A Night Drive • Ava Dziadzio

A Night Drive

Ava Dziadzio

I remember that I knew. That night when my phone chimed, I knew the text would be from her. Not thinking but knowing with some deep understanding. I often wonder how I knew. But maybe that was just hope.

Can you go for a drive?

I dropped my pencil on my scattered papers and stared at the screen. I stared at the letters of her message and tried to ignore the swirling mass of excitement and anxiety growing in my stomach. like right now?

Yeah.

I flopped on my back. I still had integrals to solve, Spanish vocab flashcards to flip through, a Tale of Two Cities essay outline to write. I knew logically I should've just stayed in my room and finished my homework like I wanted to. It was already evening, and I was already in my pink polka dot pajamas. And I hated going to sleep with unfinished work. Then I’d have to get up early to do it.

But it was her.

“No,” I whispered to myself. “I need to stay.” I ignored the feeling of disappointment as I gave her a not-so-uncharacteristic-of-me rejection to a social outing. idk lora i have a lot of work left to do

I didn’t even put my phone down before the next chime.

Please? I really need this.

I took a breath. That text was so not Lora. Lora didn’t beg. Lora wasn’t desperate. How could I say no to her? ok i'll be there soon

Thank you.

Two minutes later, I jogged down to the living room where my parents were watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. “Um.” They were engrossed in the film. “I’m gonna go for a drive… if that’s okay…”

My dad kept his eyes on the screen, his attention rapt as if he hadn’t seen the movie seven times already.

But my mom looked at me with her eyebrows raised. “Really? Ok.”

“Yeah, I won’t be back too late or anything.”

She smiled. “Have fun, Kat.” Turning back, she took a sip of her herbal tea. The nice part about virtually never going out is that when you actually want to, your parents never say no. Even if it’s 9:30 on a weeknight. Kate Capshaw screamed on screen. “Oh come on, Dave. This movie is terrible. Can’t we watch something else?”

I chuckled. Any other day, I would’ve loved to join my mother in critiquing a classic. But the thought of Lora waiting for me pulled me away.

Worry started to consume me. What’s up with her? Lora was the epitome of having her life together. She turned in every homework assignment on time, always a 95 or above on a test. She was friendly and charming and sociable. Unmistakably pretty. I’d never even seen her blonde hair in disarray.

As I waited at a stop light, I stared at the neon sign of the Taco Bell on the corner. I wondered why Lora texted me. Why not Rachel or Hannah? Why not her boyfriend Connor? Why not one of the thousands that were always orbiting Lora like planets around the sun?

I met Lora in our freshman American History class. On that nerve-wracking first day of high school, my leg bounced in the seat five minutes before class would start. I glanced at the clock for perhaps the hundredth time when a smiley girl in a floral dress slid into the chair in front of mine and whipped around to introduce herself. Her green eyes sparkled as she told me about all the ways North River was different from Phoenix, and I forgot to be nervous for class. I was happy, proud even, to be the new girl’s first friend.

Lora told me later offhand that she made it her personal mission to make a friend in every class the first day. So, I guess I was actually her third.

My Chevy jumped a little as I toed the gas.

Soon after our meeting, I thankfully befriended some of her other new friends. I’m lucky I got in with them because my middle school friends and I started to like different things (I don’t regret not joining cross country—running sucks. Lora excelled at bringing people together. Or maybe she just never left people out. I assumed that was why she always invited me to the movies and game nights in her basement. She slid up next to me in the hall to chat because she’s just a nice person. She probably just wanted a smart friend to help her study. But as I turned into her subdivision, I considered that maybe that wasn’t true. Don’t kid yourself. I shoved down the hope. I couldn’t go there that night. She needs a friend.

Among the dozens of mini-mansions, I pulled into her driveway. The house stood in darkness. My headlights shined down on Lora sitting on the ground, leaning against the closed garage door. I tried to calm my pulse. She rocked onto her feet and yanked the passenger side door open. By this time “Bob Marley” played softly on the speakers. Not the artist, but a song named after him, which I found amusing. As with a lot of music I listen to, this was a Lora recommendation. Last summer, it granted me peace when I was a week deep into family vacation. Its melody brought me back to being in the mountains, to looking over the edge of a cliff, to pine trees and alpine shrubs and a river of puffy clouds that extended for miles over the valley. I texted her to say the song by Grizfolk made me feel free, like I was an explorer of the great unknown. I didn’t have the courage to ask her why she liked the song or why she thought I would, too.

“Hey.” She smiled, but her eyes stayed on her lap.

“Hi.” I tapped the steering wheel once, twice. “So...” Silence. “Where are we going?”

“Anywhere but here.” Her fingers fiddled with her seatbelt.

I snapped my eyes away. “Oh gosh. What’s up?” I shifted into reverse and pulled away.

“Not much.” My stomach dropped. I’d heard many different answers to “what’s up?” from Lora. My favorite came on a sunny Friday afternoon: “Some would say the sky, but I’d argue that we live and breathe in the atmosphere itself. So, I’d rephrase it as ‘space.’ To answer your question, Katherine, the stars, the moon, and the planets are up!” She was excited for the weekend—Connor’s birthday or something. In that memory she glowed so bright she became the sun itself, radiating the Lora joy and confidence that everyone loves so much.

But that night in my decade-old Impala, she was so dim. I slowed at a red light, and I looked over to her. To really see her. She looked so un-Lora in the crimson glow. Her hair was in a messy bun. No make-up. Connor’s North River High men’s lacrosse hoodie was baggy on her body, and her grey sweatpants had stains. But it wasn’t just the absence of her brightly colored sweaters and curled eyelashes. She stared straight ahead, but her eyes were out of focus. It was like someone had plucked out all her happiness. In my memory of this moment, a dark shadow hangs over her shoulders. If I had seen her in school like this, I wouldn’t have even recognized her.

When her face reflected green light, I pressed on the gas.

We rode in silence for a few minutes. I swallowed once, twice. I didn’t really know where to go, and I got the feeling that Lora didn’t want to talk, so I just went straight forward, watching the yellow headlights’ beam light up the black, curvy road. Lora stared out the window. Led Zeppelin played us “Stairway to Heaven.”

I remember thinking that I hadn’t ever been out this late on a school night. I remember being certain that Lora had.

“I’m sorry, Kat.” Her words amidst the silence startled me. I might’ve swerved a bit. “I never asked you how you are.”

“Oh. Umm... I’m fine, I guess.” I shrugged.

“You’re fine?”

I glanced over to her, and she was looking me in the eyes. I could see the forest green. My heart jumped. I shifted my gaze back to the road.

“Well, I— I guess I’m a bit…stressed,” I managed to say. When she didn’t

say anything, “You know.” I swallowed again. I silently cursed the saliva in my mouth. Is there always this much fucking saliva in my mouth? “With midterms coming up and all.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said absently. “Midterms suck.” She shifted her elbow on the center console to prop her chin on her fist. I pretended not to notice that her arm was touching mine. I ignored the racing thoughts. It’s normal. People touch each other all the time. It’s casual. Stop thinking about it.

“Stressing you out, too?” I said. I told myself to calm the fuck down.

“Well, yeah. I guess.” She sighed. “Gotta study.”

I hesitated. “But it’s not just midterms?” I steeled my gaze on the road ahead. Snowflakes drifted down, dusting the road.

“No. Yeah. Kinda,” she said. “I don’t know.” She rolled her face into her palm.

I frowned. “What don’t you know?” I wasn’t sure where this was going.

“Lots of things,” she mumbled into her shoulder.

“Lora, no. You’re really smart. You know a lot.” Why did she always doubt herself?

She scoffed. “I get good grades, Kat. That doesn’t mean I’m smart.”

“But you are,” I said gently. We passed a sign thanking us for visiting “the quaint Village of North River.” Lora was quiet for a second.

“Kat, is that all you think of me? That I’m smart?” She leaned back against her door to look at me. She really wanted to know. I kept my eyes on the road. How does my face normally look? What do I do with my face? I reined in the thoughts. Focus.

I wondered what was wrong with being smart. Smart’s good, right? But Lora wasn’t just smart. “Well, you’re also super nice.”

“Am I?” She sounded miserable.

“Well.” I swallowed. “I think so. You… um.” I took a breath. More confidently, “You always let me complain about calc. You ask me how I’m doing. You’re really positive.”

“Well, at least there’s that.” She knocked on the window with her knuckles.

“Lora, are you ok? Why did you want to go out tonight?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t stay, you know?”

I knew what that kind of restlessness was like. Of course I did. I only felt it every night I went to bed in the same room I had for the past 17 years dreaming about all that I would see if I could just get out of that town. But I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the same feeling, and I didn’t want to scare her with all that. How close were we?

“Um, maybe?” I said.

“Like…” She scratched at her wrist. “I just couldn’t stand to stay there tonight.”

I huffed a laugh. “I get it. I can’t stand Mrs. Walter’s class sometimes.” I turned to smirk at her, proud of myself for keeping it light, but her imploring face wiped the grin clean off my lips. “What is it?”

“You ever feel like… like you’re stuck? Like you wanna escape, but there’s nowhere to go? I just… just want to… I don’t know.” She leaned back in the seat, exasperated. She may have turned in beautifully crafted essays in English, but words failed her in that moment.

Yep, it was definitely a similar feeling.

We were driving next to the river by then. The moon was almost full, lighting up the blue night. Its silvery beams reflected off the undoubtedly freezing river and shined through the snow-dusted pine trees. The road curved into a straightaway, so I took a few longer glances to the side, toward the river. “I always forget about this,” I said. “It’s beautiful at night.” A thought arose about what else I thought was beautiful. It floated up and almost reached my lips. But I clawed at it first and shoved it down so hard I might’ve bruised it. You have to be more fucking careful.

Lora looked up from her hands fidgeting in her lap and followed my gaze out the window. “Yeah.” She dropped her head to look down again.

My fingers tightened around the wheel once, twice. I was blowing it. I couldn’t stand to see her like that. I turned on the hazards and pulled into the shoulder. The car rumbled as it rolled over the gravel. I twisted the volume knob until the inappropriately cheery song muted. I don’t even remember the song; my worry for Lora was too distracting. She was too distracting.

She looked up. “What are you doing?”

I put the car in park and looked at her. “Lora, you’re not ok.” I didn’t know what else to say. It took all my strength to maintain eye contact as my heart palpitated in my chest. I wanted her to know that I was going to listen. That I cared.

As she looked back at me, tears flooded her eyes. She buried her face into her palms. “Oh God, Kat. I’ve dragged you into my shit.”

I felt so awkward. More than usual. I didn’t know what to do when someone cried. I started to reach out a hand to her, maybe to reassure her. But I stopped myself. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. I just didn’t know what I was doing.

“Well, not really.” I scrunched my nose as I searched for words. “I don’t really know what’s going on.” I told myself to say more, to reassure her somehow. “You can tell me if you want to. Or we can keep driving away from town. Or whatever you need, honestly.”

“God, you have homework to finish.” Her sleeves and tears muffled her words. I wanted to cry seeing her cry. How could I stop it?

“It’s fine, Lora. Forget about me.” I really did mean it. I pushed aside the thoughts of homework. I gladly did it for her.

“You sure?” She peeked at me from behind her hands. Her red-rimmed eyes looked scared. “You have a big test to study for.” I knew Lora would tell me to turn around if I said I needed to go back. But I wasn’t going to let her do that. No way.

“Of course.” I gave her a little smile. “It’s just a quiz.”

She sat back. She used her sleeves to wipe her face then took a breath. She couldn’t go back to that dark house. I didn’t have to ask if her parents were out of town again. I knew that they were rarely home. Lora said they traveled a lot for work, but she didn’t explain much else. I could tell she didn’t really want to talk about it ever, so I didn’t ask.

Maybe she wanted to get away from that solitude. It must’ve been hard for her to be home alone so much. At the time, I was jealous. I thought I would’ve loved to eat dinner on the couch by myself and watch whatever I wanted every night. I loved my parents, but I loved the bliss of alone time. Thoughts about who I wouldn’t ever mind having around floated up. A warm image started to form, but I scrubbed it away.

I hadn’t turned the volume back up, so it was still silent. I didn’t know what Lora wanted, so I pointed to the aux cord questioningly. She unlocked my phone and shuffled a new playlist, twisting the knob again. Lorde’s mystical voice filled my car. Lora’s breaths were steady by then. We both stared at the river.

“You never answered my question, by the way,” she said.

“Hmm?”

“You ever feel stuck sometimes?”

“Um, yeah.” More than you know. “School work can really be a lot. I wish we could graduate already.”

“Yeah.” A silver car shot past us on the left. “Honestly, I don’t know what to do after graduation.”

“What?” This was news to me. It seemed like a given that a year from now she’d be reading on the manicured lawns of an ivy league school. “You haven’t been applying?”

“No, I have. But I don’t know where I want to go.” She hesitated. “Or if I want to go.”

“Well, college isn’t for everyone. It’s okay to do something else.”

“Oh, says Katherine the Brain.” I laughed, and that made her lips tug upward. That’s a nickname she gave me in sophomore year when I aced the first geometry test we took.

“Yeah, like I’m the smart one here,” I said.

“You are! You’re going places, kid.” She sighed. “I wish I could say the same for me.” I shook my head. Lora never believed in herself. Her grades were like mine, but she had a much more impressive college application than I did. Theatre, soccer, student council. What didn’t Lora do, or at least try? She probably tried out for every single team, auditioned for every role, and attended every club meeting she possibly could freshman year.

I asked her once how she could be so brave like that. “I just had to be. I was new,” she said. But if I was the new kid somewhere, I would regress even further into the shadows. She truly wanted to be different here, to make friends and be herself, and so she just did it. I admired that. I still do.

I watched her in the passenger seat. She was looking at her hands again. “I don’t understand how you could say that,” I said. “Honestly, you could go anywhere you applied. You could get any job you wanted.” I hesitated for a moment. “You can make it to June.”

“Thanks, Kat.” She looked up and caught my eye. My heart fluttered. “You will, too.” And then we were just smiling at each other. I tried to ignore my heart. In my memory, its beat shook the whole car. I tried to ignore the feeling of warmth, the wanting to look into her eyes forever. But it was hard to think. To control the thoughts.

Then she started to slowly nod. Full nods from her chest to the head rest. She looked to the side. Her brow furrowed and her eyes glimmered.

“What is it?” I grinned. She was getting goofy again.

“Katherine.” She said it like a declaration.

“Lora.”

That made her grin at me. “We need ice cream.”

“Of course.” I put the Impala in drive. “It’s not the middle of winter or anything.”

“I know you want it too.” She wiggled her shoulders up and down. I laughed.

It was nearing 11 at that point, but we were almost to the next town. I asked her if the McDonald’s there was ok. “My treat,” I said.

“No!” She smacked my shoulder. “No way, you drove! Allow me,” she said.

“What? No.”

“No, no protests from you, Miss Katherine.” She waved her finger around like a scepter. “I doth declare to provide thee with a fine dessert from Sir McDonald.” She giggled at herself.

I laughed. “Fine.”

The Jonas Brothers serenaded us as we downed our M&M McFlurries driving back. Lora pulled up a bite and examined it. “These spoons are so weird.”

I laughed. “I told you before, they attach the weird end to the machine to mix it all up. It’s more sanitary or something.”

“Aren’t the McDonald’s ice cream machines like always breaking down because the machines aren’t cleaned well enough?” she asked.

I shrugged. She considered that for a moment, then took the bite anyway. We laughed and chatted all the way back to North River.

When I pulled into her driveway, she unbuckled then paused. “Thanks, Kat.”

“No problem, Lora.” In this part in my memory, the shadows have gone away. Her face looks luminous again.

“No, really.” She reached over to squeeze my hand. My heart jumped. “Thank you. You’re good to me.”

“Anytime.” She glanced up at me questioningly. “Really,” I added. She lingered there for a second, looking at me, her hand still on mine. She looked down at it and pulled away. She stared at her dark house. I really didn’t want to leave her there. “Are you okay now?” I asked.

“I’m better,” she said. “Thanks to you.” My heart jumped again. I told it reflexively to stop. Maybe it was the ice cream or the late hour or what she just said right then, but a flash of courage overcame me.

“Why did you text me?” I blurted.

She looked confused. “What do you mean, Kat?”

“Why not Rachel or Hannah? Aren’t you closer with them? I mean, not that I’m not happy you texted me because I had fun, and I like hanging out with you. Like, I really like hanging out with you, but I just thought...” I felt my face burn. In my memory, it glows red like a hot plate. Shut up, Kat.

She was amused. “I like hanging out with you too,” she said. “That’s why I texted you, dummy.” When I glanced over at her, she changed her smirk into a look of sincerity. “And I knew that you’d make me feel better.”

That panged something in my chest. I knew I should have just taken it, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“But why not Connor?”

“Oh.” She stopped smiling. She looked away, then back at me. “Well... we broke up.”

“Oh.” I did not expect that. At all. I looked at my lap. “I’m sorry.” I pushed down a smile, a surge of emotions. I scolded myself, you should be sad for her, what are you thinking? I pushed harder. I didn’t want to confront this. No, no, no. Not there, with her six inches from me.

“Yeah, well I thought I was too,” she said. “That’s why I texted. I was upset. For that and, well, everything else. It all bubbled up when I hung up, you know?” Damn, over the phone, Connor? That’s low.

“Yeah.” I didn’t know what to say. “Are you ok?”

She huffed a laugh. “You already asked me that, Kat.”

“Well, you just broke up with someone. Or he broke up with you, or...”

“Uh, well.” She looked down at her hands. “It kinda just happened, I guess.” She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I think he was bored.” There wasn’t hurt in her voice. I was so confused. They really seemed great together. She was wearing his sweatshirt. What was going on? Shush.

“And, uhh...” Her hands fidgeted, curling around each other. Her eyes roamed over like they’d tell her the right words. “Um, I realized...” She paused. I held my breath. What could she possibly say? “I realized that I liked someone else.” She looked up at me, her lips pressed together in a tight smile. Her eyes looked terrified. Hope glimmered. Stop, I told it. But was that feeling wrong?

“Oh?” I didn’t dare say anything more. I couldn’t. I sucked my lips together. What was she saying? My heart thumped in my chest.

She smiled shyly at me. “Yeah.” Her cheeks pinkened, and her hands held each other so tight a knuckle cracked.

I couldn’t form words. Hope was swinging through me like a trapeze artist. My words were trapped. I couldn’t be wrong. I didn’t want to be wrong. It was hard to breathe.

“Yeah,” she said again. She kept smiling at me. “She’s pretty awesome.” She reached up to scratch her head, hiding her face.

“Yeah?” I breathed out. She?! I hoped my face was doing the talking. Conveying what I wish I had the courage to say.

“Yeah. Honestly, she is the best friend I have.” My gut squeezed. Her gaze fell on her hands again. I implored my mouth to speak, but it was stuck. Of course I knew what it was like to feel stuck Lora, I wanted to scream. I’ve felt stuck since the day I met you. Since I couldn’t get that sunshine girl out of my head and I was too scared to do anything about it.

She couldn’t take the silence. Her fingers found the door handle. “I’ll... see you tomorrow, Kat.” She opened the door. No! I panicked. I couldn’t let her leave. Not like this. This was my moment. This was how I could become unstuck. Maybe we both could. Speak!

“Lora?” She whipped her head back. Her eyebrows raised, her green eyes filled with fear and hope. I swallowed. “I like you, too.”

She beamed, which sent the trapeze girl soaring. She squeezed my hand, and the girl flying inside flipped three times.

“Tomorrow, Katherine.” she whispered, squeezing for emphasis. “I’ll see your lovely face tomorrow.”

I nodded. I couldn’t say anything else. She squeezed my hand one more time then slid out of the car. When she closed the door, I let a big breath out. 33

Holy fucking shit. She bent down to smile and wave at me through the window. I smiled back. Then she skipped up to the big, empty house, the McFlurry cups in her left hand. I hoped it didn’t feel as empty to her anymore.

I smiled all the way home. And gushed. And screamed the lyrics to One Direction songs. I didn’t quite believe that it was real.

When I pulled into my driveway, I had to steady myself. I took a few deep breaths then shut the ignition off. When I picked up my phone, I saw that I had a text from her. My heart raced again. Did she change her mind? I hastily unlocked it.

It was a link to an article explaining why the McDonald’s ice cream machines were never working.

It’s BECAUSE they’re being cleaned. It takes 4 hours!

I laughed. My whole body was trembling. that gives me a little peace of mind i guess haha

Lol. Me too. Maybe we could get something better next time. Like gelato??

I beamed. It was real. This was happening. it's a date ;)