respite

Hester is out her window before I stop in front of her house. Her footsteps hit heavy on the shingles as she marches across the roof and clambers down to the grass below. I glance at my phone. Her text reads come get me—no explanation—but I figure it out soon enough as she stalks beneath the street lamp. Her hair flashes box-dyed red in the light, which means she had another screaming match with her mom. Last time it was electric blue. Last time she cried into my shoulder until her cheeks were chaffed from wiping the tears away with her sleeve.

Stars scatter the sky above the houses and a full moon hangs low, so broad and deep I could cup my hands and drink from it. The car windows are open. The air coming in has the slightest graze of teeth, nipping cold at my neck, but I love the ripple of shivers it sends through my body. It makes me feel awake. I wish it didn’t take darkness to finally light me up this way. I wish I could feel alive in the daylight.

Hester slams the car door. I jump, snapping my gaze from the sky to her. The force of her getting in rocks the vehicle, makes the suspension groan. Her back is rigid, fists clenched. 

“Go,” she says before I can speak, then quieter: “Please.”

I put the truck in first and pop the clutch, beginning to roll forward. With each yard we put between us and her house, the more she slouches, until she’s practically melted into the passenger seat, staring out the window with her chin on her fist, silent. 

I think about tucking stray wisps of hair behind her ear, but Hester doesn’t like to be fixed up. She likes it when she’s made into a mess, when her hair frizzes wild and her shirt hangs crooked, when her lipstick leaves signatures on everything—coffee lids, cigarettes, skin. Besides, we’re still in town, where someone could look out their window and see two girls in a truck, the driver reaching out to touch the other’s cheek, brush her thumb over her temple. I’m scared someone will see, and of course they’ll recognize the two of us from the total population of a thousand people, and they might take it upon themselves to inform the town exactly what goes on at night around here. So instead of touching her like I want to, I reach over and tap the seat belt clip with my nail. Hester turns toward the soft click click. 

“Safety first,” I whisper. I always whisper with her, because I’m scared someone will hear us, because I know there’s enough yelling in her house to last a lifetime. 

A moment later the seat belt retractor zips and the buckle latches in place. If Hester looks at me, I can’t tell, because I’m too busy negotiating a road that’s more pothole than pavement. I can’t afford to be fucking up the suspension any more than it already is. 

The radio fuzzes out as we drive toward the edge of town, and I offer Hester the aux cord. I know she spends time on her playlists to make sure they drown out her parents’ shouting in the living room. Sometimes we spend our drives just listening. I’m never sure what she’ll play, and I love the excitement of something new. I’ll take whatever scrap of it I can get here.

Hester shakes her head at my offer. My brow digs over my eyes, concern wrinkling the skin. She speaks before I can ask what’s wrong.

“I don’t want to hear anyone else tonight,” she says, so, so soft. “Just you.”

My inhale catches between my lips. I didn’t think a few words could undo me like this. I didn’t think tears could come this fast but they do now, throat tightening, eyes burning. I swallow away a sob. Is it too much to wish she could say that under the sun, not the moon? Is it too much to wish I didn’t feel as scared as I am happy? Is it too much to wish we didn’t need to whisper and hide?         

We hit the highway and I manage to ask her, “Where do you want to go?” but I mean something else. We always go the same route, tracing a circle around the town limits, taking roads out only to turn back in. It’s the longest I can drive without making the gas meter drop far enough for my father to notice, and in a small town in fuck-all nowhere, the gas station closes at ten so I can’t refill. I’m always so careful to leave things the way I find them. Make it seem as though I—we—were never there. But tonight I ask Hester where she wants to go because tonight she climbed out her window and stomped along the roof as though she didn’t care if her parents woke up, because she said she just wants to hear me, because tonight is different, because part of me is hoping she’ll say—

“Wherever’s farthest from here.”

I glance at her. She’s looking at me. Our eyes meet and I know she means it. 

We’re alone on the highway, the road reaching out smoothly ahead of us, and I stretch in the seat—too scared to move it from my father’s position in case he notices, in case he finds out—and push my foot down on the gas. There’s a lag, then the car heaves forward. The speedometer crests the semicircle and plummets right. I love the snarl of the engine so much I nearly forget to shift into a higher gear.

I risk a look over my shoulder, watch that quicksand town wink in and out of my vision the farther away we get. Firecrackers erupt in my chest, and I let out a wordless shout so loud it startles me. When I turn back to the road, I catch the crooked curve of a smile on Hester’s lips. She lets me see it before she looks back out at the blurring scenery. 

I think I’m the only one who’s seen Hester smile in the past year. She saves them for me, tucks them away for when we’re together, these moments of secrecy and darkness. I’d love to see one in the daylight, but until I can, I’ll covet these flickers of her teeth behind stains of lipstick. I remember when she wouldn’t smile because she had braces, and I remember when the dentist removed them and she still didn’t smile, because smiles were all she had to give and she would not give them to this place.

But she gives one to me tonight and I shoot down the highway like a falling star. 

It’s only when I can’t see the town in the rearview that I slow down. I don’t want any reminder of it. Tonight it’s not about the cramped houses with arguments clinging to the walls like cigarette smoke. It’s not about the fear of being caught together, or the fear that we’ll live and die here just like our parents, just like everyone else. Tonight it’s just Hester and me and the endless highway.

I fuck up the next shift, going down to fifth too early and making the car buck. A grunted “shit” escapes me, and Hester’s hand rests on my knee. I can’t stop my gaze from finding her. She looks back at me, her brown eyes so dark they’re almost black. I have to turn back to the road, but her hand stays on my knee, her pointer finger running circles on the inside of my leg. I’ve never been this far with her. Never had the chance to. Never passed the town borders, never not felt afraid when we touch. 

We used to park during our drives, way back in the overgrown lot of the middle school playground. We used to try, with trembling, unsure hands and shaking breaths, but neither of us could stand staying in one place for long. Stagnant. Stationary. Everything we don’t want to be. So we move now. I drive and Hester gives me smiles, and I imagine one day I’ll be able to kiss those smiles without fear. I imagine everything will be better when we’re out of this place and can speak and touch and love freely, and the weight of her hand on my knee won’t feel illegal. 

She traces the shapes of things she can’t say against my leg and my heart rate climbs. When I reach to shift again, my hand shakes.

Then her hand is on mine, moved from my knee. She helps me shift from fifth to fourth, her cool fingers slipping between my own, and when her wrist rests against my skin I feel her pulse running as fast as my own. I want to tell her this, I want to tell her so many things, but my throat constricts and traps those words in my chest.

Hester squeezes my hand. She knows.

So I drive.