Freeway

On the freeway I’m not sure which is harsher: him or the sun. "I met someone serious," Daddy says from the passenger side. He met someone serious.

“So, what does that make me?”

Silence follows and I feel it like a heavy vise squeezing the air out from my chest. Shrinking. I'm shrinking, and I wish he'd talk to me with those soothing words again. The ones that sound like answers. The ones that wrap themselves around my heart and put me in my place.

“Is this the last time?” I ask.

“I don’t know," he replies. "She’s not as free spirited as you.”

To the right there are the mountains and to the left there is the sea. I don't know. I feel small. I feel small in my seat.

“Fuck being a free spirit.”

“Don’t say that.” He touches my thigh. “You’re so cute as you are. You’re like a butterfly.”

“No, I’m not.” If I were a butterfly I’d land on his finger and he’d want me to stay. If I were a butterfly I’d land on his finger, drink the sugar, fly away.

He grabs my hand and when he grabs my hand he looks down at my purse and sees a thick stack of singles.

“What have you been up to?” he asks.

I tell him I’m running a lemonade stand.

“Of course you are," he rubs my thumb. "Of course you are, Baby Girl.”

"You know the palm reader said I was destined for sex." Fuck. "I mean success." Even my subconscious knows I'm a whore. Daddy can't stop laughing.

"Daddy, please stop laughing."

"Why?" he asks, "You're just funny."

"I know."

"You really are." I know. "You're funny."

He cranes his neck to check my eyes for something, anything to make him feel better. When he can't find it, he says “I worry about you.”

"Why?"

“Because people can be scary, Baby. They’re not all going to be like me.”

“I know that.” It hurts. The truth thickening in my throat. It feels kind of like when he chokes me except this time I don't like it. I don’t like it because there's no release. It's just this attention-grabbing urge to cry that can't manage to break through. Like my eyes are so far removed from my heart they don’t even get the message: you're hurt, you're hurt, you're really hurting my girl.

I stop at the light and straighten my posture to prevent myself from tipping over and spilling out into his cup. I don't think he wants that. I thought he might but now I don't think he ever did. I don't think he ever did want me, either, not really. I feel so embarrassed I have to stop myself from saying sorry.

"Sorry for my depth," I want to say, but I shouldn't.

We accept the cherry for her pit. We accept her because she's delicious.

And I am delicious. I am one delicious, juicy secret that he never meant to keep. And anyway he's never even seen my heart. Only my eyes, which we know are disconnected. Attentive. So attentive and sincere. I wouldn't be surprised if right now he thinks I'm being coy, thinks I'm flirting. Sometimes I think the whole world thinks I’m flirting but really I'm just trying not to cry.

“What are you waiting for?” He asks. And I tell him the green light.

“Baby Girl,” he grabs my hand, and he tells me, "It’s a stop sign."

“Okay.” So there's no green light. Only a purse full of pocket money, a pile of unpaid traffic infractions, a constant feeling like I'm about to be broken up with, and my childish instinct to wait.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm ashamed."

“Why are you ashamed?”

"I'm just ashamed. I'm ashamed." Finally, I turn to face him. "Because most days I get in the car and, D, I don't know where to drive."

He runs his fingers through my hair. Kisses my forehead. Calls me Princess.

"It's okay," he says. "Really. That's fine."

But I feel stupid. So stupid for moving forward with my feelings in this relationship. Arrangement. This arrangement that anyone else could have written in reverse. I feel stupid because I thought he was falling for me but now it's more like I fell for it. Whatever "it" is or was.

Maybe the beachfront home in Malibu, the new bikinis, one bite of each menu item, and yes, another glass, yes. Always another glass, yes. Or maybe the shooting star at Point Dume, my head on his chest driving down Deer Creek Road, our legs tangled under the table. The way he asked for the check. Or it could have been the way he said good girl with his cock down my throat that made me believe him, really believe him. For a moment I was good. But now I'm just dizzy from all the spinning: what I imagined into what’s real and what's real into what I imagined.

I ask him to drive. Relieve me from this role. I feel so unsteady I land on his lap and get lost in what memory's become: just some murky well of oneness.

One whole summer, one half-dreamed fuck. One aimless trip down the endless freeway and one motive, shared between us, to take something from the other the free way.

Only now I think it’s clear I’m the one to pay the price, and I think if only I didn't spend my allowance on acrylic nails and shoes, they might not collect dust in my closet. I might have some actual ground to stand on. I might walk out, not wish to stay, here, right here with him, my misty eyes toward the sky.

“Remember the first night we met?” He asks.

“Yes.” The Ritz. Bliss. We fell asleep to the sound of morning birds chirping.

“You’ll move on from this,” he says like a promise, “We both will.”

“Okay.” And we continue down the road headed nowhere until finally I find stillness through the sunroof in this long cloud, like a backbone. As time passes, space grows between (us and) each vertebra. I think: this is what happens when you stretch the truth. It disappears. And I’ve become so spineless.