“You wanna lighten your grip on the steering wheel? Feels like you’re trying to drive the car into the ground.”
My fingers flex instinctively at her suggestions, but my knuckles are stiff.
“Your parents put you in a box too?” she says.
I don’t answer.
Not because she wouldn’t understand. She clearly would.
But I’m not ready to say it out loud yet. Even a simpleyesis too much.
Especially to Daphne.
I can’t be like her.
Icannothave more in common with her right now.
Not when feeling like we have so much in common is dangerous on a level I don’t want to analyze.
“Sounds like you did a bang-up job filling in for your dad when he was in the slammer.”
My eye twitches.
Good.
Good.
Reminders of what I did every day for the past few years is helpful.
She clears her throat. “Sorry. It’s habit to irritate you.”
“After three days?”
“No, mostly after how I grew up. I never go back to the city because I don’t like who I was before. And bad things happen when I go back to the city. Like thinking I’m going to talk to someone for five minutes in their back seat when their driver shows up and instead falling asleep while I’m waiting, only to wake up in Pennsylvania because I have shitty timing.”
This is helping. Breathing is getting easier. “And shitty assumptions.”
“Like you wouldn’t get back together with Margot.”
I grimace and start to sweat again. “Once again—I have no interest in getting back together with your sister.”
“Why not?”
“Our lives aren’t compatible anymore.”
“How?”
I glance at her again. “Are you serious?”
“It’s not like you’ve told me your life plan. All I know is we’re driving ten hours today, possibly deeper into the South, and you don’t want anyone to know where you are. Wheredothey think you are, by the way?”
“Vacation.”
“Without security.”
“I gave my security team large bonuses to not ask questions when I left.”
“So what’s after…vacation?”
