“Don’t put me in that position.”
I shake my head, “Gonna be a bitch of a few days.”
“That a threat?” he asks.
“No, it’s me telling you something, and you being pissed at me for giving you a heads up.”
He plays the conversation over in his head. I see him doing it.
“We’re out of town tomorrow,” he says.
“They get together and watch out-of-town games at Koa and Nalani’s place, yeah?” I ask. He nods. “Tsarina is beating herself up about missing the parade, not seeing Noelle’s new place.”
“They should watch it there?” He asks, tapping something on his phone.
“Might be nice to have a girls’ night. Sleep over.”
“Dash’s mom and sisters are there, right?” he asks.
“I don’t think so, not until the little ones on break.”
“Does she need this for mental health reasons?” He presses.
“She needs her team around her.” I see my vehicle being brought around by the valet, “Just like we do. Need a ride?”
“Got my vehicle, but could always leave it.” He shrugs.
“Let’s roll.”
The drive in is quiet. Deacon’s riding shotgun, scrolling through something on his phone, letting me have the silence.
The song comes on halfway down the West Side Highway.DaylightbyDavid Kushner.
Songs been following me since that night when I noticed her looking at me like women of her social stature do. It’s been slipping into playlists like it knows something I don’t. I turn it up a notch.
The opening notes hum through the car, low and steady, and then the lyrics tell me that I won’t go there…there’s darkness in the distance from the way that I’ve been living.
I swallow, jaw tightening.
The lyrics hit slower,heaviernow. About hiding in the dark because it’s easier there. About knowing the light means being seen, really seen, and choosing it anyway. About loving something you don’t know how to keep without ruining.
I think about last night. About her breathing finally evening out as her hair spilled across my chest, how she found me in the middle of the night, and I found her too. I think about how I didn’t want anything except to stay there with her, how hard it was to leave, the stolen almost kiss, and how this all scares the hell out of me.
The song keeps going.
It talks about guilt. About wanting. About the fear that daylight exposes what the dark lets you pretend isn’t there.
I tighten my grip on the wheel.
This isn’t my kind of preworkout song. I don’t do vulnerable; I do angry because that’s what power and control always felt like, anger. I don’t do hope packaged as melody. I don’t do anything that asks me to look too closely at what I feel and why. It feels like the song is doing that anyway.
Deacon glances over, casual. “You like this one, huh?”
“Yeah,” I say, voice rougher than I mean it to be.
He nods and lets it go. Let’s the silence be what it’s meant to be, reflective.
Me, I let it say the things I’ve not admitted to anyone, and no one has ever pushed to call me out on not being ready to admitany of it out loud. That the dark has always been easier. That the light is where real danger lives.
