I’d spent all August trying to teach myself how to pray. I’d been doing it my whole life, but it never seemed to yield anything other than sorrow and doubt. I figured maybe I was doing it wrong, maybe God would start to listen once I learned how to address Him right.
If you knew how, you wouldn’t tell me. All summer at the diner, and still no proof that you had any contact with God either.
I started to put on my uniform, and it was a revealing little thing, far too short. When I asked my manager for a new one, one that fit me right, he gave me a look that made my stomach turn and told me if I wanted tips I’d keep this one.
You worked there too, that little diner off the main road where the bramble was never tamed and the vines were overgrown and the smell from the bog would leak into our senses.
Lots of the customers were just passing through, men with wedding rings who still had glances that lingered on me for too long.
I walked to work, as I always do, avoiding the potholes which had turned into little swimming pools from the early morning rain.
I almost let myself kneel into one of the little puddles, just for a minute, to get relief from this horrible August heat. It was that kind of heat where you didn’t even sweat all that much, it just sort of settled in your bones.
“Adeline, did you close up last night?” You shouted as I walked in, throwing a rag onto the table.
“Yes,” I say, taking the cue and picking up the rag. “Did the manager say somethin’? Did I mess up?”
“No more than usual,” you grin in a way that isn’t definite, but that I’m taking as a sign.
I pick up the rag that you’d left on the table and start to mop up the salt. Working the afternoon and night shifts means I don’t have to see my mother, so I take the opportunity whenever possible.
It’s always been just my Mama and I. I was officially a bastard, no man had ever claimed me. In Mama’s rare moments of sobriety and lucidity, a mix that was nearly impossible given her drinking and her rotten brain, I would ask her about my father. I’ve learned not to now, after trial and error. Mama mumbled something, cried out, and couldn’t even produce any possible names.
I wasn’t stupid, I knew how babies were made, and I thought if my Mama couldn’t even narrow it down, she must’ve been a whore.
“Jack, are we the only ones workin’ tonight?” I ask, looking over my shoulder and trying to meet your eyes.
“Is there anyone else who ever works this shithole?”
You weren't a very nice boy.
I knew your daddy wasn’t nice, he was the kinda man that charmed all the women to bed but wasn’t there come morning. I didn’t know about your mama, but I know it ain’t good to be raised without a mama. Mine wasn’t nurturing or kind, but at least she was there.
I start to walk back into the kitchen, where you’re flipping burgers and swatting at the back of your neck.
“These goddamn mosquites!” You grumble, a cigarette one loose lip movement from falling onto the grill. “Ain’t you still in school, Adeline? Can’t you get some kinda sickness from these things?”
“I go back in the fall. Still got another year left of school.”
“I’m glad to be done with that shit. I know I never graduated, but it would’ve been a waste of time. I’m 18, and I’m strong. I’m no use to anyone in that damn school.”
I study the curve of your arms as you flip the burgers, and lean against the door frame. You’ve been talking all summer about running away, about going somewhere else, and half of me hopes you’ll take me with you.
Even if it was just a look, I’d follow you. Even if it was a gesture, a nod towards the road, I’d be in that car.
“Never understood why you’re still going to school. You’re a woman. If you have any luck, you’ll be hitched with sons in the next few years.”
I tilt my head at you.
“I ain’t got a proposal,” I say, walking closer to you. “Have you?”
“Hell, Adeline,” you say, moving around me with an armful of plates, “of course you don’t.”
I don’t ask you why, because I don’t want to cry at work again. It happened once, earlier this year, and the closest thing to comfort I got was the manager telling me he wasn’t paying me to cry.
I watch you set the plates onto the table, pushing around salt shakers and napkins. The bell by the door rings, and someone walks in, so you scatter into the kitchen and gesture to me. It’s unbecoming, you’d told me, for a man to be waiting on someone.
“Good afternoon sir,” I say, pulling out my notepad and forcing a warm smile on. “What can I get started for you?”
“Just a burger, sweetie. Tell me though, where am I? I stopped in this town and haven’t seen much until I pulled into this diner.”
“Well, there ain’t much here anyways.” I look him in the eye, but he just throws the keys on the table. “I’ll be right back with that burger.”
I walk to the back to find you, wondering if you’re going to ask me to run away. Before I can say anything, you shout as I open the door.
“I heard it, Adeline. It’ll be ready in a minute.”
“Should I wait back here, wait for when it’s ready?”
“No. Go do something else. You’ll just bother me back here.”
By the end of the night you ask me if I want to go to the swimming hole.
I’d never give up an opportunity like that, so before you’ve even finished locking up I’m right there in the passenger seat grinning, trying to look out behind me so I see you coming. As you walk to the car, you’ve got one hand in your pocket and one on an almost burnt-up cigarette.
Once you sit down in the driver's seat, you still don’t look at me. With your eyes forward you push the stick and the car jerks forward.
It’s not a reliable thing, this car. It’s old and too hot in the summer, and the engine doesn’t always start but I love this car just like I love you.
Rough around the edges, but still something I’m desperate for.
You only kiss me at the swimming hole.
You won’t do it anywhere else, anywhere where anyone could possibly be. It’s some kind of secret, and I can’t figure out why, but I won’t complain, as long as you kiss me somewhere. Maybe it’s because back here, we’re behind the vines and the sagging trees and the woods are so thick you can’t hear or see anything, even the main road is a mile out.
The kiss is always gentler than I’d expect from you, and your hands hold me softer than your calluses are.
I don’t understand why you can’t talk to me like you kiss me.
I run to the water and jump under, and when I surface, my mouth is underwater. I must seem like a bullfrog, looking up at you.
I decide I won’t resurface until you ask me too.
Maybe I’ll finally find God at the bottom of the water.
It’s not a far swim to the bottom, you can do it all in one breath. The floor of the swimming hole is squishy, and I hate the way you can never get a good grip on it, the way that the slime and the rotten fish all sink down to the bottom.
When I hear a splash, I know you’ve jumped in too. I resurface long enough to see your clothes sitting on the moss, but not long enough that you’re above the surface.
It’s boyish, really, the way you play. You come up behind me and splash me, hold me under for a few seconds. At 16, I’m already past that type of roughness.
“Adeline, you’re burnin’,” you say, as your hand reaches up.
For a second, I think you’re going to touch my cheek, hold the burnt skin gently. Instead, your hand falls back underwater.
“I know,” I say, “I always burn up out here. Anywhere, really. Mama’s told me I’m too pale to be out for long. And my blue eyes don’t really help things. Makes my eyes hurt too.”
“I ain’t asked for your life story.”
I wince at this, and submerge my mouth. That way even if I do talk, the words will be muffled into something you can’t hear. They’ll be absorbed by the water.
“You girls do that,” you say, turning over underwater. “You like to explain, like to talk. No use for it, either.”
“Sorry,” I say, pulling my mouth above the surface. “I’ll try to be quieter.” I desperately need something to change this feeling.
“Hey,” I say, trying to keep my voice soft. “Remember last month, when you turned 18, and I made you a cake to bring down here? And we ate it together on the rocks? Didn't even have to share it with nobody, since no one really comes out here anyways.”
“I remember that,” you say, looking up, “it had too much frosting.”
“I’ll put less next time.”
“If I’m here at this time next year, and haven’t left this town, you can go ahead and get my daddy’s gun and shoot me in the temple.”
“Jack!” I swim closer to you, and reach for your face. You push my hand off, using your arms to push yourself away from me. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t say that. No one’s gonna do that, Jack. Least of all me.”
After looking at the sky again, the thing I’ve spent my summer waiting for finally comes.
“I’m leavin’,” you say. “Are you comin’ with me?”
“Do you want me to?”
You shrug and go back underwater.
If I keep pushing, you’ll say no. Instead, I tell you yes when you resurface. If you feel any kinda way about it, nothing gives it away. Instead we swim to the edge, and you kiss me again before we pile into your car.
“I’m leavin’ tomorrow, Adeline.”
“That’s alright Jack, I ain’t got nowhere I need to be.”
You start the car.
By morning, my bags are packed. I stayed up all night. I threw in all the kinda things I thought I'd need. A nice dress, regular dresses, and I’d even stolen a white dress from my mother’s closet, just in case. She wasn’t around to tell me not to, anyways. I put the money I’d spent the summer hiding in the floorboards in there, too.
I waited for you to knock, but you only honked.
I hated my house. It was awful, the outside, the inside, every piece of it was rotten. There were vines and plants crawling up the shingles, which wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the water damage. You’re slugging something strong smelling out of a flask.
“You really supposed to be drinkin’ while drivin’?” I ask you teasingly, leaning into the open window.
“If you’re going to goddamn criticize me, you can stay the hell home.” I realize you might not have understood my joke, so I pinch the side of my arm once I peel myself back from the window. I put my bags in the back while you watch, and I’m half worried you’ll speed off before I can get in the passenger seat.
“It’s real hot today,” I say, settling in next to you.
“That’s August for ya.”
I realize I’ve forgotten to ask you where we’re headed, what the plan is. It doesn’t matter to me, though.
“You tell your mama?” You ask. “I don’t want her to send any cops after me.”
“I left a note. She wouldn’t send any cops anyways. She wouldn’t think anythin’ of it unless my body was dead on the porch.”
With that, you start the car.
I watch my house fading away and I wait for the feelings to set in. Grief, anger, relief, happiness. But none of that comes. Maybe because no matter how far out we get, it all still really looks the same. It’s still all bramble and rough looking Queen Anne’s Lace. All little houses with roofs caving in and grass that hasn’t been mowed in decades. It might look pretty if you didn’t have to live here. It might be nice if you weren’t stuck.
“You like August?” I ask, leaning over to you.
You snort, and shift the gear. The car speeds up, and you look over to me for a second. Your eyes are so blue, such a light shade that it seems like you don’t have any color in them. Like they’re just transparent, and what I’m seeing is the sky behind you.
“Why are you askin’ me if I like August?"
“I was just wonderin’ if you have a favorite month?”
“I don’t have a favorite anything, Adeline.”
You take a hand off the gear to pick up and unscrew the flask that’s sitting beside you in between the seats.
“Can I have a sip?” I ask.
“It’s brown liquor,” you say, “you wouldn’t like it. If you want to help, you can light me a cigarette. My hands are full.”
I dig around for the pack I know you keep stuffed in here, right next to the flask. I take the lighter and burn the tip of it.
“Dealer’s fee,” I say, putting the other end in between my lips.
You look over at me and turn your lips up, just slightly. It starts to evolve into a grin as I puff the smoke at you, but you stop it before it becomes a smile.
“Enough playin’, give it to me.”
You take it out of my mouth, pressing it immediately into your own.
“You can get your own if you want one. I’m starvin’. Where can we stop for hamburgers out here? There ain’t nothin’ for miles. I need gas, too.”
“Next town shouldn’t be too far. The last one I counted was awhile back.”
I know it won’t be long. We’re flying through these back roads, and although everything looks the same, I figure we’re not going in a circle. Part of me worries we’ll just end up back at the diner.
You pull off the side of the road.
“Well don’t just stand there, I’m hungry!” I realize we’re a short walk away from a small building, so I run after you.
While we’re eating, God comes to my mind. I ask you if we should’ve said Grace. I don’t ask you or God for much these days, but I wonder if I should be giving something back. But instead I just lean my head back and scoop the hair up off the back of my neck. The heat seemed otherworldly, as if hell wasn’t a threat anymore but rather exactly where we are.
“You ever think you’ll wind up gettin’ married?” I ask you.
“Why you askin’ me that?” You say, setting your food down and looking up at me.
“I was just curious.” I say. “I mean, I don’t know if you’re really the marrying kind.”
“Don’t tell me what kinda ‘kind’ I am.”
I look down at my own plate now, embarrassed and sensing your anger. You’ve never much been in control of your wild temper.
“I’m not ever gettin’ married if I can help it.” You say, pushing your fingers into a salt grind that’s fallen on your plate. “Ain’t no one I wanna get married too anyways."
“I’ve been savin’.” I say. “I can get this one.”
“Save that money for something else, something like gas.” You say, throwing the paper napkin down onto the chair.
“Jack, how are we gonna leave? We didn’t pay.”
You almost laugh at me.
“With our legs, Adeline.”
In a wildly unexpected twist of fate, you wrap your fingers around my wrists. It’s the sweetest captivity I’ve ever known. Instead of arguing with you like I thought I would, telling you that you didn’t have to worry about it, that I’d go ahead and pay, I stay quiet so that you keep your hands on me.
“Hey! Get on back here! Ya’ll little shits better not be tryin’ leave without payin’! I got kids to feed!” The waitress calls after us, but you don’t yield.
Instead I keep my wrists very still and we swing the doors open and you don’t wait for me to close my door before you pull out of the lot, and the waitress runs after us. It isn’t for long, only to the end of the parking lot, but I do feel some kind of guilt about it. Something about her kids. At least she had tried to be a mother.
By the time we stop for gas, my guilt is so immense I figure it’ll kill me. Rot me from the inside out. My body will decay and you’ll just leave it on the side of the road.
I give you the money, but I pocket some, and go into the gas station, picking up a pack of cigarettes and the cheapest bottle of wine I can find. For you and I, of course.
I bring the bottle out when the stars start to appear.
At first, I take a swig, but you didn't notice it.
We’re sitting on the hood of the car, leaning back on the window. I’d almost think it was romantic if it wasn’t because the engine is keeping us warm.
“Strange,” I say, passing you the bottle of wine. “Being born here, at this time, the way we are. If I was a giant I’d live on a star.”
“You can’t live on a star, Adeline,” you say, greedily taking swigs while you gulp down. “It ain’t work like that.”
“Well I’m just saying what if, you know. Like assumin’ that everything was different.”
“You think bout’ these kinda ideas a lot?”
“Yeah, sometimes, when the stars are real bright, when I can’t sleep.”
“You’ll drive yourself mad with that. Any man would. And you’re only a woman. You’d go twice as mad.”
I reach for the bottle, but you mistake my intentions as I lean over, and you start to kiss me. Your kiss tastes better than the wine, flushes my cheeks more than any drunkenness, so I push the bottle to the side so I can kiss you back.
“We’ll sleep in the car tonight,” you say, decisively. I nod my head and slide down off the hood, looking over at you expectantly. You sigh. “I’ll sleep by the wheel, in the front. You go to the back. You can lie down there.”
It wasn’t kindness, the reason you offered up the backseat, but I’m pretending that it is.
I ask God for a sign. If He’s here, if He is willing to be God to me, I tell Him to give me something. Nothing changes. The night stays still, windless, and the sound of crickets doesn’t slow. The only change is the bile that rises in my throat.
“Jack,” I say, leaning over into the front seat, gripping the headrest, “I’m going to be sick.” You jump up, running around the back to open my door.
“Don’t vomit in my car. Get to the side of the road, there’s no one out here, no one’s gonna bother you. Holler if something goes wrong. Don’t get back in my seats until you’re sure you’re done.”
I jump out of the back and run over to the guardrail. There’s nothing anywhere, miles of farmland and forest and trees, and because of the heatwave, a whole section of the flowers are dead. I heave, my stomach bent over the guardrail. It’s vulnerable, I imagine a serial killer could get me easily, bent over and vomiting.
When my mouth is mostly empty and my stomach is too pained to move, I sit down with my back leaned up against the rails.
“Adeline?” I hear. I see your boots before the rest of you. You walk over, and to my utter, utter surprise, you sit down next to me, your back leaned up a few inches away from mine.
“Are you ok?”
“I’m ok, Jack. You can sleep in the car, the ground over here is uncomfortable.” You look at me for a second, but stay seated.
“I’ll wait a minute.”
You’re too far away for me to lean my head on your shoulder. We sit in silence for a moment, although the world around us remains noisy. I ask you how many crickets that must be, but you say nothing. I slowly inch closer to you, and put my head down on your shoulder. You stiffen up at this gesture, and shoot up a moment later as if I’d poked you with a cattle prod.
Offering me your hand, you speak softly, slowly.
“Come on, Adeline. I don’t wanna sit out here anymore. If you need to get up again you can.”
My stomach is mostly settled at this point, so I accept your hands and move to sit in the back of the car, and you move to the front.
“Goodnight, Jack,” I say, settling myself in the crook of the seat.
You say nothing, so I assume you’re already asleep, until I hear your flask sloshing around. You’re the only other one back home who sees a problem with this town, this life. The only one who seems to understand the desperation to get away.
By the time you spot me outside the car in the early morning rain, you look at me like a killer. Like the heat has really gotten to you.
“What are you doin’ out there?” You call out the window.
“Trying to get a little relief.”
You walk out of the car and stand next to me. You look at my eyes, you almost hold your hand out. Instead you throw your head back, opening your mouth and taking in the rain.
Instead of saying anything, I appreciate the moment. You in the rain, me next to you in the rain.
I move over to you and pry open your palms, ripping a cigarette from your fingers.
“It won’t light up in the rain,” you say.
I try anyway, striking matches and watching them strike out right away.
“Think it’ll rain for long?” I ask, resolving to let the cigarette just hang from my lips.
“Don’t waste a good cigarette,” you say, pulling it out of my mouth and moving closer to the car. You open the door and lean in, lighting it and then coming back out. You take a puff and hand it over, still looking at something farther than me. “It usually rains for a while out here.”
“Jack,” I say, drenched now, cool, moving slick hair from my face.
You look up at me and take the cigarette from between my fingers, putting it back between your own lips.
“Where are we goin’?” I ask.
You throw the cigarette down, crushing it beneath your shoe into the wet grass.
“No more questions, Adeline. Get in the car.”
The skies are finally clearing up, and it’s a little past noon. You’ve been driving all day, one hand on the wheel, one on the dash in between us. I’ve been trying to keep everything to myself, keep it all in my own head but it’s proving less and less possible.
You’ve been chainsmoking all day, and before you throw the butts out the window you sometimes let me take the final puff. Since the rain is clear, the sun is beating down and drying out the thirsty grass.
“Too hot in here,” you say, moving your hands so one is out the window. “Whys don’t we stop at the next lake we see? Take a swim.”
I could kiss you in that moment, you saving me from the heat.
“I’d love to,” I say, leaning over to you. Your pale blue eyes look dark now, compared to your hair that's only getting lighter from the intensity of this sun.
After what I figure to be a few miles, you pull over. It’s hard to tell distance here, the amount of land you cover. Everything always ends up as the same thing, anyways.
Upon stopping the car, you get out before me, running over to the swimming hole without even bothering to strip. You jump right in, like a dog, like an insect.
I follow, running and jumping in next to you, but the water is deeper than I expected. I struggle to find the bottom, and you circle around me like I’m prey.
When I surface, your face is inches from mine. Your breath is hot, and close to me.
“Go get me my flask,” you say, turning over underwater to swim away.
I pull myself out of the water, almost immediately dry from the intensity of the sun.
I start to run back over to the car, but before I can think about where your flask might be hidden under the seat, I feel my legs pulled out from under me, and I taste the blood before I taste the dirt.
I’d run over a root, and I put my hand to my nose. It comes away bloody, and I worry if I stay on the ground I'll choke. I struggle to pull in breath, I’m winded like a little kid falling off the side of a roof. I can’t pull my head up, I keep my forehead pressed to the ground and my breaths stay shallow, like my lungs don’t want to fill up.
“Adeline?” I can’t see you, but your voice would be recognizable to me at the end of the world.
“I fell.”
“I see that.”
We both pause for a moment, but I can still feel you standing over me.
“Come on,” you say, “get on up.”
“I can’t.”
I look up at you, and you finally notice the blood on my face and the deep wound on my arm. You bend down, but for a second I wonder if you’ve just fallen.
“Come on, Adeline. You’re ok, nothing's broken.” Even though your words aren’t sweet, your voice softens for me in a way I rarely get from anyone.
“I have a cut on my arm,” I say, holding out my wounded limb.
You get up for a second and walk to the car, before coming back and leaning back down. With no word of warning or preparedness, you pour some of that straight whiskey onto my cut, and I swear, it’s more painful than the fall.
Once it really registers, I cry out, but you shush me.
“Shh!” You say, your whisper turning back to harsh. “They’s gonna think I’m a serial killer, should anyone hear ya caryin’ on like that!”
I try to muffle my cries, but the pain is too intense.
“Why would you do that?”
“I ain’t tryin’ to hurt you, Adeline. It cleans it. Now it won’t go gettin’ infected. My pa had to do that to me once or twice when I was young. I know it hurts like hell, but it’ll pass.”
I nod my head, and I can barely get a word out between whimpers.
You lean a little closer to me, and in a move I never would’ve predicted, you place your hand on my upper arm, away from the cut. It takes a moment, but I realize that you’re trying to comfort me. Suddenly I can’t even register the pain, all I can feel is the heat and healing of your touch.
“You’ll be ok,” you say, your gentle fingers wrapped around my arm. “I told you, I’ve had it done to me before too. The pain will pass in a few minutes.”
“I think I’m feelin’ better.” I pause for a moment. “Thank you.”
You unwrap yourself from me immediately, standing up and offering me your hand.
“Come on,” you say, "I'm starvin.”
By the time we’re finishing up at the diner we found on the side of the road, you flag down the waitress.
“Where can we find some motel around here? Don’t give me nothin’ fancy, the cheapest you got.”
“It’ll be dark in a few hours,” the waitress says, “but you should hit one before the sun goes down if you keep going West.”
You nod your head and throw some coins on the table, but I know it’s just for show. The waitress looks down, crossing her arms.
“I know you’s plannin’ to pay for your WHOLE meal!” She accuses.
“Course.” You say, looking down. As soon as she walks away you stand up, tilting your head for me to follow.
“Come on.”
By the time it really is starting to get dark you hold your hand out to me, beckoning for the money I told you I’d saved up. I put it in your palms, and you step out of the car. By the time you’re back, you have a key.
“Up there,” you say, pointing to the second floor. The railing is coming down, falling off the side of the second floor, and I worry that the planks holding up the rest of it will fall through. I look back to the motel sign, with a few letters dangling off the side, and then back at you. I follow your lead, and you turn the key in the door, revealing a small room.
It’s got one bed, with stained blankets, and an open door to a bathroom with towels on the floor. You have your hand on the back of my dress as we stumble into the motel room, and with your other hand you fumble around to turn off the lights, but it doesn’t matter. It’s dark outside already, dark in here. Everywhere.
I wake up and the other side of the bed is cold. I look over, and you’re sprawled out on the floor, lying on top of the stained carpet. I watch for a minute, notice extra freckles I’ve never gotten the chance to look so closely at before.
By the time you open your eyes, you’re angry.
The room smells only like smoke, and I know it’s your brand. I walk over to the bathroom, and the only thing that lingers is the smell of wet towels.
I feel the bile rising up in my throat the same way as last night.
You walk in as I’m bent over the porcelain rim, and you immediately cover your mouth and walk out.
“You better not have some kinda stomach bug, Adeline. I can’t stand the look of puke.” I can’t respond before throwing up again, so I let your words hang there instead.
“It’s not a stomach bug,” I say, still whispering despite using all the strength I have. “I think I swallowed too much lake water yesterday. It’ll be ok, I just gotta get it out of my system.”
You pause for a moment.
“How’s your arm doin’?” You speak so softly I almost can’t hear it.
“It’s better,” I say, holding it up to you.
“Not infected.”
Once we’ve walked out to the car, you hesitate before you open the door. You’ve never been reluctant to leave, so I let my temptation for answers get the best of me.
“Where are we goin’ today, Jack?”
You just let your hand rest on the dash, looking forward. Instead of watching the road going West, your eyes are fixed back East.
“We’re goin’ home, Adeline?”
“What?” I get out of the car, and you step out behind me.
“Get back in the car, Adeline. I know you don’t want me to leave you here at this shitty little place.”
“Why are you sayin’ we’re going back? We were gonna go somewhere better!”
“Don’t ya get it? There is nowhere better. It’s a dream, Adeline. I was a fool to run. A fool to take you too. Now get in the car. I’m leavin’.”
“Jack-”
“Get in the car, or figure out your own way home.”
I climb back into your passenger seat.
As you pull out of the place going East, I just look out the window. I was foolish to spend the drive out hopeful. I put my hand on my belly. Foolish to run, and foolishly, I’d spent the whole time thinking about a name for the baby.