Chapter Twenty. Lighting Up
Chapter Twenty
LIGHTING UP
Cam didn’t recognize her reflection.
In Danny’s entryway mirror, she saw a ghost. She locked eyes with the apparition, with the version of herself who was forever wide-eyed, fifteen, and imbued with enough dreams to last a lifetime.
Surrendering to the teenager-like giddiness, she did a spin in front of the mirror.
Her freshly blow-dried hair fanned out and whipped her pink cheeks, assaulting her with the familiar scent of salon products.
The same products she could never afford but still spent money on to make her dye job last.
For nearly a decade, she’d chased blonde. From sixteen until that afternoon, she exhausted every free dollar she had to get her hair done. To get her roots touched up every four to six weeks. To buy the purple shampoos and the fancy hair masks.
The dye job was viewed as a fixed expense, a nonnegotiable, a luxury she couldn’t live without, and it was one of the reasons her credit card debt was so high.
She’d swipe the same card and tip in cash, convincing herself the entire thing cost the total of the tip.
For ten years, she deluded herself into thinking she could afford it.
But blonde was expensive. Blonde was a handcuff. It was a semipermanent reminder of her desperation to fit in with everyone around her.
Society made the color a cure-all. It was supposed to make women prettier, younger, more fun, even less threatening in the workplace. Sure, there were dumb blondes, but if one was pretty enough, then dumb became ditzy and ditzy became endearing.
The girl in the mirror made her wonder why she ever wore the camouflage.
She liked how she looked. She liked that her hair was dark and wavy.
She liked that she had her grandma’s nose, and the same brown, almond-shaped eyes as most of her father’s side, and that every feature was a mix of the family members who came before her.
She was proud of her cultural background.
Of both sides. Even if she didn’t always feel like she belonged.
She was Jewish, but she couldn’t name a single tenet of the religion itself.
She was Mexican, but her knowledge of her roots relied on the effort she put in.
And she did everything she could: studying Spanish in school, cooking recipes passed along from her tías in Texas, reading up on the history behind the Emiliano Zapata quotes decorating posters in her father’s office …
It wasn’t easy. Even when she had the opportunity to visit Mexico, the trip to Tulum felt sanitized of the culture she loved. A fancy hotel with staff speaking English, a shuttle service to visit cenotes, restaurants serving as many American dishes as Mexican ones …
Over the years, she felt disconnected from so much of her background. But with this hair, she finally felt like herself again.
“Wow.” Danny stood in the doorway. “You look amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your natural color.”
She ran her hand through her hair, freshly brown strands slipping through the space between her fingers. “I honestly don’t remember my natural color but I think Esme did an incredible job. I feel … young. Like … I’m finally me again.”
“You look like you,” he said, standing behind her. She stared at his reflection in the mirror, hypnotized by the way he watched her back. “You’ve always been beautiful, Cam. But … wow.”
Her reflection reddened. His darkened, his lips parting. Goose bumps coated her arms, and she quickly stepped away, needing distance between them.
“Shut up,” she said quietly. “You’re making me blush.”
“Good. It’s revenge for you teasing about how easily I turn red.” He leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Should I do something new with my hair?” He shook his head, his dark hair scattering in disarray.
“No.” She slid her hand into the strands and righted them. “I love your hair.”
Brown eyes met hers. Their proximity highlighted the glint in his gaze, the russet sparkle the same shade as the beer he’d been drinking that night in May. When she grabbed his shirt and kissed him, giving into soft lips, and an insistent tongue, and—
“Do you have any more changes up your sleeve?” His gaze dropped to her mouth, to the way her lips parted ever so slightly. When he grinned, her stomach flipped. “Come with me,” he said, hand outstretched.
She didn’t hesitate. Her trust in him was implicit. Like her own faith in remembering how to breathe, how to put one foot in front of the other …
They took the path towards town, illuminated only by the moon and sporadic streetlights.
“What are we doing?” she asked. “Where are we going?”
“We’re finishing what you started. Even if it’s bad for us.”
They approached a gas station and Danny led her into the mini-mart, eyes skimming the aisles. It was nearly empty inside, only occupied by the cashier and a couple of teenagers loitering by the ice cream freezer.
“I didn’t come here for snacks, but honestly, a slushy sounds good right about now,” Danny continued, taking off towards the machines.
He handed her a cup and filled his own, jumping between the flavors until his plastic overflowed with frozen sugar.
She stuck to the basic cola flavor, and once finished, they journeyed to the cash register.
“What did we come here for if not slushies?”
Instead of answering, he grinned and pulled out his wallet. To the cashier, he said, “One pack of Newports.” Then he grabbed a colored lighter from the bin by the lottery ticket display and slid it over. “And this with the drinks.”
Cam gawked as he paid, but ever unbothered, Danny grabbed the pack and plucked a single cigarette out. She followed him to the exit, watching with wide eyes as he tossed the mostly full box in the trash and promptly left the shop.
“Danny!” she cried. “Cigarettes are expensive!”
“Smoking kills, Cam,” he replied, tugging her along. “Besides, we only needed one.”
They crossed the street and when they reached a rocky overlook of the water, he sat down, slushy between his legs. She dropped beside him, bewildered.
“Danny…”
“Cam.” He smiled, holding the cigarette up to the moonlight. “You wanted to do this back in DC and it went to shit. So … let’s do it now.”
“I don’t know. Maybe my failure was the universe’s way of telling me not to do it. And I’ve had a lot of failures over the last few years, but the cigarette incident might be the most embarrassing.”
“Failure isn’t a sign to stop. It’s a sign to keep going.
But where you go is up to you. Sure, you can move forward, but you can also go in a different direction.
” He sighed. “Even if you four never understood that. Do you remember junior year, when I started taking that science GE about the human body, and ended up withdrawing midsemester?”
“I remember.”
“You four held an intervention to try and convince me to stay in the class. Morgan showed up with a fucking slideshow presentation, about how it was insane for me to withdraw, how Cory could tutor me if I was having trouble, how Drew had his notes from freshman year to help…” He shook his head.
“It never once occurred to any of you that I was doing what was best for me. I was struggling. It was a topic that was never gonna make sense to me and there were easier GEs I could take to fulfill the credit. So why would I stay?”
“You never told us that,” she whispered. “We thought you didn’t want to study and got sick of the eight AM labs.”
He glanced at the moon, jaw clenched. “I didn’t see the point in defending my decision because sometimes you four …
infantilized me. I was Danny, the little brother who needed to be babysat.
But I wasn’t irresponsible. I wasn’t immature.
If anything, I think I was really fucking mature for accepting that the class was too much for me.
It was something you all could never do.
I remember Morgan sobbing when her upper-division French class was reading Les Mis.
It was too advanced for her. She knew she had no business taking fucking French literature with her minor, and she did it anyways. And you remember what happened?”
Cam winced. “She got her one and only C, freaked out, and cut her own bangs.”
“Could’ve been avoided if she’d just … dropped the class and taken something else. But you all didn’t think like that. I don’t think failure is a dirty word. I can’t, because if it is, then you four must’ve thought so little of me.”
“Danny, we didn’t think you were a failure. Cut us some slack, okay?”
“Slack,” he repeated. “Do you know how many times I was called a slacker by one of you? I know it was meant to be playful, and yeah, I brushed it off, but I didn’t appreciate it.
” He cleared his throat. “Life is not this massive … sprint. It’s okay to slow down.
To quit. To change your mind. And it’s also completely okay to keep pushing, but only if that’s what you want.
Otherwise, it’s like running a race with shin splints and I can tell you from experience, that’s not fucking pleasant. ”
“I’m sorry,” she begged, “if we ever said something that upset you. We loved you and anything we did was our … misguided way of trying to help you. Like, the intervention. None of us wanted you to have a W on your transcript because we knew it looked bad for recruiters and you—”
“—didn’t care? I didn’t. If I made every decision solely based on how it could affect my future, I’d be fucking miserable.
I couldn’t eat cheeseburgers, because I’d be worried about my cholesterol.
I couldn’t sit in the sun, because I’d be worried about melanoma.
” He lit the lighter, watching the flame dance in the evening breeze.
“Sometimes, you gotta live in the moment. Because tomorrow, the sun’s still gonna rise.
You’re still gonna drink coffee. I’m still gonna pick up dog shit. ”
She stared, hypnotized by the flame shadowing his face. “What happened with that science credit?”
“Spring semester, I took a GE on renewable energy and got a B plus. I did what was best for me. Not that I cared about my transcript, but I knew a W and a B plus looked a helluva lot better than a D, assuming I even passed. Our choices are meant to reflect our individual needs. Which means you have a decision to make.”
He flicked the lighter on and off like a budding pyromaniac.
“You can say no, and nothing changes. We’ll sit here, drink our slushies, and talk about whatever you want,” he continued.
“Or you can embrace this burnout label you keep throwing around and actually burn. And then, once you’re nothing but smoke you can rise like a phoenix from the ashes. ”
She took the cigarette and ran her fingers along the smooth white paper. “I did exactly what I was supposed to do. Every step of the way. And instead of being rewarded, I feel like I’ve been punished. So, fuck it. Let’s do this.”
“Just this once,” he promised.
“Just this once,” she repeated.
With the cigarette dangling from her lips, she leaned into Danny.
He lit the white end until it glowed an angry red, smoke billowing from the head.
As she’d seen in countless movies over the years, she sucked, letting the smoke fill her mouth.
She grimaced for every second she held the smoke, relaxing only once it escaped.
Shaking off the sensation, she passed the cigarette to Danny. He followed the same movements, with more familiarity, thanks to years of smoking weed. Admittedly, as disgusting as she found smoking to be, there was something sexy about watching him with the cigarette between his lips.
He smiled around it when he noticed her attention. With one final exhale, he put it out and let it rest on the lid of his drink. “What did you think?” he asked.
“It was awful.” He laughed, so she added, “Really! I know I’m biased but … inhaling smoke? No thanks.”
He threw an arm over her shoulders. “Then it’s decided. Next time we hit the gas station, we’ll stick to slushies and sour gummy worms.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“You’re a true burnout now,” he said. “A real phoenix.”
“Absolutely. You gave me the smoke and”—she shook out her hair—“I have the new feathers.” But as her hair slapped her face, she screamed, “OH MY GOD! My hair smells like cigarettes!”
He laughed, hand to his belly as he shook. “That’s what happens when you smoke.”
“I know that! But…” Maybe it was the nerve-racking day, but she felt like crying. “I just got it done.”
He pressed his nose into her hair, not even bothering to hide as he sniffed. “I barely smell it.”
She smacked his chest. “Liar. Stop telling me what I want to hear.”
“In that case…” He pointed to her cup. “You’ve got a fly in your drink.”
Her gaze dropped to the bug floating in the cola-colored ice. “Okay. I’m going to cry.”
“No, you’re not.” He held out his cup. “Drink away. I can’t have you frowning on the fun stuff. Not with our tattoo appointment this week.”
She accepted his drink, immediately relaxing as she sipped the mix of flavors. Together, they sat in the darkness, counting the stars and pointing out every lightning bug—or firefly, as Danny insisted.
It was more fun than she’d ever had as a blonde.