"I make spreadsheets. Not nests."
"Same principle. Organization. Structure. Everything in its place." The truck bounces over a pothole, and I grip the wheel tighter. "You'll figure it out."
She's quiet for a moment. Then, softer, "What if I don't?"
"Then you'll figure it out during your heat. Or after. It's not a test you can fail."
The trees close in around us as we leave town behind. Pine and oak and maple, their branches bare and reaching toward the grey sky like skeletal fingers. The road narrows to a single lane, gravel crunching under the tires.
Jessica sits up straighter. "I know where we're going."
"Yeah?"
"The overlook." She turns to look at me, eyes wide. "Carlos, we haven't been there since..."
"Since high school." I slow the truck as the path gets rougher. "Yeah. I know."
The overlook sits at the top of Miller's Hill, a clearing carved into the woods with a view that stretches across the valley. On clear days you can see all the way to the state line. On days like today, you can see the town spread out below, lights just starting to flicker on as evening settles in.
It was also the place where every teenager in Largo Waters came to make out.
Including us.
I pull the truck into the clearing and cut the engine. Silence drops over us, broken only by the tick of cooling metal and the whisper of wind through the trees.
"We used to come here before I left," Jessica says quietly. "You and me and Callum and whoever else wanted to drink cheap beer and pretend we were cooler than we were."
"You were always cool." I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn to face her. "The rest of us were just trying to keep up."
She laughs. Soft and a little sad. "That's not how I remember it."
"That's because you remember it wrong." I reach over and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. My fingers graze her cheek, and she shivers. "You okay?"
"I don't know." She meets my eyes. "Being here. With you. It feels like going back in time."
"Good or bad?"
"I haven't decided yet."
We sit there in the growing dark, the truck cab warm around us, the world reduced to just this space. Just us.
Jessica shifts in her seat. Turns toward me. "Carlos."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For getting me out of there. For knowing I needed this."
"Anytime, Jess."
She reaches for me. Her hand lands on my thigh, fingers curling into the denim, and heat shoots through me like lightning.
"Can I ask you something?" Her voice is barely above a whisper.
"Anything."
"Do you ever think about it? Us. Here. What we did."
My heart kicks against my ribs. "All the time."
