“Good morning,” I chirp.
“According to who?” Jesse pushes off the car and does a double take at my ankle-length lavender trench coat. His languid perusal slides over me like a caress, igniting heat low in my belly.
“I spoke too soon,” he says somberly.
Flushing, I poke his arm. “I’m wearing clothes underneath it. Everyone knows you wear easily removable clothes if you’re spending the day trying on dresses.”
“I can assure you everyone doesnotknow that.” He runs his thumb over his chin, staring into the distance. “Huh. Maybe school dances aren’t a complete waste of district funding.”
“If you’re here to talk me out of going, it won’t work. I’ve planned the whole day out.” I tick a finger for each point. “Rainie’s picking me up last, so Aida and Lucia will already be in the car. I won’t let any of them follow me into the dressing room or walk into an elevator or bathroom with me.”
“You’re not even going to prom, Mansour. Why risk it at all?”
I tighten the belt on my coat. “Who says I’m not going?”
Jesse pushes his hair back, the locks spilling like ink between his fingers. The fog outlines him in silver and white, elevating him from stunning to ethereal. A stray urge to trace his lovely face and smooth the stress from histightly wound muscles confounds me. Jesse’s still the same untouchable enigma. The walls of hostility between him and the nearest living creature haven’t changed. When it comes right down to it, I still barely know him.
What happened in the train was a situational glitch. A survival exception.
When Jesse speaks, it’s quiet. Grim. “Are you so desperate to get back to your old life? To leotards and crowns and your two-bit boyfriend?”
I tilt my chin up, studying his stony features. “I thought you wanted me to get back with my two-bit boyfriend.”
“I never said that, and you know it,” Jesse says. “It’s not about what I want.”
“Then if it’s about what I want, let me go with Rainie, because I want to forget any of this ever happened. I’m so tired of being tired, Jesse. I want to go to prom, worry about how I’m going to control my curls under my graduation cap, have summer picnics by the lake.” When his expression only grows harder, I try again. “I’m not as tough as you are. I faint at the sight of blood and cry at those car commercials where the whole family goes on a road trip together. If I stop hoping that I can get my old life back, then …” I shake my head, staring at the shrouded street behind him. “I won’t let it win.”
“I see,” Jesse says, frostier than the ice under our feet.
Headlights emerge from the mist, and a baby blue Jeep swings into my driveway. Rock music spills from inside the car as Rainie rolls down her window. From this angle, Jesse remains out of Rainie’s sight. “Mina!” she hollers.
“Be careful,” is Jesse’s flat parting statement. He jumps the fence between our houses, disappearing before I can say goodbye.
Shrieks assault my ears as soon as I open the car door. “Mina!” Lucia wraps her arms around my shoulders, and I cough as the scent of citrus envelops me. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
“Hey, Mina.” Aida pops her head between the seats, shooting me a small smile.
Rainie reverses from my driveway, and I scramble for my seat belt. Aida kicks her feet onto the dashboard, balancing her sketchbook on her lap. The baby blue Jeep belongs to Lucia, given to her as a birthday gift last year, but she hates driving it. Rainie tames the four-wheeled beast with ease, although she regularly complains about the color.
I lean forward to poke Aida’s side. “You put beads in your braids.”
“Mr. Clay called my braids distracting, so I figured I’d show him exactly how distracting they could be.”
“Ugh, that bastard. We were talking about Hiroshima on Thursday, and he kept glancing at me,” Rainie growls. “I genuinely don’t think our history teacher knows the difference between Japan and Vietnam.”
Lucia grimaces in sympathy. She and Alex are the only white members of our group, and they’ve listened to our complaints against awful teachers over the years. Mr. Clay gets the gold ribbon in his category, though. Of everyone I’ve ever angrily journaled about, Mr. Clay has received the most entries.
I roll down the window and inhale deeply. The wind whips my curls in every direction, and I scrounge around my coat pocket for a hair tie.
“Do not even think of playing your music,” Aida warns Rainie. “I get to pick until we hit the border, and I choose Ludovico Einaudi.”
“I will drive this car off a bridge,” Rainie replies.
“We aren’t going over any bridges.”
“I’ll find one.”
Rainie enters the highway, flooring the car into the empty lane. Streetlamps fight a losing battle against the fog, and Rainie flips her high beams every time we switch lanes. Lucia reads out the directions, straining against her seat belt to peer through the windshield. Aida taps her marker against her sketchbook, watching the trees fly past us in blurs of green and brown.
