Chapter 9 #3
“Shut up, what’s your favorite?”
“Oh, easy. Two Girls and an Ax. They’re hilarious.” She extends a wired earbud. “Want to listen to the newest episode?”
The space between us tightens, and she leans on my arm as the opening credits play in our ears.
My heart thuds when her head rests on my shoulder and cherries perfume the air.
The cohosts set the scene, laying out the facts of the cold homicide case from the eighties, when a flurry of text messages cut off the podcast, each read out in succession of the other.
“Luisa says: ‘Have you looked at my edits?’”
“Maria says: ‘We have to submit them in two days.’”
“Mom says: ‘Did you call the care facility?’”
“Dad says: ‘Do you know what your mother wants for her birthday?’”
“Dad says: ‘Oh, shit. That was supposed to be for Sofía only.’”
The earbud yanks from my head as Sofía lifts, scrambling for her phone.
“Sorry,” she mutters, shooting off messages in response.
Texts fly through the chain, and with every new bubble, her energy frays at the edges. Her brow creases, and she nibbles on her lower lip, the tension in her shoulders tightening. It’s like she’s a shaken soda can ready to explode.
After a long text bubble appears, she releases her phone, rubbing at the skin between her eyebrows. It’s disorienting to witness her slow unravel. I don’t imagine it’s something she lets many people see.
“Take a breather,” I murmur, squeezing her hand.
With a shaky breath, she drops her head against the headrest, her eyelids fluttering shut. “It’s always something,” she grumbles, her free fingers drumming against her thigh.
There’s something I’m missing, I know it, but I can’t sit here and not try to help, if she’ll let me. All I’ve ever wanted was someone to let me in, to trust me enough to give me the opportunity to shoulder some of the weight they carry.
I tried so hard to be that person for Grace, to listen when she was upset, to hold her hand when she was struggling, but she didn’t want that from me. I wasn’t right for that role. Maybe I never will be, but it doesn’t mean I can’t try.
We hit a bump in the road, and Sofía yelps. Brown irises rimmed in red meet mine, and embarrassment flashes across her gaze. She hates this, I realize, breaking down or showing vulnerability in front of others.
“They can wait,” I say, stealing her phone. “We have a podcast to listen to and wombats to see.”
Her mouth pops open, but she doesn’t argue, simply nods and takes the earbud. The hosts are in the middle of describing the evidence collected at the scene when Sofía whispers, so quietly I almost miss it, “Thank you.”
She squeezes my bicep, her fingers lingering to wrap around my arm. I don’t say anything—I don’t think I can—as my brain clings to the physical contact she’s offering me.
We’re halfway through the episode, a double homicide that shook a small town, with no apparent suspects, when the car halts.
“Right-o, on to see a mighty wombat,” Mark says.
Sofía disentangles herself from me, offering me a sheepish smile. “I needed that,” she admits, collecting her bag and exiting the car.
“Needed what?” I ask, following her along the path.
Mark leads the group while Molly chatters his ear off, asking about the land’s history and geological processes that may have caused the formation of sister peaks, three rock structures jutting from the mountains.
“To turn my brain off,” she replies, kicking a loose rock on the path.
We hike in silence, and I listen in on the conversation ahead of us, absorbing the details about the region and how the Blue Mountains is home to a species of tree they once believed extinct.
He explains that the Wollemi pine is an ancient conifer, with fossil records dating back 91 million years, and there are fewer than fifty left in the wild.
“Some trunks are hundreds, if not thousands of years old,” he explains. “It’s one of the many species only found in Australia.” He halts, his hand flying up. “Just like the common wombat, which, if you look to your right, about a hundred meters away, you’ll see a small furry gray blob.”
Sofía exhales a sharp breath, and I lift my camera in the direction Mark indicated, scanning the landscape until I land on the pudgy creature waddling through the brush and across the path ahead.
“And their poop is cube shaped,” Mark exclaims.
“Nature’s wild, man,” I say, zooming in on the wombat as it grazes, disregarding our presence.
Once I’ve captured the footage, I admire the creature without the lens in the way, recognizing how special it is to witness an animal in its natural habitat.
The gratitude sticks with me as we head back to Sydney.
It’s the highlight of the day until Sofía silently offers me an earbud, starts the podcast again, and hands me a mini bag of gummy bears.
The story the hosts are weaving pauses for an ad, and Sofía steals a piece of candy. “Today was pretty radical,” she says.
Warmth blooms in the center of my chest when she offers me a glowing smile.
“Pretty radical, indeed.”