I do.”
She tips her head back and laughs before swapping hands on the wheel. “What roads do you think I’ve been driving every day since I moved here?”
“Hmm.” I think for a moment. “I guess you have a point.”
Tess turns up the radio, and we both bob our heads along to the latest country pop sensation. I let my jaw unclench, and I sink a little deeper into my seat.
I can do this. I can get a ride home from the hot woman who lives in my house and not make it weird.
When we pull into the driveway, all the windows are dark. Maman got a ride home from Natalie’s parents a couple hours ago. She left the porch light on for us. The single bulb beside the front door casts a narrow circle of light on the flaking wooden floorboards.
The porch is several summers overdue for a new coat of paint, but that’s just another task on my long list of things I have no idea when the hell I’ll get done.
Tess shuts the engine off, killing the music. The silence of the night drifts into the car like smoke.
Neither of us moves.
“Anyway, thank you,” I tell her.
She twists in her seat to face me. “Huh?”
“For driving me home. Thank you.”
She stares at me for a long moment. My breath catches, lodging somewhere in my throat just like the egg salad I almost choked on the day we met.
I had no idea what I was racing towards that day she showed up at La Grange Rouge. I wonder if I would have sped even faster up the highway if I knew Tess would be standing here in my yard.
I wonder if I would have just turned around and left, skipped the farrier visit altogether and hoped she’d wind up with somewhere else to live, somewhere I wouldn’t catch myself staring at her lips every goddamn day.
“Anytime,” she murmurs.
Maybe that’s the truth. Maybe anytime and any place, I would have ended up wanting to kiss Tess Tully.
Not that it matters.
I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for her, and she’s made it clear she doesn’t have time for me. We’re just two busy people with other priorities who sometimes stare into each other’s eyes for a little too long.
That’s all we can be.
I snap my gaze away from her, staring through the windshield even though there’s no road to follow anymore. I click my seatbelt off and straighten out my blazer. Despite playing musical stools all night to escape the wind, I’ve still ended up smelling like a bonfire.
“How’s it, uh, going?” I say, forcing myself to sound as casual as I can. “Living in the back? Everything working okay?”
“Oh, um, it’s great,” she says, her voice stiff and her face turned away from me as she slips her own seatbelt off. “Perfect, actually. Shel loves it.”
“And you?”
She pauses with her finger hooked around the door handle. “Me?”
“Do you love it?”
Tess nods, swallowing hard enough that I see her throat bob. “I do. I really do.”
I nod too. “That’s good.”
The whole truck feels heavy, like we’re buried under a landslide of unspoken words pressing down on us from all sides. There’s not even room for air anymore.
We’re going to choke.
I reach for the handle and fling my door open. Cold night air whooshes in to fill my lungs. I gulp mouthfuls of it down like I’m suffocating and jump out onto the driveway.
Behind me, I hear Tess do the same. I swing the door shut and lean against the side of the truck, still breathing hard. My attention drifts up to the sky, where there’s a silvery half moon hiding behind a few wisps of clouds.
I don’t know what it’s halfway towards: full or empty.
Maybe empty. Probably empty. It must be getting smaller and smaller the longer I stare, fading away into nothing but a black hole in the sky.
Tess comes around the other side of the truck, and I scramble for something to say.
“I am sure you’re taking much better care of the place than my cousin.” I nod towards the back. “He was kind of a slob. I didn’t even know how nice it could look back there until he moved out.”
Tess glances over at the house and then back at me.
“It’s still a work in progress, but I think we’re doing all right. Shel is having a lot of fun helping with the decorating.”
There’s nothing forced about my grin as I imagine all the kooky stuff Shel must have picked.
I’m sure she’s got posters of her favourite animals all over her room.
Just a few days ago, she was telling me all about her passion for star-nosed moles.
I almost screamed when she pulled up some pictures of the weird, alien-looking rodents on my phone, but Shel thinks they’re adorable and has a star-nosed mole plushie on her birthday wish list.
“That’s good,” I tell Tess. “I bet it looks great.”
She shoves her hands into the pockets of her blazer.
“Do you want to, um, come see it?”
She looks down at the tips of her shoes and kicks at a few pebbles scattered on the driveway.
“I mean, uh, you are the landlord,” she adds without looking up. “I’m sure you’ll want to check in sometimes.”
“I’m not your landlord.”
Something hot and bitter shoots through my body.
“My mom is your landlord. My name is not on the lease.”
“Okay, yeah, but technically, it’s your house,” she argues.
“It’s your house,” I insist. “You live there. You don’t have to show me anything. I don’t want you to think I’m, like, the boss of your life. You’re my…”
I trail off, my throat getting tight when I realize I don’t know how to finish that sentence.
I don’t know what word is big enough to swallow everything that we are—and everything that we’re becoming.
“Your what?” Tess prompts.
I clear my throat.
“My friend.” I wait a couple seconds and then can’t help adding, “Right?”
Tess watches me with a guarded expression for a moment before she answers.
“Right.”
She rolls her shoulders back before fishing her carabiner out from under her blazer. The stack of keys and gadgets strung along the metal jangle together.
“So, as my friend,” she says, “do you want to come see the house?”
I guess that’s a normal thing for friends to do: go over to each other’s houses after driving home from a party together. Maybe it’s not so normal that our houses are attached, but really, this isn’t any different from stopping in at Maddie or Natalie’s place.
If I said no, I’d be the weird one here.
“Uh, sure,” I say. “Yeah, I do.”
She turns to lead the way along the path to the back. The earth is hard beneath my feet, nearly frozen in the fall weather.
I really should get the path covered in concrete. Tess and Shel deserve more than a dirt trail to their front door.
We reach the small wooden landing, and I wait down on the grass while Tess gets the door unlocked. She reaches to flip a light switch on once she’s stepped inside. I squint into the sudden glare.
“Like I said, it’s a work in progress,” she says as I follow her in. “Ignore the boxes, okay?”
There’s a stack of brown cardboard moving boxes in a corner of the living room, but besides that, the place looks so cozy I could swear she’s been living here for years.
Gingham curtains frame the kitchen window, where a collection of mason jars on the sill hold some dainty sprigs of Queen Anne’s Lace.
The walls are hung with a few photos of Tess, Shel, and what looks to be some of their family members, as well as a selection of thrift store art I remember watching Tess and Shel unload last week.
There’s a sepia-toned print of some sunflowers hanging over the couch, as well as a scientific-looking poster of different frog species tacked up over the mini fridge.
I grin as I imagine how excited Shel must have been to find that one at the thrift shop.