Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(86)

“Think about it?”

He nods. “I’ll think about it.”

“I regret being bratty to you on our first date.”

“Part of your charm.”

“You’re a really good guy.”

“You’re a really great girl.”

We walk and walk, my dejection deepening with every step. It’s started to feel like a funeral march.

I get out my phone for a progress check, and I run through the last dregs of battery doing it. Which is bad, because now there’s no calling for rides, for sure. And I’m completely out of gas. Emotionally. Physically. My feet have blisters. So does my heart.

I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. I feel like crying again. “I’m exhausted.”

“How far?”

“Another mile.”

He turns around and gets down on one knee. “Giddyup.”

“Dude.”

“I’m serious. Saddle up.”

“You’re gonna give me a horsie ride for a mile?”

“Yep.”

“Come on.”

“This weekend has been a wash, training-wise. It’ll do me good. We carry each other around the gym during practice.”

“Okay, but I’m making you wear your shoes.”

“Deal.”

He puts his socks and shoes on. I get on his back and hold on, resting my face in his thick black hair. It feels like heaven. “You are strong like hippo,” I murmur. We both start giggling so hard he has to let me down for a second.

“No more making me laugh if you want this to work,” he says.

“Okay. I’m really going to miss you.”

“Perfect. That’s the least funny thing for me to think about.”

“I wasn’t finished. Miss you…like hippo.”





My eyes are so tear-blurred, I almost run off the road a few times.

There aren’t enough good places to scream in this world. You can’t do it in public. You can’t really do it at your house, if you live anywhere near other people. Can’t do it at school. It’s strange that we provide so few places to do something that you really need to do sometimes. There should be padded, soundproof rooms, like restrooms for screaming. Fortunately, a Kia Rio on a three-hour drive on the interstate from Boca Raton to Orlando is a great place to scream.

So I roll down the window and scream into the humid night. I scream until the back of my throat is raw and hot like a skinned knee. Until I can taste copper. I scream with my wounded seven-year-old heart and every year of hurt that followed. The air, weighted with water, seems to swallow up the sound, like I’m screaming into a pillow. This strange place feels like the jungle wants to devour it; as if the moment humans stop cutting it back, it’ll reclaim what belonged to it. Maybe the ice caps will melt and this place will disappear completely, washed away.

What a good place for someone running from memories, where all of the world’s motion is toward forgetting.





By the time Lawson gets out of the shower, I’m sitting cross-legged on the bed, my hair wrapped up into a towel, dressed in the shorts and tank top I sleep in, tearing into my repossessed lobster. I dip chunks of the sweet white meat into the little container of butter that came with it. Delia just texted me to say that she was getting gas and would be back in about an hour and a half.

“Sorry, dude,” I say, my mouth full, as Lawson emerges. “Couldn’t wait.”

Lawson roars in mock anger, runs up to the bed, and dives on, forcing me to pick up the lobster box at the last second, squealing and giggling. He tickles me, and I squeal some more.

“I’ve heard there’s nothing worse than being hungry in a hotel room,” he says.

“What can I say? I got peckish.”

I tear off a chunk of lobster, dip it in the butter, and feed it to him.

He chews and nods. “Not bad…It’s no pancakes, though.”

“Worth ninety bucks?”

We look at each other for a second and bust up. “No way,” he says.

“What a disaster this night was,” I say. “In every conceivable way.”

Lawson gets a distant, contented look.

“What? What’s that look?”

“There’s one way it wasn’t so bad.”

“What?” I reach up and smooth an errant patch of his damp hair.

“I told you I’d win a fight in front of you someday. Tonight I did.” He beams.

I set the lobster box on the nightstand and stand at the foot of the bed. “Come here. Stand beside me.”

Lawson does as he’s told. I grab his hand. “Aaaaaaand the winner of tonight’s fight—What do I say next? Do I say your name?”

“Yep. Also say how I won. By triangle choke.”

I raise Lawson’s arm. “Aaaaaaand the winner of tonight’s fight, by triangle choke, Lawson ‘Lost in Translation’ Vargas!” I yell the last part so loudly, someone thumps on our ceiling. But we don’t care. Lawson does a backflip onto the bed, bouncing a couple of times, and I flop next to him, and we laugh and kiss a lot.

We may not have forever together, but we have right now.

???

There’s none of the weirdness or awkwardness I feared when we get in bed together to sleep. Just pure snuggliness, both of us smelling like hotel soap.