Minneapolis slides past in streaks of light and shadow. The skyline glitters against the winter sky. We cross the Mississippi,and the bridge lights reflect off the dark water below. Normally I’d think about how pretty this is, how the city looks like something out of a movie at night. But right now I’m too busy trying to remember how to breathe like a normal human and not think about the fact that we’re alone in this car and his cologne smells amazing and I am absolutely not prepared for whatever’s about to happen.
The silence stretches.
“You okay?” Brody asks.
I glance back, my hair falling around my shoulders like a curtain.
“Yeah. Just tired.” I aim for casual, land somewhere neardesperately trying not to have feelings. “Long night.”
Snow drifts past the windshield in lazy flurries, caught in the headlights. The wipers sweep it away in a steady rhythm.
Now it’s quiet. Loud quiet. I should say something. But my brain has apparently clocked out for the evening, leaving me with nothing but the hyperawareness of him beside me—the way his hands rest on the steering wheel, the line of his jaw in the dashboard glow, his left leg propped up slightly, reminding me of his knee pressed to mine at the coffee shop just this morning. How was that less than twelve hours ago?—
“Can I ask you something?” His voice cuts through my spiral.
I answer way too quickly. “Sure.”
“The bowling. You were incredible tonight. How did you get so good?”
Oh. That’s not so bad. Safe territory.
“College,” I say, relieved. “Freshman year. My roommate dragged me to league night, and I was surprisingly not terrible.”
“What position?” He sounds genuinely curious. “Or is that not how bowling works? I clearly have no idea.”
“Anchor. I went last.”
“Of course you did.” Something changes in his tone. “Most pressure. Most responsibility.”
I glance at him. He’s watching the road, but there’s this expression on his face—understanding, maybe. Like he just puzzled something out.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I guess.”
We stop at a red light. He looks at me.
Really looks.
Not the performance look from the party—the one designed to convince my family we’re madly in love. This is different. Searching. Like he’s trying to see past all that to whatever’s underneath.
My throat tightens.
“Why bowling?” he asks. “Out of everything you could’ve been good at?”
And there’s the real question.
I could deflect. Make a joke about how I have a secret passion for rental shoes and polyester bowling shirts.
But I’m so tired. And he’s looking at me like he actually wants to know.
“I needed something that was mine,” I hear myself say. “Something I could be good at without—without comparisons.”
The light turns green. He drives.
He doesn’t push. Just lets it sit there.
“Maya’s good at everything,” I continue, and I don’t know why I’m still talking, except maybe my exhaustion has obliterated my filter. “Always has been. Beautiful, successful, confident. And I’m just the little sister who tried but didn’t quite measure up. So bowling was weird enough that nobody cared. I could just be good at it without anyone comparing me to her.”
I stop. Bite my lip. That was too much. Way too much. Next time, I should save myself the trouble and just turn over my diary.
