BSC Fic: On the Road (Dawn/Sunny)
Dizzy asked for any character in the Yuletide BSC tagset and for the writer to queer up the world. I am all about writing lesbian and bisexual stories about the BSC girls, but never expected this story to expand as far as it did. I decided early on that I wanted to write about Dawn and Jeff on a road trip, because I love siblings on road trips, and as soon as I figured out that the tension would come from Dawn and Sunny having to deal with each other in that post-high school graduation tenuous space, everything came together very quickly, at least for the first draft. I loved writing about how Dawn and Sunny had changed, while still working in references and details and styles from the books.
Title: On the Road
Author: escritoireazul
Characters/Pairings: Dawn Schafer/Sunny Winslow, Jeff Schafer, Carol Schafer, Jack Schafer
Author's Note: This is a transformative work of fiction set after both BSC and California Diaries.
Written for: dizzy for Yuletide 2015
Word count: 10,800
Rating: 13+
Read at AO3.
Summary: Sunshine Daydream Winslow crashes Dawn and Jeff's great road trip adventure, even though Dawn hasn't spoken to her for more than three years.
So yeah. That'll be fun.
I take dreams very seriously. I believe they can even predict the future.
Dawn Schafer, Dawn and Too Many Sitters, BSC #98
0.
Dawn dreams of the open road spooling out before her, beautiful black pavement, freshly painted, bright yellow lines, and a perfect blue sky stretching into the distance until the ribbon of the road disappears into it.
She drives with her windows down, sun warm on her face through the windshield, wind picking up her blond hair and tossing it into disarray. Her hair is short, just long enough to tickle across her chin, and the car isn't the one she was given when she turned sixteen.
The horizon calls to her, and beyond it, something more.
Dawn curls her fingers in the warm fresh air, sunshine on her skin, and closes her eyes as she drives into the rising sun.
1.
“Come on, think about it, Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, it’ll be awesome.” Jeff flashed me a wide grin, one I suspected he meant to be winsome and convincing. “You love San Fran.”
True. I had grown to love San Francisco, its narrow streets and tall buildings, and how different it felt from sunny, spacious Los Angeles, and there were so many things I wanted to see there, places I’d read about but never visited. Places for people like me.
No way in hell was I going to hit those spots with my baby brother tagging along.
“We’ve already done the northern route,” I reminded him. When I was thirteen, Dad had driven an RV from New York to California as a favor for a friend of his, and he’d taken Jeff and me with him, along with a bunch of my middle school friends. We’d driven from Stoneybrook, Connecticut, where my mom and step-family lived and where Jeff and I were visiting that summer, to Los Angeles via Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, and San Francisco. It was wonderful, if a convoluted path, one of the best experiences of my life back then, but it felt like a long time ago. I'd literally already been there and done that.
I wanted to see another part of the country.
“It’s a pretty drive,” Dad said. “Plenty of places we didn’t hit.” We had a big, brand new atlas open on the kitchen table, because plotting out my graduation road trip was a family affair.
“Great places just here in California,” Carol, my step-mother, agreed. “You should take your time, spend a couple days in Santa Cruz, visit Half Moon Bay, and definitely spend some time in San Francisco. I have friends in Bernal Heights, they would be happy to show you around.” She smiled at me, and there was something in that expression that made it hard to meet her eyes, something all too knowing and a little sad.
Carol looked at me like that a lot lately. At first, I wrote it off as empty nest syndrome - not that her nest was empty, with Jeff and little Gracie still at home, but my senior year was filled with “lasts” (last first day of school, last first volleyball practice, last last volleyball practice, last Homecoming, last Prom), and she had been sentimental for each one - but I wasn’t completely convinced that’s what was really going on.
Lately, Carol looked at me like she could see straight through me, straight to all the weird sadness and insecurities that had been plaguing me all year.
This road trip was supposed to be my time to catch my breath and really think about who I was and who I wanted to be before I started college in the fall. Instead of flying out for my summer visit with my East Coast family, I would have the time and space to think, and the opportunity to see more of the country.
“Southern route,” I said, and smiled, hoping it looked happier and more natural than it felt. I wasn’t actually bitter that Dad had convinced me to bring Jeff with me, but I was sad that I wouldn’t have all that time to myself. “There are so many states I’ve never visited. I want to experience the world.” That was mostly true. I wanted adventure. I just wasn't sure I was ready for it. Definitely not ready for school in the fall.
“Of course you do, Sunshine.” Dad slung his arm across his shoulders and hugged me, looking a little teary. “You’re growing up so fast, and there’s a great big world out there.”
I leaned into him, a little bit annoyed - I turned eighteen in February, I wasn’t a kid anymore - but mostly touched. I was very lucky to have such a great life, such wonderful families, and I needed to be careful not to forget that.
Dad squeezed me one more time, then let go, and the four of us turned back to the map, plotting out a great drive.
*
I’ve thrown a lot of names at you, and there are more to come, so I should give you some background. I’m Dawn Schafer, and I’m eighteen years old. I just graduated from Vista High School in Palo City, California, where I have lived most of my life. I live with my dad and step-mother, Carol, my younger brother, Jeff, and my baby sister, Gracie. (Gracie is technically my half-sister, because Carol is her mother, but she just feels like a sister to me.) I have a bunch of great friends here, and I absolutely love southern California, all sunshine and surf and beach volleyball. This is Life #1.
When I was twelve and Jeff nine, our parents got divorced, and we moved with our mom all the way across the country to Stoneybrook, Connecticut, in the middle of winter, which is the worst possible time we could have gone. Mom grew up in Stoneybrook, and wanted to be closer to her parents. Jeff pretty much hated everything about Connecticut and moved back to live with Dad almost right away, but I loved it there. Well, I hated the cold and the snow and the lack of great vegetarian options and the way everyone ate junk food all the time and how tiny the beaches were and how different the Atlantic Ocean was from the Pacific, but I loved everything else.
In particular, I loved my East Coast best friend, Mary Anne Spier. She befriended me when I knew absolutely no one else, and she was still my closest friend, despite the distance. (I used to have a West Coast best friend, too, but we stopped speaking freshman year, and though we managed to be in the same class without fighting last year, it’s been awkward ever since. I doubted I’d see her again now that we graduated.) Mary Anne not only introduced me to all her friends, who became some of the best friends of my life, but we also sparked a romance between our parents.
See, we found out my mom and her dad had been high school sweethearts, but my grandparents didn’t think Richard, Mary Anne’s dad, was good enough for my mom, so they sent her to California for college, where she met my dad, and, well, you know what happened. Richard, meanwhile, met and married Mary Anne’s mom, but she died when Mary Anne was just a little girl. Eventually, Mom and Richard got married, and though everything was a little rough when we first moved in together, things have smoothed out, and I love my Stoneybrook family a lot. That is Life #2.
Even though I really did grow to like Stoneybrook, and I adored my friends and family, I eventually became too homesick for California and moved back. I spend most of my time in Life #1, and all my long breaks from high school in Life #2 (most of Christmas break, a huge chunk of the summer, and sometimes spring break too). I knew what to expect in both lives, I had friends and boyfriends, and I did really well at school and in my extracurricular activities.
The problem was, come fall, I wasn’t going to live Life #1 or Life #2. Though I’d been accepted to colleges in both places (well, Boston, which was pretty close to Connecticut), in the end, I decided to go to Duke University. I planned to study environmental sciences, and they had a great program. I wasn’t sure how I would like the south, or living so far from the Pacific again, but I was open to the experience. Or at least I was back in December, when I weighed all my acceptances, spent hours talking things out with Mary Anne and my closest Palo City friend, Amalia, and decided that moving to North Carolina sounded like an excellent idea.
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
I’d been California Girl Dawn, Divorced Family Dawn, Bicoastal Dawn, Frozen Connecticut Dawn, California Girl Dawn again, but I wasn’t sure I knew how to be Just Dawn, in a brand new place not surrounded by my friends and family. I’d started over a couple times already, but never on my own.
I’d tried to talk about this stuff with Mary Anne, but couldn’t find the words. She was so excited about college; she had been accepted at NYU in her beloved New York City, and was already sad about leaving Mom and Richard behind, but thrilled to be off on a grand new adventure. Amalia was sticking close to home, too, headed to USC right in Los Angeles, but was just as full of giddy excitement.
I couldn’t talk to my closest friends, and my families were so proud I couldn’t tell them I was having second thoughts. I checked my horoscope regularly, had my cards read, spent time meditating, tried to make pro and con lists, but nothing worked. I had no clarity, no confidence, and I had no idea how to handle these feelings of doubt.
I need a break from both lives, but now that I was taking Jeff with me, I wasn’t going to get it.
*
In order to miss the worst of the traffic, Jeff and I planned to leave mid-morning, after Dad and Carol left for work, and Gracie went to daycare. Jeff, ever a night owl, woke up early enough to say good-bye, even though I didn’t expect him to get up on time. He dragged himself into the kitchen to have breakfast with everyone, and I couldn’t stop my grin as I smeared all natural peanut butter on multi-grain toast. His hair was a mess, standing up on end, and his eyes were squinted shut; I was struck with a moment of pure giddiness. Yeah, I’d originally wanted to make this drive on my own, but Jeff was a great brother, and we could still have fun, just the two of us.
Our good-byes were tearful, as always. Carol hugged me tight, and I buried my face against her shoulder for a moment.
“Be so good to yourself,” she murmured, stroking my long blonde hair. (It’s almost down to my thighs; I get it trimmed a couple times a year, but never more than an inch or two at a time.) “Do something wild. Make choices you wouldn’t normally make.”
She pulled back, but didn’t let me go, instead held me at arms’ length and stared at me, looking for something I didn’t understand. “Be wild, Dawnie. You’ve been so responsible all these years. Have a little fun.” Carol dropped her hands to mine, squeezed them quickly, and then hurried out to the car.
(When I double checked my purse before we left, I found an envelope from her with a note saying much the same, reminding me how proud she was of me, and a few crisp hundred dollar bills. Oh, Carol.)
“Jeff!” I shouted, twisting one foot impatiently. “Hurry up, we’re supposed to be on the road by now.”
Even though he’d gotten up early, he had dragged around the last couple hours -- I think he even passed out for a short nap -- and now if we didn’t hurry, we would start the trip way behind schedule.
“Just looking for my headphones,” he called, and I rolled my eyes. He lost them maybe three times a week. I hoped it wouldn’t take him long to track them down this time. Instead of waiting around, I grabbed my purse and headed out to double check everything was in the car.
Our bags: check. Phone charger and adapter to charge it through the cigarette lighter: check. (And the only way that thing would be used. Cigarettes are unhealthy, gross, and absolutely terrible for the environment.) Auxiliary cord to plug our phones into the stereo: check.
Former best friend leaning casually against the driver’s door? Check.
I stopped in the middle of the yard, and for a long moment, all I could do was stare at her. She looked so different than the bright, cheerful girl I met when we were kids. Her blonde hair was cut short, just long enough for it to fall across her face and brush her chin, and had chunky black and red stripes strategically threaded through it. She had a stud in her nose, and wore a tank top and baggy jeans with the knees blown out. Bare feet, dark red toenail polish. Worn olive green canvas backpack on the ground next to her feet. Strappy flat sandals abandoned next to it.
Sunshine Daydream Winslow had once been my very best friend, and, though I rarely admitted it even to myself, the biggest reason I moved back to California. Back then, I’d known her better than I knew myself, and told her all my secrets.
We hadn’t been that close for a very long time, and as big as my secrets had felt back then, the things I hadn't told her since loomed even larger between us.
“Sunny,” I said, then stopped, because I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Hi, Dawn.” She didn’t smile, but shook her hair out of her face so I could see her eyes. “Room for one more?”
2.
We took the 15 up to Barstow, where we caught Interstate 40, which would take us about halfway across the country. It went all the way to North Carolina, but I planned to cut north before then. I wasn’t ready to see my new state, especially not with Sunny in tow.
I didn’t know why I hadn't told her no.
Jeff sprawled in the backseat, headphones on, shoes off. Sometimes, he would snore a little, but the radio was up loud enough I barely heard him. He’d gone all wide eyed when he came out of the house and saw Sunny throwing her bag into the front seat.
What the fuck? he mouthed, and all I could do was shrug. He frowned at me, but climbed into the backseat without griping. Traffic was still heavy enough that I could focus on the road instead of talking, and by the time we were clear of it, we’d been quiet so long I wasn’t sure how to break the silence.
I sneaked glances at Sunny out of the corner of my eye. She sat cross-legged, her head resting on the back of the seat, tilted so she could stare out the window, her backpack on the floor in front of her. She twined colorful string around her fingers, twisting it into knots without looking at it.
Maybe I’d agreed to let her come along because I was hoping to make amends before I moved away. Though I didn’t let myself dwell on her, I had missed her over the years, especially lately. When I struggled to find the right words to explain things to Mary Anne and Amalia, a small part of me that I couldn’t quite squash wanted to pour my heart out to Sunny. Before our falling out, she’d always been able to understand me, whether I found the right words or not. She’d listen, stroke my hair, and then say something sensible.
But that Sunny had disappeared after her mother died, and I knew I’d never get her back.
Mrs. Winslow was a wonderful, sweet, loving artist who adored Sunny. Losing her was like losing a mother myself, but no matter how sad I was, I doubted I would ever understand the depth of Sunny’s mourning. Mrs. Wilson raged, raged against the dying of the light, but she died anyway, and Sunny’s light died with her, leaving only fury behind.
I didn’t know this new Sunny. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Her mother died when we were in eighth grade, and Sunny lashed out. She started partying, made stupid decisions, skipped school, stopped coming home at night - I tried to save her, tried hard to keep being a good friend, but she pushed me away and she pushed me away, and finally, I snapped.
That’s not really fair. I wasn’t perfect back then. I’m not perfect now. I really did try to be a good friend, but I didn’t understand why she kept doing the things she was doing, why she made the choices she made, and I wasn’t as supportive as I could have been. I was scared for her, scared of what she was going to do, and I lashed out, tried to make her see that she was making the wrong choices. I can be judgmental, and that side of me was at its worst back then.
She abandoned me, shut me out, and I had no idea how to deal with that, not back then, and not now, either.
Neither of us made great decisions at thirteen.
So now I haven’t even tried to have a conversation with her, not even just a casual small talk one, since freshman year, and we’re going to be locked in this car for the next two weeks. All because when faced with her, I clammed up, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, could only jerkily nod my head and unlock the car for her.
I glanced at her again, and this time, I found her watching me instead of the scenery. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look away, either, and heat flooded my cheeks. I jerked my eyes back to the road and focused on it as hard as I could.
Sunny’s breath matched mine perfectly. Once I noticed it, I couldn’t stop being aware.
*
“I’m hungry,” Jeff whined, hooking his arms over the front seat and leaning up between us. For a second, he sounded like a kid again, nine years old and griping about the Connecticut cold. “And I’ve gotta piss. When are we stopping?”
“Soon.” My voice sounded rough, and stuck a little in my throat. Too many hours without saying any of the words that boiled up, choking themselves off before any escaped.
Google Maps estimated it would take less than three hours to reach Barstow, but, as usual, it was way off due to traffic. The original plan called for a stop there so I could stretch my legs and take a break from driving, but it had been more than three hours, and we weren't close enough to push through.
“Come on, Dawn,” Jeff said, and flopped backward. “I’ve gotta go!”
“This trip is going to take forever if you have to pee every couple hours,” I told him. “Buckle up.”
I caught him in the rear-view mirror, rolling his eyes, but at least he listened to me. In return, I took the next exit, and hit up the first gas station I saw, a cramped little one with bathrooms around back. Jeff took off running, while I took the time to stand in the sun and stretch, pushing my arms high over my head, my hands linked together, and then reaching for my toes.
When I straightened, I found Sunny watching me over the hood of the car. At least, I think she watched me. She wore giant sunglasses that were so dark I couldn’t see her eyes. There wasn’t anyone else too close, though.
“Want anything?” she asked, her voice a little raspy. Maybe it was from all the silence between us. I hoped she hadn’t taken up smoking. That would just be stupid, after her mother died from lung cancer. It would just be stupid, period.
I shook my head. “There’s granola bars and jugs of water in the cooler,” I said. There, that was a whole sentence, and I hadn’t stumbled over it once. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” She rolled her shoulders forward and back. “I’m going to grab a tea.”
I looked away before she turned around, and decided to go ahead and fill up the tank while I waited, then hit the bathroom myself. When I came out, Sunny and Jeff were both waiting for me, leaning against the trunk. Jeff said something, and she laughed, tipped her head back, and sunlight touched her face.
“Let’s go,” I snapped, though I hadn’t meant to be so harsh. “We’re way behind schedule.”
“God, Dawn, chill.” Jeff rolled his eyes again, but sprawled across the backseat.
“Buckle up,” I reminded him yet again. Then, a little softer, because I was trying. “Hand me a couple granola bars, please.”
He dropped them into my hand, and I bit back a little shriek. They were cold from the ice at the bottom of the cooler. I dropped them onto the seat next to me, made sure my seat belt was buckled, and pulled away from the gas pumps.
We weren’t too far out of Barstow, but instead of stopping, I blew through it, getting onto Interstate 40 as fast as I could. Traffic was heavy there, but tapered off once we were clear of it and headed for the Arizona state line. I wanted to keep going until we reached Flagstaff before we stopped for the night.
But first, we had to cross the Mojave Desert.
The desert stretched out around us, flat and brown and gray, few trees, scrabbly little bushes. It made my skin itch, all that heat and dust and wide open skies, only hardy living things. People drove with their windows closed tight, their eyes covered in sunglasses, looking neither right nor left.
We were soft, running water and air conditioning, and the desert was the absolute opposite of that. Death in dryness and desolation.
It was terrible and beautiful all at once, and my eyes started to blur as I stared at the road ribboning out before us, far into the distance, nothing to break it up.
“Get your kicks,” Sunny said out of nowhere. I jerked the wheel a little, but managed to keep the car off the rumble strips along the edge of the road.
“What?”
“Route 66.” She shifted her weight and pulled her legs up, bare feet on the seat, knees drawn to her chest. “That old highway from Chicago to L.A.”
I glanced at her, but couldn’t read her expression. Once, I’d been able to guess her every thought. It was weird, sitting so close to her again without actually knowing anything about who she was now. “You a big Route 66 fan?” I asked at last.
She laughed a little. “You remember that Pixar movie, Cars? Charlie, this kid I baby-sit, is obsessed with it, and Route 66. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve had to make up about it to tell her.”
“You still baby-sit?” I couldn’t hide my shock. Baby-sitting was something we’d shared once. We even had a club for awhile, the We <3 Kids Club, with two other friends, and were super popular with all the local parents. That faded when we went to high school, and I figured Sunny had long thought herself too cool for kids.
She shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes. I have a couple regulars. Pays better than working at the mall, and it gets me away from the store.” Her father owned a local bookstore. I missed it a lot, but never went in anymore because I wasn’t ready to see her outside of school. If I’d known she wasn’t working there much, I would have shopped locally instead of online. That sort of thing is very important.
I realized Sunny had said something I didn’t catch. “What?” I asked, embarrassed to have been caught lost in thought.
“Do you sit anymore?” she repeated.
I shook my head. “No time, really. I see Whitney sometimes, and Clover and Daffodil still invite me to their birthday parties, but that’s about it.”
“Huh.” Sunny shifted around. “I thought you’d baby-sit longer than any of us.”
What was that supposed to mean? I frowned, but kept my gaze focused on the road. “Are you saying I’m childish? I’m not Jill.”
She made a noise that was pretty much a laugh, though there wasn’t any joy to it. “You’re reading a lot into a single sentence,” she said after a moment. “Are you worried that you haven’t grown up enough?”
“Grown up enough for what?” I sputtered. “That’s - that’s stupid.”
I caught her shrug out of the corner of my eye. “Okay,” she said, voice mild. “I just meant that you really loved baby-sitting. Our club, the club in Stoneybrook, you’re the only one who was a member of both at the same time. Baby-sitting was a big part of your life.”
The problem was, she was right. I loved baby-sitting because I loved kids, and I missed it a lot. I hadn’t lied about why I quit, I was really busy, but I could have squeezed it in somehow. It just wasn’t the whole reason. At first, I needed a break, because it reminded me too much of Sunny, and how much I missed the girl who had been my best friend for so many years. Then, when I tried to start sitting again, I noticed that I felt like I had to be something I wasn’t, the girl I’d been at eleven and twelve and thirteen, trapped in the sweet, smart, sunshine-y girl everyone expected me to be. Passionate about the environment and healthy eating. Easygoing, laid back, casual.
Straight.
3.
Jeff was a life saver. He broke the awkward silence after only about half an hour, and started chatting with Sunny about high school and basketball and surfing. She twisted around in her sit so that she could see him better, which let me cast quick glances at her without her catching me at it.
I wasn’t angry at her any longer. I should have never been, probably, because even back then I knew she was going through a lot, but emotions aren’t easy and clean like that. Though it had taken me a long time to figure it out, my response had just as much to do with me as with her. I’d been so caught up in my own crap, and at the time, I hadn't even known it.
We kept driving until almost nine, and then found a hotel for the night. It was pretty middle of the road as far as cost and amenities went, but there was an outdoor pool and a restaurant next door where we all found something to eat.
Jeff commandeered the television, messaging his friends so much I didn’t think he could possibly pay attention to what he was watching, but I didn’t say anything. I was too distracted myself.
As soon as we got back to the hotel, Sunny had showered and changed into an old Vanish band shirt, soft and faded, and gray cotton shorts, the hems fraying. She was a good four inches shorter than me, but her legs looked a mile long, and, god, she had reduced me to clichés.
“Want to go for a walk?” she asked, surprising me.
I shrugged, but hauled myself off the floor and slipped on my flipflops. They slapped pleasantly against my heels as we walked around the building. I thought Sunny would head to the sidewalk, but instead she led me over to the pool. It was surrounded by a short metal fence, but the gate wasn’t locked, even though there was a big sign clearly stating that the pool was closed after ten.
She kicked off her sandals, and sat down on the edge of the pool, slipping her feet into the water. After a second, I did the same thing, and we sat for awhile without saying anything, listening to the light traffic noise.
Sunny cracked her gum. I took a long, slow breath, and tried not to grind my teeth in annoyance.
“Thanks for letting me crash your trip,” she said, and cracked her gum again. It still made my skin crawl, but I wanted to hear what else she had to say. No sense in picking a fight with her. Yet.
I lifted one shoulder in a little half shrug. “No problem.” Then, because my curiosity was stronger than my filter, I added, “I’m surprised you remember I exist.”
“I deserve that.” Sunny twisted the hem of her shirt between her fingers. “Things were really rough after Mom died.” I’d never heard her say it so bluntly, and I had to bite the inside of my lip so I wouldn’t wince or tear up at just the memory of Mrs. Winslow. If Sunny could get through this without crying, I could too. Even if she couldn't, I wasn't sure I deserved to cry, not after all the fighting between us. “I didn’t handle it well, and I’m sorry.” She started to say something else, then stopped, and shrugged.
“I could have been more supportive,” I admitted. “I didn’t realize how much it was going to hurt, and - I was pretty judgey. Sorry.”
She laughed and bumped me a little with her elbow. “You? Deciding you know what’s best and then judging people for not following that plan? Never..”
“Hey! I’m not that bad.” I stuck my tongue out at her, which I knew was super mature and all, but whatever. She brought it out in me.
“No.” She sounded fond. “Not always. Not even usually.”
I rolled my eyes, then kicked water at her. She laughed so hard she snorted, then hopped to her feet. “Great idea!”
“Wait, wha-”
Before I even finished those two words, Sunny tugged her shirt off, then shoved her shorts down her legs and kicked them off. She wore no bra, and her underwear was bright orange boy shorts with lace edges. I looked away fast, trying not to stare at her bare breasts.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye just before she hit the water with a big splash that left one leg of my jeans soaked. I scrambled to my feet and out of my clothes, my need for revenge overwhelming my embarrassment at her nudity. My sports bra and underwear covered more than most of my bikinis, but the night air was cool and the water cold.
I leaped into the water after her, holding my breath and squeezing my eyes shut. The faster I got wet all over, the less I’d feel the chill. I surfaced, sputtering a little, and dashed water out of my eyes. Sunny treaded water nearby, grinning. The slick of water on her breasts was distracting as hell, but I managed to keep my eyes on her face.
“See?” She said, smug as anything. “We can still have fun.”
I raised my eyebrows, then brought my hands together and, in a quick motion, shot water into her face. It was an old trick, one that Charlie Thomas had taught to me back when I lived in Stoneybrook and hung out with his sister, Kristy (yes, of the Baby-Sitters Club fame), and I hadn’t had much chance to use it, but like riding a bike, it came right back to me.
She shrieked, then clapped her hands over her mouth. I looked around, searching for a sign that someone had heard us, but no one came rushing out of the front office, no doors swung open.
“You’re going to get us arrested,” I told her, and she rolled her eyes, shoved wet hair out of her face.
“Arrested? Seriously, Dawn?”
Yeah, okay, she had a point. “Kicked out then,” I said, not willing to give in.
“So?” She shrugged. “Like you’ll ever come back here again, right? And even if you do, there are plenty of hotels.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Kinda not the point,” I told her.
“I know.” Sunny stretched out onto her back.
It looked comfortable, and I stretched out too, my hair twisting around me in the water, tangling a little against my arms. For a few minutes, we simply floated. I tried to find constellations I knew, but the sky was too cloudy, I could only make out a few individual stars.
Water stirred, lapping against my arm, and I glanced over, found Sunny right next to me, still floating on her back. Her hand brushed against the back of mine, and then drifted away.
“You look like Rapunzel,” she said, then laughed. “Little water logged.”
“I’d rather be a mermaid.”
“Some sort of magical octopus.” Sunny caught a strand of my hair, twisting it around her fingers. As soaked as it was, I could still feel the gentle tug, and it sent shivers down my spine. I tried to blame that on the cold water, the desert night air.
I could have been insulted, plenty of people thought octopi were slimy and disgusting, but I was feeling too good to let any negative emotions get in the way. “Tentacles could be fun,” I said, then blushed, because I’d meant extra appendages to carry things, help play volleyball, keep my balance while I surfed, but there were other things they could be used for, sexier things, and Sunny was right next to me, very nearly naked.
“Yeah,” she drawled, and gave a little shimmy that sent water splashing up against me. That made me shiver, too, and I dropped my legs, stopped floating, tried to give myself a little space. She slipped closer to me through the water, reached out and touched my hair where it floated near her.
I touched her fingertips, her fingers, the back of her hand. My breath came too fast, stuttering in my chest, and my skin felt tight, like it might burst open, baring me to her at any second.
“Sunny.” I wasn’t even sure I’d said it aloud, but she touched my face, fingers light against my cheek, and I lost any ability to form words.
“Hey!” I’d been focused so hard on Sunny that I didn’t even notice the night clerk come up to the pool. She rattled the gate, then swung it open. “Pool’s closed, ladies. Get out of there.”
Sunny stood first, then offered me her hand. “Yup, definitely going to arrest us,” she whispered, and I had to bite back a laugh as I followed her, water dripping from my hair, leaving puddles everywhere I stepped. No sense in making it worse.
4.
Oklahoma City, and we were bored. Tired of the road. Ready for a break. Dinner, then sitting around, not sure what to do. Sunny kept her eyes on her phone, scrolling through something. I flipped channels, couldn’t find anything to watch.
Then, a laugh, and I looked up at her. Sunny raised her eyebrow, and a slow smile lifted her mouth. “How’s your fake id?” she asked.
*
Three hours later, we’d left Jeff at a nearby arcade, and we were in the middle of a crowded club, music throbbing against my sweaty skin. I’d spent some time on the dance floor, careful to keep my distance whenever Sunny joined me, but now we were jammed into a corner on one side of a tiny round table.
Sunny’s smile was long gone, and she’d been frowning for the past forty-five minutes, not that I was counting, or paying close enough attention to her to notice the exact moment her smile dropped away. (We were dancing. The crowd surged, moving her too close. I backed away. Her eyes looked closed, but her smile disappeared.)
“Look, this was your idea,” I said, frustrated. The flashing lights lit her skin in a patchwork of color. She wore glitter eyeliner, and her eyes sparkled as she looked at me, sipping a clear drink that could have been tonic water, or it could have been alcohol. “If you’re bored, you can leave.”
She watched me, eyes hooded, and took another sip of her drink. She left lip prints on the glass, a soft red smudge, but her lipstick still looked perfect. “I’m not bored,” she said at last, voice husky.
“Then what’s wrong?” I cried, my frustration bubbling over. She was so annoying and impossible, no matter how hard I tried to get along with her.
“If you can’t stand to be around me, why did you let me come on this trip?” she asked, surprising me.
I gaped at her, then took a big drink of my bottled water, trying to cover it. It’s not like I hadn’t asked myself that same question half a dozen times in just a couple days. I shrugged, and looked down at my hands, hoping she would let it drop.
“No, I mean it,” she said. She stepped closer, nudging into my space. “I thought we agreed to put things in the past, but you just can’t let it go, can you? We both apologized, but that’s not good enough for Dawn Read Schafer, Miss Perfectionist.” She set down her glass hard enough I expected it to crack. “You have to be better than everyone, even if ‘better’ means being an even bigger jackass.”
For once, her eyes were wide open, her cheeks flushed, and in the dim club lighting, she looked absolutely beautiful, full of righteous fury - gorgeous even when it was aimed at me.
“I’m sorry I can’t be-“
Whatever else she meant to say was cut off when I kissed her. I don’t know which one of us was more surprised. Her lip gloss was sticky and tasted faintly of cherries; it made my lips tingle, or maybe that was the sweep of her tongue against them, teasing until I opened my mouth and she deepened the kiss. She touched me, a light brush of her fingers against my jaw, the side of my throat, and my hands involuntarily clenched. Unfortunately, I was still holding that bottle, and water splashed onto both of us.
Sunny cried out and pulled back to stare at the wet splotch on her white tank top, then started to laugh. It lit her up from the inside, and my breath caught. I hadn’t seen her look that happy in a long, long time. I couldn’t stop watching her, excitement bubbling inside until I felt effervescent.
“Oh,” she said, and though her smile faded, she didn’t look angry this time. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”
My stomach dropped. “I didn’t mean it,” I blurted out. “It wasn’t - it didn’t mean anything.”
“Dawn,” she breathed, and reached for me again, caught my hands in hers even though water still dripped from my fingers. “Stop. Breathe. That’s not what I meant.” She leaned closer, until her breath brushed my cheek. “Come on, let’s get out of here. It’s too loud, and we need to talk.”
Her words were scary - “we need to talk” is one of the worst phrases I could imagine - but she kept hold of my hand as we made our way through the crowd and outside. People were crowded together on one side of the door, smoking, but the parking lot itself was pretty much empty. Puddles of rainwater reflected the streetlights, making the ground look a little like a starry sky.
Sunny stopped walking in the middle of a row of cars, and turned to face me. “Dawn,” she said, voice low, and then she cupped my face, pressing her thumbs to my jaw, her fingers soft against my cheeks, and leaned closer. Her breath washed over my lips, and I caught my breath, waiting for her to lean in that last millimeter to kiss me. She stayed where she was, watching me, eyes bright, and anticipation worked through me, excitement and a frisson of fear. My heart raced, pounding in my ears, and my chest burned.
Oh, right, breathing. Still a thing I had to do. I sucked in a breath of air, and Sunny grinned.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said, and finally kissed me. I caught her wrists, gently holding her hands to my face. I could feel her pulse, a fast flutter against my thumbs. God, she was as nervous as I was. I couldn’t believe it.
Her tongue touched mine, and I dropped my hands to her waist, my fingers just brushing bare skin where her tank top rode up a little. She gasped into my mouth, and a little thrill went through me. I’d done that to her, made her react. I liked it. I wanted to see if I could do it again.
She moved her hands from my face to my hips, hooked her thumbs under the edge of my skirt, and heat shot straight through me. I wanted to grab her hands, press her fingers between my legs, right where I wanted most to be touched.
A burst of laughter startled me, and I spun, found a group of friends stumbling out of the club, giggling together, shoving into each other, holding each other up. They weren’t laughing at us, but we were super exposed.
Sunny kissed me again, soft, and nodded toward the car. “Come on.”
I tried to slow down my breath, tried to stop shaking, tried to not look like I was as needy and nervous as I actually was. When we reached the car, she kissed me again, hurried, a little sloppy, and slipped her hands under the edge of my shirt.
I reached back, fingers scrabbling across the cold metal for a second, then I found the door handle and tugged on it, not thinking clearly. It should have been locked. It wasn’t, it swung open, and my little brother half fell out.
“What the hell, Dawn?” Jeff cried, voice loud, breath coming hard and fast. His shirt was off, and his pants might be undone. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, dizzy, and clung to Sunny. Movement, cloth and bodies, and then Jeff and some guy were standing next to us. The guy’s whole face was red, and he kept staring at the ground.
Of course, my face was hot and I had a hard time looking at anyone, so who was I to judge?
“Who’s your friend, Jeff?” Sunny asked, voice light. When I glanced at her, I found her smiling. She looked up at me, slipped an arm around my waist, leaned into me a little. My shoulders relaxed, just a bit.
“Why aren’t you still inside, getting drunk like idiots?” he snapped. Immediately, I tensed again, and squared my shoulders, ready to start shouting at him.
He blinked, then again, and I realized he was even more embarrassed than I was.
“Because the backseat is a popular place for making out tonight,” I said.
“Shut up!” Then he stopped, looked at us again. “Oh my god, Dawn, finally.”
Finally? “Wait, what?”
He smirked at me. “Duh, you finally admit you’re hooking up with Sunny.”
“Wait, what?!” I cried. Sunny’s arm tightened around me. “I’m not! I mean, this is the first time.” Then I hurried to add, “That we’ve kissed. The first time we’ve kissed.”
“Smooth,” Sunny murmured, and I blushed harder.
Jeff looked back and forth between us. “Really? Cause you had that big breakup when you were freshmen, and then suddenly Sunny is coming on this road trip with us …” He stopped talking, possibly because I thought my jaw was going to fall off, it dropped so far.
“We didn’t,” I started, but wasn’t sure what to say. “I didn’t.” Still not sure.
Sunny laughed. “Well, good job blowing her mind, Jeff.”
Had my family really thought I’d been dating Sunny, and that was why I was so upset when we had our big fight? Why had they never said anything? That was years ago! I took a deep breath. It didn’t really matter.
“I need tea,” I said. “And maybe pancakes.”
The dude who had been hooking up with my brother looked up at him. “I know a great diner. It’s open all night.” His voice was quiet, a little deep, and nice.
I huffed out a big breath of air, puffing my cheeks. Jeff laughed, which is what I wanted. “Yeah, okay, come on, Strange Boy. I’m buying everyone midnight breakfast.”
“I’m Erik,” he said, and smiled a little, but still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
*
We swapped stories for a couple hours over too-sweet pancakes and big glasses of iced tea. Sunny told one about a pottery class that had Jeff snorting his drink through his nose. It was funny, but I caught the undercurrent of sadness. Her mother had been a wonderful artist before she died, and that included pottery. After she died, Sunny threw out all of her crayons, even. I never thought she would take an actual art class ever again.
I took her hand under the table. Her smile, while bright, had a brittle quality to it, but she let me lace our fingers together.
5.
Sunny sat cross-legged in the passenger seat, idly chewing her way through a bag of baby carrots she’d found at the big truck stop where we last stopped for gas. I thought it was pretty suspect, fresh vegetables at a giant gas station, but she said they were good. She had the atlas open across her lap, and my handwritten notes on what I planned to do, where I wanted to stop, and at what point I was going to cut north.
“I think we should visit UNC,” she said, and offered me a carrot.
I stared at her long enough Jeff jabbed my shoulder. “Eyes on the road!”
“There’s nothing for miles,” I argued, but he was right. I needed to focus more on driving than the cute girl sitting next to me. My best friend, back by my side, even if I still couldn't believe it was happening. “And no, that’s not in the plan.”
“Why not?” Sunny asked.
“Because we need to go north, too.” And because I wasn’t ready.
She shot me a pointed look. “Plans can change. I know you can be flexible.”
“Gross!” That was Jeff again, from the backseat. “TMI.”
Her giggle made me smile, even though I knew I was blushing, too. Plus it wasn’t like that. We didn’t have any alone time, and even if we did, I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t think I was ready for that.
The kissing was great, though.
“Come on,” she wheedled. “I want to see where you’ll be living next year.”
“In, like, two months,” Jeff said. “You have to move in August, right?”
I nodded, my throat strangely dry. I definitely wasn’t ready for that.
“Even more reason we should go see the campus! You can see your future.”
I bit my lower lip, hard. I didn’t see a future. I’d been living in the present, as immediate as possible. For the past year, maybe longer than that, just a touch out of step with my friends, who were all so excited about what came next.
“Maybe,” I hedged. “I’ll think about it. Can we talk about it when we stop later?”
Sunny hmmed at me, but nodded, and snapped the atlas closed. “You know,” she said, and I braced myself, but she really was letting that subject drop, at least, “we haven’t done nearly enough cheesy tourist stuff on this trip. Jeff, I’m surprised you didn’t make a list.”
He snorted, and dove into his backpack, then shoved a tightly folded piece of paper over the seat, waving it at Sunny’s face. “Totally did,” he said. “Look.”
She laughed and took it, opened it carefully. I caught sight of it, but couldn’t make out my brother’s sloppy handwriting in the short time I was willing to take my eyes off the road. He had absolutely filled the page with writing, though, and guilt stabbed through me. I’d been so caught up in thinking of this as my trip, with two interlopers (even though Sunny had ended up being a great addition), that I had never taken the time to consider whether Jeff was actually excited about it, whether he had his own plans.
“Well, we’ve passed some of these already, and a bunch are too far north-“
“Yeah, well, I thought we were going up to San Francisco first,” he said, and jabbed me in the shoulder.
“Hey! No harassing the driver,” I snapped, but I was grinning, and he laughed, too. “What’s close?”
Sunny flipped open the atlas again, and compared his list to the big map that showed a high level view of the United States. Individual state maps were in the book behind that, and were far more useful to the actual driving.
“Well, if we stay on 40 instead of cutting north, we can hit Memphis. Beale Street, maybe Graceland for the extra classic rock cheese. The Mississippi River’s there too, and some sort of pyramid, according to Jeff’s list.”
“It’s a Bass Pro now,” he said, leaning over the back of the seat. “But the Tigers used to play there. I’ve always wanted to see it.”
Well, crap. I sighed. “Okay, yeah, Memphis it is.” We could always head toward Connecticut from there.
“Thanks, Dawn!” Jeff flung his arm across my shoulders and gave me a hug. It was awkward, the back of the seat in between us, and my need to keep watching the road, but it was sweet, too. I leaned my head against his.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Sunny watching us and smiling.
*
“Oh. My. God.” Sunny tipped her head back and stared upward. “This thing is ridiculous.”
It really was, a monstrosity of dark glass rising up from a flat parking lot, with great big bridges overhead from where the interstate passed over the Mississippi River. The parking lot was absolutely full, and we had quite a walk ahead of us.
“I’ve never seen so much camo,” Jeff muttered. “What are they hiding from in the middle of all this concrete?”
I stifled a laugh. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, which was a bunch of old white guys in hunting gear, but there were a couple people wearing camo pants, and I saw at least one matching jacket, even though it was already pretty warm. It was too early to check into our hotel for the night, so we were hitting up some of the touristy spots first, spending the night, and then visiting another hotel in the morning before we took off. (The Peabody had a duck walk, according to Sunny’s research, a parade of actual live ducks through the hotel to the indoor fountain where they lived during the day, which sounded both ridiculous and wonderful. We were going to at least see it before we left town. No way was it in our price range to stay there, though, even with the money from Dad and Carol.)
“Zombies,” Sunny said knowledgeably. “Clearly that’s the big fear.”
This time, I couldn’t stop my laugh from bursting out, and I slung my arm across her shoulders. She snuggled against me, touching her hand to my waist. I cuddled with her a moment, then carefully extracted myself. Sunny raised her eyebrows at me, but hooked her thumbs in her pockets and didn’t say anything.
“Hey,” I said, defensive, “it’s the south.”
“Gay people exist down here too,” she told me, but she was still smiling, so I didn’t feel quite so bad. I shrugged and shifted my woven purse higher on my shoulder.
“I know,” I said. “I just-” I stopped, and worried at a spot on the inside of my lip.
“Hey.” Sunny gently shook my elbow. “It’s okay.”
I shot her a shaky smile.
“God, come on, suck up your drama and come on, Dawn!” Jeff danced around us, and though he sounded exasperated, he watched us close, clearly worried about me. Teenage brothers. God forbid they show you how they really feel.
I punched his shoulder to reassure him, and together, the three of us headed toward the store. I stopped when we were a little closer and snapped a couple quick shots for Instagram, the giant dark glass filling the frame.
Inside was ridiculous, from the toy gun shooting gallery to the dead animals stuffed and put on display everywhere. This was not my kind of store, and I couldn’t stop exchanging a disgusted look with Sunny every time we stumbled across the next horrible display, which was approximately every five seconds.
“Chill out,” Jeff muttered, eventually growing tired of the two of us gawking at things and shuddering. “You’re making people stare.”
“Who can like this?” I asked, and, okay, my voice was a little louder than I intended, but he didn’t have to glare at me that way. “It’s disgusting!”
He rolled his eyes. “Live and let live, Dawn.”
Yeah, no, this was killing with no purpose, killing for sport, and it was the worst. Before I could launch into a lecture, he grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the glass elevator up to the viewing platform.
The elevator let us out into a nice little restaurant with great views overlooking the city, decorated with metal steampunky animals. I spent a lot of time taking pictures, because my friend Claudia would love the artwork and how it was displayed, but eventually joined Sunny and Jeff outside. Though the air had been still at ground level, up here, the wind was strong, whipping my hair around me.
Sunny turned to watch me cross the exposed space to the railing surrounding the viewing platform. It was weird, to be able to look down and see open space beneath my feet. Vertigo swamped over me for a second, and I froze.
“Hey, look at me, Dawn.” Sunny stood in front of me, holding out her hands. “Look at me.”
It took everything I had to drag my gaze up to meet hers, but when I finally managed it, I found her smiling encouragingly at me.
“I didn’t even know I was afraid of heights,” I said, my voice far too thin.
“It’s okay,” she said, and took my hands. I held onto her very tight, until it had to be painful and her fingers went white, but she didn’t complain. “Come on, it’s better if you aren’t looking straight down.”
I let her guide me over to the railing. She was right; as long as I stared straight out, the height didn’t get to me, and the view was absolutely beautiful. Off to our right, the Mississippi River meandered down, marking the boundary between Arkansas and Tennessee. There were beautiful green trees, and no tall buildings to block the view. Everything stretched beneath us like a mostly-flat living quilt.
I breathed in, breathed out, and very carefully did not look down.
“Gorgeous,” Sunny murmured. I glanced at her, half expecting her to be watching me like in some cheesy rom-com, but she was looking out across the river. Still holding my hands, though, right there next to me, solid and reassuring.
And absolutely beautiful.
Oh, good lord, I was the one living a rom-com.
She caught me looking and a slow smile slipped across her face. “See?” she said, still in that low tone that made the whole place feel far more intimate than it was. “Everything’s better over here.”
“Yeah, it really is,” I said. Then I kissed her.
*
Memphis gave Sunny and her Yelp obsession a run for her money. Most of the recommended restaurants wouldn’t work for us: bbq, fried chicken, bbq and friend chicken. Eventually she found a little hole in the wall diner with a surprisingly good salad and an amazing vegetarian lasagna. Who would have guessed?
I sat on my decision for awhile, twisting it this way and that to see if I could convince myself to change my mind, but when Jeff ordered dessert - his sweet tooth in full force, but I couldn’t begrudge him pecan pie, apparently a specialty - I turned to Sunny.
“Okay,” I told her.
She smiled at me, looking a little puzzled, then said, “Okay what?”
“Okay, map out a route that takes us by UNC. Maybe we’ll stop.” She flung her arms around me as best she could in the tiny little booth. I let her hug me, even leaned into it, but stressed, “Maybe.”
“Sure,” she said, and rested her head on my shoulder. “Maybe.”
*
We totally stopped at UNC.
6.
Campus was mostly empty. Well, it was early in the summer, and a Sunday afternoon. Probably the best chance I’d have of seeing the place with as little pressure as possible. Except the pressure didn’t really come from anyone else, especially not all the way out here where I didn’t know anyone yet. I could blame Dad and Carol, Mom and Richard, even Mary Anne, Jeff, and Gracie, but mostly the pressure came from me, always wanting to be the absolute best I could possibly be so I could make them proud, so I could do great things, so I could change the world.
I’d always thought about college as my chance to become the adult I wanted to be. I made the best decisions I could during high school, worked hard, got good grades and volunteered and tried to make my little bit of earth a better place, but college was when the little things I did would become big ones, important ones, life-altering and world-changing ones.
I wasn’t ready.
*
Jeff ditched us to go check out the basketball stadium, but not before mocking me because I didn’t know how good the team was. He also tried to get me to promise to take him to a game sometime, but as much as I wanted to do something that would make him so happy, that felt too much like promising to stay here.
I wasn’t sure anymore that I would be able to do that.
Sunny and I wandered the campus, not really saying much. Sometimes she’d point out a particularly cute building or some gorgeous flower, but mostly we just walked under the sun and the warm weather. It was pretty, though very different from the east coast universities I visited with Mary Anne or the sprawling California beauty I saw every day.
Eventually, we ended up behind a giant bell tower. A short path led up to it, flanked by dark green bushes that were precisely maintained. Sunny sank down onto the sun-warmed courtyard, and I followed, leaning back on my hands so I could stare up at the tower. Its pointed top seemed breathtakingly-high from this angle, looming over everything. It would cast a shadow across the entire campus, if it was as big as it felt.
“Talk to me, Dawn,” Sunny said. I glanced over at her quickly, but she wasn’t looking at me. That made it easier. The sunshine spilling over us made it easier. The quiet campus was absolutely silent here, and we could have been alone in all the world. That made it easier, too.
“I’m scared,” I said, admitting it out loud for the first time, and looked at her again, wanting to see her reaction, not wanting to know. I was a mess.
“Of course you are.” Sunny tipped her face into the sunlight, her eyes closed, and looked more at peace than I’d seen her since we were kids. “It’s a big change.”
I shook my head, then shrugged. “Yeah, okay, it is, but - I researched my schools. UNC is a good school, a good place for me.”
That made her laugh. “Of course you did. And it is.” She looked at me at last. “It’s not the school, it’s not the move. We graduated, Dawn. We’re not high school students anymore. We’re adults.” Though she kept smiling, there was a twist to it, a sadness. “Everything changes. We have to change, too, and that’s terrifying. What if we don’t change the way we think we’re going to?”
I tried to respond, but all my words caught on my tongue. She was quiet for a long time, but eventually she spoke again.
“Dawn.” I caught her wide grin. “Sunshine.”
“Oh god, stop, too oedipal,” I mumbled, and that made her laugh.
“It doesn’t matter.” She scooted over until she was close enough to take my hand, lace our fingers together. I could feel her pulse where my thumb rested against her wrist. “We don’t have to know right now what we’re going to become. We don’t have to know anything. This is our chance to just, just,” she stopped, shrugging, “figure it out as we go. You don’t have to have a plan.”
I slumped forward, my hair falling all around me, a thick curtain to keep out the world. Sunny’s hand was steady in mine, though, and she waited me out.
“But,” I started to say, then stopped, speechless. Everything she said made so much sense. I knew it, logically. The part of me that was so worked up wasn’t getting that message, though. “I’ve always been the one who knows what I’m doing, who I am. I’m, you know, calm and unruffleable and satisfied with who I am.”
Sunny brushed my hair out of the way until she could see my face. “Okay, maybe you are. That doesn’t mean you can’t change - shouldn’t change. You don’t have to be anything you’ve always been, or anything anyone, including me, has ever told you that you were.”
“When’d you get so smart?” I asked her, trying to lighten the mood.
She squeezed my hand. “Well, I might know a thing or two about changing because of what people think I should be, or shouldn’t be.” Her smile was shaky; mine felt just as weak. “I don’t want to be all cliché, but Mom dying, that changed things for me, changed me. More than once. I’ve been a lot of different Sunnys.”
I nodded, hoping she would take it as encouraging as I meant it to be. I didn't know what to say, but I wanted her to keep talking.
“You might get here and hate it,” she told me. “You might love it. You might spend four years here because you’ve already made a decision about where to go, and it’s neither all good nor all bad. Any of those are okay.”
“It’s supposed to be this big, perfect adventure,” I admitted. “Carol keeps talking about how much she loved college, Mom and Dad have great stories about the stuff they got up to - what if I do it wrong?” Since when did I worry about doing things wrong? But that had been building for awhile.
“There’s no right or wrong.” Sunny smiled at me, gentle and sweet. “You need to do what works for Dawn Read Schafer, no one else.”
I huffed a laugh. “Can you remind me of that sometime?” I asked, then immediately wanted to take it back, because that was treading way too close to the fact that our road trip was almost over. The summer had barely started, but it felt like that was almost over, too. And then I was off to, well, here, and she would be in San Francisco.
Treading way too close to the future, and even if I was ready for it on my own, which I so wasn’t, I didn’t know how to tell her I wanted her to be a part of it.
She kissed my fingertips. “Yes. Any time.”
Almost, I told her I loved her, but that was way too fast. I kissed her instead, making sure my first memory of campus was a good one.
7.
I said I love you over Christmas break while we watched the big firework show at Disneyland. I still wasn’t sure about college, or North Carolina, or the kind of person I was becoming, but I was sure that not knowing wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.
And I was one hundred percent sure about Sunny.
0.
Dawn dreams of the ocean, unending, dark and deep. She floats in it, not breathing, but her lungs never burn. It swallows her, buoys her, but she can see golden light piercing the water, leading her home -
No, not home.
Dawn surfaces, water streaming from her hair, and finds herself walking through great purple poppies. Something glistens in the distance, and she chases sunshine into the unknown.
This entry was original posted at http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/424816.html with
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Title: On the Road
Author: escritoireazul
Characters/Pairings: Dawn Schafer/Sunny Winslow, Jeff Schafer, Carol Schafer, Jack Schafer
Author's Note: This is a transformative work of fiction set after both BSC and California Diaries.
Written for: dizzy for Yuletide 2015
Word count: 10,800
Rating: 13+
Read at AO3.
Summary: Sunshine Daydream Winslow crashes Dawn and Jeff's great road trip adventure, even though Dawn hasn't spoken to her for more than three years.
So yeah. That'll be fun.
I take dreams very seriously. I believe they can even predict the future.
Dawn Schafer, Dawn and Too Many Sitters, BSC #98
0.
Dawn dreams of the open road spooling out before her, beautiful black pavement, freshly painted, bright yellow lines, and a perfect blue sky stretching into the distance until the ribbon of the road disappears into it.
She drives with her windows down, sun warm on her face through the windshield, wind picking up her blond hair and tossing it into disarray. Her hair is short, just long enough to tickle across her chin, and the car isn't the one she was given when she turned sixteen.
The horizon calls to her, and beyond it, something more.
Dawn curls her fingers in the warm fresh air, sunshine on her skin, and closes her eyes as she drives into the rising sun.
1.
“Come on, think about it, Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, it’ll be awesome.” Jeff flashed me a wide grin, one I suspected he meant to be winsome and convincing. “You love San Fran.”
True. I had grown to love San Francisco, its narrow streets and tall buildings, and how different it felt from sunny, spacious Los Angeles, and there were so many things I wanted to see there, places I’d read about but never visited. Places for people like me.
No way in hell was I going to hit those spots with my baby brother tagging along.
“We’ve already done the northern route,” I reminded him. When I was thirteen, Dad had driven an RV from New York to California as a favor for a friend of his, and he’d taken Jeff and me with him, along with a bunch of my middle school friends. We’d driven from Stoneybrook, Connecticut, where my mom and step-family lived and where Jeff and I were visiting that summer, to Los Angeles via Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, and San Francisco. It was wonderful, if a convoluted path, one of the best experiences of my life back then, but it felt like a long time ago. I'd literally already been there and done that.
I wanted to see another part of the country.
“It’s a pretty drive,” Dad said. “Plenty of places we didn’t hit.” We had a big, brand new atlas open on the kitchen table, because plotting out my graduation road trip was a family affair.
“Great places just here in California,” Carol, my step-mother, agreed. “You should take your time, spend a couple days in Santa Cruz, visit Half Moon Bay, and definitely spend some time in San Francisco. I have friends in Bernal Heights, they would be happy to show you around.” She smiled at me, and there was something in that expression that made it hard to meet her eyes, something all too knowing and a little sad.
Carol looked at me like that a lot lately. At first, I wrote it off as empty nest syndrome - not that her nest was empty, with Jeff and little Gracie still at home, but my senior year was filled with “lasts” (last first day of school, last first volleyball practice, last last volleyball practice, last Homecoming, last Prom), and she had been sentimental for each one - but I wasn’t completely convinced that’s what was really going on.
Lately, Carol looked at me like she could see straight through me, straight to all the weird sadness and insecurities that had been plaguing me all year.
This road trip was supposed to be my time to catch my breath and really think about who I was and who I wanted to be before I started college in the fall. Instead of flying out for my summer visit with my East Coast family, I would have the time and space to think, and the opportunity to see more of the country.
“Southern route,” I said, and smiled, hoping it looked happier and more natural than it felt. I wasn’t actually bitter that Dad had convinced me to bring Jeff with me, but I was sad that I wouldn’t have all that time to myself. “There are so many states I’ve never visited. I want to experience the world.” That was mostly true. I wanted adventure. I just wasn't sure I was ready for it. Definitely not ready for school in the fall.
“Of course you do, Sunshine.” Dad slung his arm across his shoulders and hugged me, looking a little teary. “You’re growing up so fast, and there’s a great big world out there.”
I leaned into him, a little bit annoyed - I turned eighteen in February, I wasn’t a kid anymore - but mostly touched. I was very lucky to have such a great life, such wonderful families, and I needed to be careful not to forget that.
Dad squeezed me one more time, then let go, and the four of us turned back to the map, plotting out a great drive.
*
I’ve thrown a lot of names at you, and there are more to come, so I should give you some background. I’m Dawn Schafer, and I’m eighteen years old. I just graduated from Vista High School in Palo City, California, where I have lived most of my life. I live with my dad and step-mother, Carol, my younger brother, Jeff, and my baby sister, Gracie. (Gracie is technically my half-sister, because Carol is her mother, but she just feels like a sister to me.) I have a bunch of great friends here, and I absolutely love southern California, all sunshine and surf and beach volleyball. This is Life #1.
When I was twelve and Jeff nine, our parents got divorced, and we moved with our mom all the way across the country to Stoneybrook, Connecticut, in the middle of winter, which is the worst possible time we could have gone. Mom grew up in Stoneybrook, and wanted to be closer to her parents. Jeff pretty much hated everything about Connecticut and moved back to live with Dad almost right away, but I loved it there. Well, I hated the cold and the snow and the lack of great vegetarian options and the way everyone ate junk food all the time and how tiny the beaches were and how different the Atlantic Ocean was from the Pacific, but I loved everything else.
In particular, I loved my East Coast best friend, Mary Anne Spier. She befriended me when I knew absolutely no one else, and she was still my closest friend, despite the distance. (I used to have a West Coast best friend, too, but we stopped speaking freshman year, and though we managed to be in the same class without fighting last year, it’s been awkward ever since. I doubted I’d see her again now that we graduated.) Mary Anne not only introduced me to all her friends, who became some of the best friends of my life, but we also sparked a romance between our parents.
See, we found out my mom and her dad had been high school sweethearts, but my grandparents didn’t think Richard, Mary Anne’s dad, was good enough for my mom, so they sent her to California for college, where she met my dad, and, well, you know what happened. Richard, meanwhile, met and married Mary Anne’s mom, but she died when Mary Anne was just a little girl. Eventually, Mom and Richard got married, and though everything was a little rough when we first moved in together, things have smoothed out, and I love my Stoneybrook family a lot. That is Life #2.
Even though I really did grow to like Stoneybrook, and I adored my friends and family, I eventually became too homesick for California and moved back. I spend most of my time in Life #1, and all my long breaks from high school in Life #2 (most of Christmas break, a huge chunk of the summer, and sometimes spring break too). I knew what to expect in both lives, I had friends and boyfriends, and I did really well at school and in my extracurricular activities.
The problem was, come fall, I wasn’t going to live Life #1 or Life #2. Though I’d been accepted to colleges in both places (well, Boston, which was pretty close to Connecticut), in the end, I decided to go to Duke University. I planned to study environmental sciences, and they had a great program. I wasn’t sure how I would like the south, or living so far from the Pacific again, but I was open to the experience. Or at least I was back in December, when I weighed all my acceptances, spent hours talking things out with Mary Anne and my closest Palo City friend, Amalia, and decided that moving to North Carolina sounded like an excellent idea.
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
I’d been California Girl Dawn, Divorced Family Dawn, Bicoastal Dawn, Frozen Connecticut Dawn, California Girl Dawn again, but I wasn’t sure I knew how to be Just Dawn, in a brand new place not surrounded by my friends and family. I’d started over a couple times already, but never on my own.
I’d tried to talk about this stuff with Mary Anne, but couldn’t find the words. She was so excited about college; she had been accepted at NYU in her beloved New York City, and was already sad about leaving Mom and Richard behind, but thrilled to be off on a grand new adventure. Amalia was sticking close to home, too, headed to USC right in Los Angeles, but was just as full of giddy excitement.
I couldn’t talk to my closest friends, and my families were so proud I couldn’t tell them I was having second thoughts. I checked my horoscope regularly, had my cards read, spent time meditating, tried to make pro and con lists, but nothing worked. I had no clarity, no confidence, and I had no idea how to handle these feelings of doubt.
I need a break from both lives, but now that I was taking Jeff with me, I wasn’t going to get it.
*
In order to miss the worst of the traffic, Jeff and I planned to leave mid-morning, after Dad and Carol left for work, and Gracie went to daycare. Jeff, ever a night owl, woke up early enough to say good-bye, even though I didn’t expect him to get up on time. He dragged himself into the kitchen to have breakfast with everyone, and I couldn’t stop my grin as I smeared all natural peanut butter on multi-grain toast. His hair was a mess, standing up on end, and his eyes were squinted shut; I was struck with a moment of pure giddiness. Yeah, I’d originally wanted to make this drive on my own, but Jeff was a great brother, and we could still have fun, just the two of us.
Our good-byes were tearful, as always. Carol hugged me tight, and I buried my face against her shoulder for a moment.
“Be so good to yourself,” she murmured, stroking my long blonde hair. (It’s almost down to my thighs; I get it trimmed a couple times a year, but never more than an inch or two at a time.) “Do something wild. Make choices you wouldn’t normally make.”
She pulled back, but didn’t let me go, instead held me at arms’ length and stared at me, looking for something I didn’t understand. “Be wild, Dawnie. You’ve been so responsible all these years. Have a little fun.” Carol dropped her hands to mine, squeezed them quickly, and then hurried out to the car.
(When I double checked my purse before we left, I found an envelope from her with a note saying much the same, reminding me how proud she was of me, and a few crisp hundred dollar bills. Oh, Carol.)
“Jeff!” I shouted, twisting one foot impatiently. “Hurry up, we’re supposed to be on the road by now.”
Even though he’d gotten up early, he had dragged around the last couple hours -- I think he even passed out for a short nap -- and now if we didn’t hurry, we would start the trip way behind schedule.
“Just looking for my headphones,” he called, and I rolled my eyes. He lost them maybe three times a week. I hoped it wouldn’t take him long to track them down this time. Instead of waiting around, I grabbed my purse and headed out to double check everything was in the car.
Our bags: check. Phone charger and adapter to charge it through the cigarette lighter: check. (And the only way that thing would be used. Cigarettes are unhealthy, gross, and absolutely terrible for the environment.) Auxiliary cord to plug our phones into the stereo: check.
Former best friend leaning casually against the driver’s door? Check.
I stopped in the middle of the yard, and for a long moment, all I could do was stare at her. She looked so different than the bright, cheerful girl I met when we were kids. Her blonde hair was cut short, just long enough for it to fall across her face and brush her chin, and had chunky black and red stripes strategically threaded through it. She had a stud in her nose, and wore a tank top and baggy jeans with the knees blown out. Bare feet, dark red toenail polish. Worn olive green canvas backpack on the ground next to her feet. Strappy flat sandals abandoned next to it.
Sunshine Daydream Winslow had once been my very best friend, and, though I rarely admitted it even to myself, the biggest reason I moved back to California. Back then, I’d known her better than I knew myself, and told her all my secrets.
We hadn’t been that close for a very long time, and as big as my secrets had felt back then, the things I hadn't told her since loomed even larger between us.
“Sunny,” I said, then stopped, because I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Hi, Dawn.” She didn’t smile, but shook her hair out of her face so I could see her eyes. “Room for one more?”
2.
We took the 15 up to Barstow, where we caught Interstate 40, which would take us about halfway across the country. It went all the way to North Carolina, but I planned to cut north before then. I wasn’t ready to see my new state, especially not with Sunny in tow.
I didn’t know why I hadn't told her no.
Jeff sprawled in the backseat, headphones on, shoes off. Sometimes, he would snore a little, but the radio was up loud enough I barely heard him. He’d gone all wide eyed when he came out of the house and saw Sunny throwing her bag into the front seat.
What the fuck? he mouthed, and all I could do was shrug. He frowned at me, but climbed into the backseat without griping. Traffic was still heavy enough that I could focus on the road instead of talking, and by the time we were clear of it, we’d been quiet so long I wasn’t sure how to break the silence.
I sneaked glances at Sunny out of the corner of my eye. She sat cross-legged, her head resting on the back of the seat, tilted so she could stare out the window, her backpack on the floor in front of her. She twined colorful string around her fingers, twisting it into knots without looking at it.
Maybe I’d agreed to let her come along because I was hoping to make amends before I moved away. Though I didn’t let myself dwell on her, I had missed her over the years, especially lately. When I struggled to find the right words to explain things to Mary Anne and Amalia, a small part of me that I couldn’t quite squash wanted to pour my heart out to Sunny. Before our falling out, she’d always been able to understand me, whether I found the right words or not. She’d listen, stroke my hair, and then say something sensible.
But that Sunny had disappeared after her mother died, and I knew I’d never get her back.
Mrs. Winslow was a wonderful, sweet, loving artist who adored Sunny. Losing her was like losing a mother myself, but no matter how sad I was, I doubted I would ever understand the depth of Sunny’s mourning. Mrs. Wilson raged, raged against the dying of the light, but she died anyway, and Sunny’s light died with her, leaving only fury behind.
I didn’t know this new Sunny. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Her mother died when we were in eighth grade, and Sunny lashed out. She started partying, made stupid decisions, skipped school, stopped coming home at night - I tried to save her, tried hard to keep being a good friend, but she pushed me away and she pushed me away, and finally, I snapped.
That’s not really fair. I wasn’t perfect back then. I’m not perfect now. I really did try to be a good friend, but I didn’t understand why she kept doing the things she was doing, why she made the choices she made, and I wasn’t as supportive as I could have been. I was scared for her, scared of what she was going to do, and I lashed out, tried to make her see that she was making the wrong choices. I can be judgmental, and that side of me was at its worst back then.
She abandoned me, shut me out, and I had no idea how to deal with that, not back then, and not now, either.
Neither of us made great decisions at thirteen.
So now I haven’t even tried to have a conversation with her, not even just a casual small talk one, since freshman year, and we’re going to be locked in this car for the next two weeks. All because when faced with her, I clammed up, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, could only jerkily nod my head and unlock the car for her.
I glanced at her again, and this time, I found her watching me instead of the scenery. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look away, either, and heat flooded my cheeks. I jerked my eyes back to the road and focused on it as hard as I could.
Sunny’s breath matched mine perfectly. Once I noticed it, I couldn’t stop being aware.
*
“I’m hungry,” Jeff whined, hooking his arms over the front seat and leaning up between us. For a second, he sounded like a kid again, nine years old and griping about the Connecticut cold. “And I’ve gotta piss. When are we stopping?”
“Soon.” My voice sounded rough, and stuck a little in my throat. Too many hours without saying any of the words that boiled up, choking themselves off before any escaped.
Google Maps estimated it would take less than three hours to reach Barstow, but, as usual, it was way off due to traffic. The original plan called for a stop there so I could stretch my legs and take a break from driving, but it had been more than three hours, and we weren't close enough to push through.
“Come on, Dawn,” Jeff said, and flopped backward. “I’ve gotta go!”
“This trip is going to take forever if you have to pee every couple hours,” I told him. “Buckle up.”
I caught him in the rear-view mirror, rolling his eyes, but at least he listened to me. In return, I took the next exit, and hit up the first gas station I saw, a cramped little one with bathrooms around back. Jeff took off running, while I took the time to stand in the sun and stretch, pushing my arms high over my head, my hands linked together, and then reaching for my toes.
When I straightened, I found Sunny watching me over the hood of the car. At least, I think she watched me. She wore giant sunglasses that were so dark I couldn’t see her eyes. There wasn’t anyone else too close, though.
“Want anything?” she asked, her voice a little raspy. Maybe it was from all the silence between us. I hoped she hadn’t taken up smoking. That would just be stupid, after her mother died from lung cancer. It would just be stupid, period.
I shook my head. “There’s granola bars and jugs of water in the cooler,” I said. There, that was a whole sentence, and I hadn’t stumbled over it once. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” She rolled her shoulders forward and back. “I’m going to grab a tea.”
I looked away before she turned around, and decided to go ahead and fill up the tank while I waited, then hit the bathroom myself. When I came out, Sunny and Jeff were both waiting for me, leaning against the trunk. Jeff said something, and she laughed, tipped her head back, and sunlight touched her face.
“Let’s go,” I snapped, though I hadn’t meant to be so harsh. “We’re way behind schedule.”
“God, Dawn, chill.” Jeff rolled his eyes again, but sprawled across the backseat.
“Buckle up,” I reminded him yet again. Then, a little softer, because I was trying. “Hand me a couple granola bars, please.”
He dropped them into my hand, and I bit back a little shriek. They were cold from the ice at the bottom of the cooler. I dropped them onto the seat next to me, made sure my seat belt was buckled, and pulled away from the gas pumps.
We weren’t too far out of Barstow, but instead of stopping, I blew through it, getting onto Interstate 40 as fast as I could. Traffic was heavy there, but tapered off once we were clear of it and headed for the Arizona state line. I wanted to keep going until we reached Flagstaff before we stopped for the night.
But first, we had to cross the Mojave Desert.
The desert stretched out around us, flat and brown and gray, few trees, scrabbly little bushes. It made my skin itch, all that heat and dust and wide open skies, only hardy living things. People drove with their windows closed tight, their eyes covered in sunglasses, looking neither right nor left.
We were soft, running water and air conditioning, and the desert was the absolute opposite of that. Death in dryness and desolation.
It was terrible and beautiful all at once, and my eyes started to blur as I stared at the road ribboning out before us, far into the distance, nothing to break it up.
“Get your kicks,” Sunny said out of nowhere. I jerked the wheel a little, but managed to keep the car off the rumble strips along the edge of the road.
“What?”
“Route 66.” She shifted her weight and pulled her legs up, bare feet on the seat, knees drawn to her chest. “That old highway from Chicago to L.A.”
I glanced at her, but couldn’t read her expression. Once, I’d been able to guess her every thought. It was weird, sitting so close to her again without actually knowing anything about who she was now. “You a big Route 66 fan?” I asked at last.
She laughed a little. “You remember that Pixar movie, Cars? Charlie, this kid I baby-sit, is obsessed with it, and Route 66. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve had to make up about it to tell her.”
“You still baby-sit?” I couldn’t hide my shock. Baby-sitting was something we’d shared once. We even had a club for awhile, the We <3 Kids Club, with two other friends, and were super popular with all the local parents. That faded when we went to high school, and I figured Sunny had long thought herself too cool for kids.
She shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes. I have a couple regulars. Pays better than working at the mall, and it gets me away from the store.” Her father owned a local bookstore. I missed it a lot, but never went in anymore because I wasn’t ready to see her outside of school. If I’d known she wasn’t working there much, I would have shopped locally instead of online. That sort of thing is very important.
I realized Sunny had said something I didn’t catch. “What?” I asked, embarrassed to have been caught lost in thought.
“Do you sit anymore?” she repeated.
I shook my head. “No time, really. I see Whitney sometimes, and Clover and Daffodil still invite me to their birthday parties, but that’s about it.”
“Huh.” Sunny shifted around. “I thought you’d baby-sit longer than any of us.”
What was that supposed to mean? I frowned, but kept my gaze focused on the road. “Are you saying I’m childish? I’m not Jill.”
She made a noise that was pretty much a laugh, though there wasn’t any joy to it. “You’re reading a lot into a single sentence,” she said after a moment. “Are you worried that you haven’t grown up enough?”
“Grown up enough for what?” I sputtered. “That’s - that’s stupid.”
I caught her shrug out of the corner of my eye. “Okay,” she said, voice mild. “I just meant that you really loved baby-sitting. Our club, the club in Stoneybrook, you’re the only one who was a member of both at the same time. Baby-sitting was a big part of your life.”
The problem was, she was right. I loved baby-sitting because I loved kids, and I missed it a lot. I hadn’t lied about why I quit, I was really busy, but I could have squeezed it in somehow. It just wasn’t the whole reason. At first, I needed a break, because it reminded me too much of Sunny, and how much I missed the girl who had been my best friend for so many years. Then, when I tried to start sitting again, I noticed that I felt like I had to be something I wasn’t, the girl I’d been at eleven and twelve and thirteen, trapped in the sweet, smart, sunshine-y girl everyone expected me to be. Passionate about the environment and healthy eating. Easygoing, laid back, casual.
Straight.
3.
Jeff was a life saver. He broke the awkward silence after only about half an hour, and started chatting with Sunny about high school and basketball and surfing. She twisted around in her sit so that she could see him better, which let me cast quick glances at her without her catching me at it.
I wasn’t angry at her any longer. I should have never been, probably, because even back then I knew she was going through a lot, but emotions aren’t easy and clean like that. Though it had taken me a long time to figure it out, my response had just as much to do with me as with her. I’d been so caught up in my own crap, and at the time, I hadn't even known it.
We kept driving until almost nine, and then found a hotel for the night. It was pretty middle of the road as far as cost and amenities went, but there was an outdoor pool and a restaurant next door where we all found something to eat.
Jeff commandeered the television, messaging his friends so much I didn’t think he could possibly pay attention to what he was watching, but I didn’t say anything. I was too distracted myself.
As soon as we got back to the hotel, Sunny had showered and changed into an old Vanish band shirt, soft and faded, and gray cotton shorts, the hems fraying. She was a good four inches shorter than me, but her legs looked a mile long, and, god, she had reduced me to clichés.
“Want to go for a walk?” she asked, surprising me.
I shrugged, but hauled myself off the floor and slipped on my flipflops. They slapped pleasantly against my heels as we walked around the building. I thought Sunny would head to the sidewalk, but instead she led me over to the pool. It was surrounded by a short metal fence, but the gate wasn’t locked, even though there was a big sign clearly stating that the pool was closed after ten.
She kicked off her sandals, and sat down on the edge of the pool, slipping her feet into the water. After a second, I did the same thing, and we sat for awhile without saying anything, listening to the light traffic noise.
Sunny cracked her gum. I took a long, slow breath, and tried not to grind my teeth in annoyance.
“Thanks for letting me crash your trip,” she said, and cracked her gum again. It still made my skin crawl, but I wanted to hear what else she had to say. No sense in picking a fight with her. Yet.
I lifted one shoulder in a little half shrug. “No problem.” Then, because my curiosity was stronger than my filter, I added, “I’m surprised you remember I exist.”
“I deserve that.” Sunny twisted the hem of her shirt between her fingers. “Things were really rough after Mom died.” I’d never heard her say it so bluntly, and I had to bite the inside of my lip so I wouldn’t wince or tear up at just the memory of Mrs. Winslow. If Sunny could get through this without crying, I could too. Even if she couldn't, I wasn't sure I deserved to cry, not after all the fighting between us. “I didn’t handle it well, and I’m sorry.” She started to say something else, then stopped, and shrugged.
“I could have been more supportive,” I admitted. “I didn’t realize how much it was going to hurt, and - I was pretty judgey. Sorry.”
She laughed and bumped me a little with her elbow. “You? Deciding you know what’s best and then judging people for not following that plan? Never..”
“Hey! I’m not that bad.” I stuck my tongue out at her, which I knew was super mature and all, but whatever. She brought it out in me.
“No.” She sounded fond. “Not always. Not even usually.”
I rolled my eyes, then kicked water at her. She laughed so hard she snorted, then hopped to her feet. “Great idea!”
“Wait, wha-”
Before I even finished those two words, Sunny tugged her shirt off, then shoved her shorts down her legs and kicked them off. She wore no bra, and her underwear was bright orange boy shorts with lace edges. I looked away fast, trying not to stare at her bare breasts.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye just before she hit the water with a big splash that left one leg of my jeans soaked. I scrambled to my feet and out of my clothes, my need for revenge overwhelming my embarrassment at her nudity. My sports bra and underwear covered more than most of my bikinis, but the night air was cool and the water cold.
I leaped into the water after her, holding my breath and squeezing my eyes shut. The faster I got wet all over, the less I’d feel the chill. I surfaced, sputtering a little, and dashed water out of my eyes. Sunny treaded water nearby, grinning. The slick of water on her breasts was distracting as hell, but I managed to keep my eyes on her face.
“See?” She said, smug as anything. “We can still have fun.”
I raised my eyebrows, then brought my hands together and, in a quick motion, shot water into her face. It was an old trick, one that Charlie Thomas had taught to me back when I lived in Stoneybrook and hung out with his sister, Kristy (yes, of the Baby-Sitters Club fame), and I hadn’t had much chance to use it, but like riding a bike, it came right back to me.
She shrieked, then clapped her hands over her mouth. I looked around, searching for a sign that someone had heard us, but no one came rushing out of the front office, no doors swung open.
“You’re going to get us arrested,” I told her, and she rolled her eyes, shoved wet hair out of her face.
“Arrested? Seriously, Dawn?”
Yeah, okay, she had a point. “Kicked out then,” I said, not willing to give in.
“So?” She shrugged. “Like you’ll ever come back here again, right? And even if you do, there are plenty of hotels.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Kinda not the point,” I told her.
“I know.” Sunny stretched out onto her back.
It looked comfortable, and I stretched out too, my hair twisting around me in the water, tangling a little against my arms. For a few minutes, we simply floated. I tried to find constellations I knew, but the sky was too cloudy, I could only make out a few individual stars.
Water stirred, lapping against my arm, and I glanced over, found Sunny right next to me, still floating on her back. Her hand brushed against the back of mine, and then drifted away.
“You look like Rapunzel,” she said, then laughed. “Little water logged.”
“I’d rather be a mermaid.”
“Some sort of magical octopus.” Sunny caught a strand of my hair, twisting it around her fingers. As soaked as it was, I could still feel the gentle tug, and it sent shivers down my spine. I tried to blame that on the cold water, the desert night air.
I could have been insulted, plenty of people thought octopi were slimy and disgusting, but I was feeling too good to let any negative emotions get in the way. “Tentacles could be fun,” I said, then blushed, because I’d meant extra appendages to carry things, help play volleyball, keep my balance while I surfed, but there were other things they could be used for, sexier things, and Sunny was right next to me, very nearly naked.
“Yeah,” she drawled, and gave a little shimmy that sent water splashing up against me. That made me shiver, too, and I dropped my legs, stopped floating, tried to give myself a little space. She slipped closer to me through the water, reached out and touched my hair where it floated near her.
I touched her fingertips, her fingers, the back of her hand. My breath came too fast, stuttering in my chest, and my skin felt tight, like it might burst open, baring me to her at any second.
“Sunny.” I wasn’t even sure I’d said it aloud, but she touched my face, fingers light against my cheek, and I lost any ability to form words.
“Hey!” I’d been focused so hard on Sunny that I didn’t even notice the night clerk come up to the pool. She rattled the gate, then swung it open. “Pool’s closed, ladies. Get out of there.”
Sunny stood first, then offered me her hand. “Yup, definitely going to arrest us,” she whispered, and I had to bite back a laugh as I followed her, water dripping from my hair, leaving puddles everywhere I stepped. No sense in making it worse.
4.
Oklahoma City, and we were bored. Tired of the road. Ready for a break. Dinner, then sitting around, not sure what to do. Sunny kept her eyes on her phone, scrolling through something. I flipped channels, couldn’t find anything to watch.
Then, a laugh, and I looked up at her. Sunny raised her eyebrow, and a slow smile lifted her mouth. “How’s your fake id?” she asked.
*
Three hours later, we’d left Jeff at a nearby arcade, and we were in the middle of a crowded club, music throbbing against my sweaty skin. I’d spent some time on the dance floor, careful to keep my distance whenever Sunny joined me, but now we were jammed into a corner on one side of a tiny round table.
Sunny’s smile was long gone, and she’d been frowning for the past forty-five minutes, not that I was counting, or paying close enough attention to her to notice the exact moment her smile dropped away. (We were dancing. The crowd surged, moving her too close. I backed away. Her eyes looked closed, but her smile disappeared.)
“Look, this was your idea,” I said, frustrated. The flashing lights lit her skin in a patchwork of color. She wore glitter eyeliner, and her eyes sparkled as she looked at me, sipping a clear drink that could have been tonic water, or it could have been alcohol. “If you’re bored, you can leave.”
She watched me, eyes hooded, and took another sip of her drink. She left lip prints on the glass, a soft red smudge, but her lipstick still looked perfect. “I’m not bored,” she said at last, voice husky.
“Then what’s wrong?” I cried, my frustration bubbling over. She was so annoying and impossible, no matter how hard I tried to get along with her.
“If you can’t stand to be around me, why did you let me come on this trip?” she asked, surprising me.
I gaped at her, then took a big drink of my bottled water, trying to cover it. It’s not like I hadn’t asked myself that same question half a dozen times in just a couple days. I shrugged, and looked down at my hands, hoping she would let it drop.
“No, I mean it,” she said. She stepped closer, nudging into my space. “I thought we agreed to put things in the past, but you just can’t let it go, can you? We both apologized, but that’s not good enough for Dawn Read Schafer, Miss Perfectionist.” She set down her glass hard enough I expected it to crack. “You have to be better than everyone, even if ‘better’ means being an even bigger jackass.”
For once, her eyes were wide open, her cheeks flushed, and in the dim club lighting, she looked absolutely beautiful, full of righteous fury - gorgeous even when it was aimed at me.
“I’m sorry I can’t be-“
Whatever else she meant to say was cut off when I kissed her. I don’t know which one of us was more surprised. Her lip gloss was sticky and tasted faintly of cherries; it made my lips tingle, or maybe that was the sweep of her tongue against them, teasing until I opened my mouth and she deepened the kiss. She touched me, a light brush of her fingers against my jaw, the side of my throat, and my hands involuntarily clenched. Unfortunately, I was still holding that bottle, and water splashed onto both of us.
Sunny cried out and pulled back to stare at the wet splotch on her white tank top, then started to laugh. It lit her up from the inside, and my breath caught. I hadn’t seen her look that happy in a long, long time. I couldn’t stop watching her, excitement bubbling inside until I felt effervescent.
“Oh,” she said, and though her smile faded, she didn’t look angry this time. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”
My stomach dropped. “I didn’t mean it,” I blurted out. “It wasn’t - it didn’t mean anything.”
“Dawn,” she breathed, and reached for me again, caught my hands in hers even though water still dripped from my fingers. “Stop. Breathe. That’s not what I meant.” She leaned closer, until her breath brushed my cheek. “Come on, let’s get out of here. It’s too loud, and we need to talk.”
Her words were scary - “we need to talk” is one of the worst phrases I could imagine - but she kept hold of my hand as we made our way through the crowd and outside. People were crowded together on one side of the door, smoking, but the parking lot itself was pretty much empty. Puddles of rainwater reflected the streetlights, making the ground look a little like a starry sky.
Sunny stopped walking in the middle of a row of cars, and turned to face me. “Dawn,” she said, voice low, and then she cupped my face, pressing her thumbs to my jaw, her fingers soft against my cheeks, and leaned closer. Her breath washed over my lips, and I caught my breath, waiting for her to lean in that last millimeter to kiss me. She stayed where she was, watching me, eyes bright, and anticipation worked through me, excitement and a frisson of fear. My heart raced, pounding in my ears, and my chest burned.
Oh, right, breathing. Still a thing I had to do. I sucked in a breath of air, and Sunny grinned.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said, and finally kissed me. I caught her wrists, gently holding her hands to my face. I could feel her pulse, a fast flutter against my thumbs. God, she was as nervous as I was. I couldn’t believe it.
Her tongue touched mine, and I dropped my hands to her waist, my fingers just brushing bare skin where her tank top rode up a little. She gasped into my mouth, and a little thrill went through me. I’d done that to her, made her react. I liked it. I wanted to see if I could do it again.
She moved her hands from my face to my hips, hooked her thumbs under the edge of my skirt, and heat shot straight through me. I wanted to grab her hands, press her fingers between my legs, right where I wanted most to be touched.
A burst of laughter startled me, and I spun, found a group of friends stumbling out of the club, giggling together, shoving into each other, holding each other up. They weren’t laughing at us, but we were super exposed.
Sunny kissed me again, soft, and nodded toward the car. “Come on.”
I tried to slow down my breath, tried to stop shaking, tried to not look like I was as needy and nervous as I actually was. When we reached the car, she kissed me again, hurried, a little sloppy, and slipped her hands under the edge of my shirt.
I reached back, fingers scrabbling across the cold metal for a second, then I found the door handle and tugged on it, not thinking clearly. It should have been locked. It wasn’t, it swung open, and my little brother half fell out.
“What the hell, Dawn?” Jeff cried, voice loud, breath coming hard and fast. His shirt was off, and his pants might be undone. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, dizzy, and clung to Sunny. Movement, cloth and bodies, and then Jeff and some guy were standing next to us. The guy’s whole face was red, and he kept staring at the ground.
Of course, my face was hot and I had a hard time looking at anyone, so who was I to judge?
“Who’s your friend, Jeff?” Sunny asked, voice light. When I glanced at her, I found her smiling. She looked up at me, slipped an arm around my waist, leaned into me a little. My shoulders relaxed, just a bit.
“Why aren’t you still inside, getting drunk like idiots?” he snapped. Immediately, I tensed again, and squared my shoulders, ready to start shouting at him.
He blinked, then again, and I realized he was even more embarrassed than I was.
“Because the backseat is a popular place for making out tonight,” I said.
“Shut up!” Then he stopped, looked at us again. “Oh my god, Dawn, finally.”
Finally? “Wait, what?”
He smirked at me. “Duh, you finally admit you’re hooking up with Sunny.”
“Wait, what?!” I cried. Sunny’s arm tightened around me. “I’m not! I mean, this is the first time.” Then I hurried to add, “That we’ve kissed. The first time we’ve kissed.”
“Smooth,” Sunny murmured, and I blushed harder.
Jeff looked back and forth between us. “Really? Cause you had that big breakup when you were freshmen, and then suddenly Sunny is coming on this road trip with us …” He stopped talking, possibly because I thought my jaw was going to fall off, it dropped so far.
“We didn’t,” I started, but wasn’t sure what to say. “I didn’t.” Still not sure.
Sunny laughed. “Well, good job blowing her mind, Jeff.”
Had my family really thought I’d been dating Sunny, and that was why I was so upset when we had our big fight? Why had they never said anything? That was years ago! I took a deep breath. It didn’t really matter.
“I need tea,” I said. “And maybe pancakes.”
The dude who had been hooking up with my brother looked up at him. “I know a great diner. It’s open all night.” His voice was quiet, a little deep, and nice.
I huffed out a big breath of air, puffing my cheeks. Jeff laughed, which is what I wanted. “Yeah, okay, come on, Strange Boy. I’m buying everyone midnight breakfast.”
“I’m Erik,” he said, and smiled a little, but still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
*
We swapped stories for a couple hours over too-sweet pancakes and big glasses of iced tea. Sunny told one about a pottery class that had Jeff snorting his drink through his nose. It was funny, but I caught the undercurrent of sadness. Her mother had been a wonderful artist before she died, and that included pottery. After she died, Sunny threw out all of her crayons, even. I never thought she would take an actual art class ever again.
I took her hand under the table. Her smile, while bright, had a brittle quality to it, but she let me lace our fingers together.
5.
Sunny sat cross-legged in the passenger seat, idly chewing her way through a bag of baby carrots she’d found at the big truck stop where we last stopped for gas. I thought it was pretty suspect, fresh vegetables at a giant gas station, but she said they were good. She had the atlas open across her lap, and my handwritten notes on what I planned to do, where I wanted to stop, and at what point I was going to cut north.
“I think we should visit UNC,” she said, and offered me a carrot.
I stared at her long enough Jeff jabbed my shoulder. “Eyes on the road!”
“There’s nothing for miles,” I argued, but he was right. I needed to focus more on driving than the cute girl sitting next to me. My best friend, back by my side, even if I still couldn't believe it was happening. “And no, that’s not in the plan.”
“Why not?” Sunny asked.
“Because we need to go north, too.” And because I wasn’t ready.
She shot me a pointed look. “Plans can change. I know you can be flexible.”
“Gross!” That was Jeff again, from the backseat. “TMI.”
Her giggle made me smile, even though I knew I was blushing, too. Plus it wasn’t like that. We didn’t have any alone time, and even if we did, I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t think I was ready for that.
The kissing was great, though.
“Come on,” she wheedled. “I want to see where you’ll be living next year.”
“In, like, two months,” Jeff said. “You have to move in August, right?”
I nodded, my throat strangely dry. I definitely wasn’t ready for that.
“Even more reason we should go see the campus! You can see your future.”
I bit my lower lip, hard. I didn’t see a future. I’d been living in the present, as immediate as possible. For the past year, maybe longer than that, just a touch out of step with my friends, who were all so excited about what came next.
“Maybe,” I hedged. “I’ll think about it. Can we talk about it when we stop later?”
Sunny hmmed at me, but nodded, and snapped the atlas closed. “You know,” she said, and I braced myself, but she really was letting that subject drop, at least, “we haven’t done nearly enough cheesy tourist stuff on this trip. Jeff, I’m surprised you didn’t make a list.”
He snorted, and dove into his backpack, then shoved a tightly folded piece of paper over the seat, waving it at Sunny’s face. “Totally did,” he said. “Look.”
She laughed and took it, opened it carefully. I caught sight of it, but couldn’t make out my brother’s sloppy handwriting in the short time I was willing to take my eyes off the road. He had absolutely filled the page with writing, though, and guilt stabbed through me. I’d been so caught up in thinking of this as my trip, with two interlopers (even though Sunny had ended up being a great addition), that I had never taken the time to consider whether Jeff was actually excited about it, whether he had his own plans.
“Well, we’ve passed some of these already, and a bunch are too far north-“
“Yeah, well, I thought we were going up to San Francisco first,” he said, and jabbed me in the shoulder.
“Hey! No harassing the driver,” I snapped, but I was grinning, and he laughed, too. “What’s close?”
Sunny flipped open the atlas again, and compared his list to the big map that showed a high level view of the United States. Individual state maps were in the book behind that, and were far more useful to the actual driving.
“Well, if we stay on 40 instead of cutting north, we can hit Memphis. Beale Street, maybe Graceland for the extra classic rock cheese. The Mississippi River’s there too, and some sort of pyramid, according to Jeff’s list.”
“It’s a Bass Pro now,” he said, leaning over the back of the seat. “But the Tigers used to play there. I’ve always wanted to see it.”
Well, crap. I sighed. “Okay, yeah, Memphis it is.” We could always head toward Connecticut from there.
“Thanks, Dawn!” Jeff flung his arm across my shoulders and gave me a hug. It was awkward, the back of the seat in between us, and my need to keep watching the road, but it was sweet, too. I leaned my head against his.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Sunny watching us and smiling.
*
“Oh. My. God.” Sunny tipped her head back and stared upward. “This thing is ridiculous.”
It really was, a monstrosity of dark glass rising up from a flat parking lot, with great big bridges overhead from where the interstate passed over the Mississippi River. The parking lot was absolutely full, and we had quite a walk ahead of us.
“I’ve never seen so much camo,” Jeff muttered. “What are they hiding from in the middle of all this concrete?”
I stifled a laugh. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, which was a bunch of old white guys in hunting gear, but there were a couple people wearing camo pants, and I saw at least one matching jacket, even though it was already pretty warm. It was too early to check into our hotel for the night, so we were hitting up some of the touristy spots first, spending the night, and then visiting another hotel in the morning before we took off. (The Peabody had a duck walk, according to Sunny’s research, a parade of actual live ducks through the hotel to the indoor fountain where they lived during the day, which sounded both ridiculous and wonderful. We were going to at least see it before we left town. No way was it in our price range to stay there, though, even with the money from Dad and Carol.)
“Zombies,” Sunny said knowledgeably. “Clearly that’s the big fear.”
This time, I couldn’t stop my laugh from bursting out, and I slung my arm across her shoulders. She snuggled against me, touching her hand to my waist. I cuddled with her a moment, then carefully extracted myself. Sunny raised her eyebrows at me, but hooked her thumbs in her pockets and didn’t say anything.
“Hey,” I said, defensive, “it’s the south.”
“Gay people exist down here too,” she told me, but she was still smiling, so I didn’t feel quite so bad. I shrugged and shifted my woven purse higher on my shoulder.
“I know,” I said. “I just-” I stopped, and worried at a spot on the inside of my lip.
“Hey.” Sunny gently shook my elbow. “It’s okay.”
I shot her a shaky smile.
“God, come on, suck up your drama and come on, Dawn!” Jeff danced around us, and though he sounded exasperated, he watched us close, clearly worried about me. Teenage brothers. God forbid they show you how they really feel.
I punched his shoulder to reassure him, and together, the three of us headed toward the store. I stopped when we were a little closer and snapped a couple quick shots for Instagram, the giant dark glass filling the frame.
Inside was ridiculous, from the toy gun shooting gallery to the dead animals stuffed and put on display everywhere. This was not my kind of store, and I couldn’t stop exchanging a disgusted look with Sunny every time we stumbled across the next horrible display, which was approximately every five seconds.
“Chill out,” Jeff muttered, eventually growing tired of the two of us gawking at things and shuddering. “You’re making people stare.”
“Who can like this?” I asked, and, okay, my voice was a little louder than I intended, but he didn’t have to glare at me that way. “It’s disgusting!”
He rolled his eyes. “Live and let live, Dawn.”
Yeah, no, this was killing with no purpose, killing for sport, and it was the worst. Before I could launch into a lecture, he grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the glass elevator up to the viewing platform.
The elevator let us out into a nice little restaurant with great views overlooking the city, decorated with metal steampunky animals. I spent a lot of time taking pictures, because my friend Claudia would love the artwork and how it was displayed, but eventually joined Sunny and Jeff outside. Though the air had been still at ground level, up here, the wind was strong, whipping my hair around me.
Sunny turned to watch me cross the exposed space to the railing surrounding the viewing platform. It was weird, to be able to look down and see open space beneath my feet. Vertigo swamped over me for a second, and I froze.
“Hey, look at me, Dawn.” Sunny stood in front of me, holding out her hands. “Look at me.”
It took everything I had to drag my gaze up to meet hers, but when I finally managed it, I found her smiling encouragingly at me.
“I didn’t even know I was afraid of heights,” I said, my voice far too thin.
“It’s okay,” she said, and took my hands. I held onto her very tight, until it had to be painful and her fingers went white, but she didn’t complain. “Come on, it’s better if you aren’t looking straight down.”
I let her guide me over to the railing. She was right; as long as I stared straight out, the height didn’t get to me, and the view was absolutely beautiful. Off to our right, the Mississippi River meandered down, marking the boundary between Arkansas and Tennessee. There were beautiful green trees, and no tall buildings to block the view. Everything stretched beneath us like a mostly-flat living quilt.
I breathed in, breathed out, and very carefully did not look down.
“Gorgeous,” Sunny murmured. I glanced at her, half expecting her to be watching me like in some cheesy rom-com, but she was looking out across the river. Still holding my hands, though, right there next to me, solid and reassuring.
And absolutely beautiful.
Oh, good lord, I was the one living a rom-com.
She caught me looking and a slow smile slipped across her face. “See?” she said, still in that low tone that made the whole place feel far more intimate than it was. “Everything’s better over here.”
“Yeah, it really is,” I said. Then I kissed her.
*
Memphis gave Sunny and her Yelp obsession a run for her money. Most of the recommended restaurants wouldn’t work for us: bbq, fried chicken, bbq and friend chicken. Eventually she found a little hole in the wall diner with a surprisingly good salad and an amazing vegetarian lasagna. Who would have guessed?
I sat on my decision for awhile, twisting it this way and that to see if I could convince myself to change my mind, but when Jeff ordered dessert - his sweet tooth in full force, but I couldn’t begrudge him pecan pie, apparently a specialty - I turned to Sunny.
“Okay,” I told her.
She smiled at me, looking a little puzzled, then said, “Okay what?”
“Okay, map out a route that takes us by UNC. Maybe we’ll stop.” She flung her arms around me as best she could in the tiny little booth. I let her hug me, even leaned into it, but stressed, “Maybe.”
“Sure,” she said, and rested her head on my shoulder. “Maybe.”
*
We totally stopped at UNC.
6.
Campus was mostly empty. Well, it was early in the summer, and a Sunday afternoon. Probably the best chance I’d have of seeing the place with as little pressure as possible. Except the pressure didn’t really come from anyone else, especially not all the way out here where I didn’t know anyone yet. I could blame Dad and Carol, Mom and Richard, even Mary Anne, Jeff, and Gracie, but mostly the pressure came from me, always wanting to be the absolute best I could possibly be so I could make them proud, so I could do great things, so I could change the world.
I’d always thought about college as my chance to become the adult I wanted to be. I made the best decisions I could during high school, worked hard, got good grades and volunteered and tried to make my little bit of earth a better place, but college was when the little things I did would become big ones, important ones, life-altering and world-changing ones.
I wasn’t ready.
*
Jeff ditched us to go check out the basketball stadium, but not before mocking me because I didn’t know how good the team was. He also tried to get me to promise to take him to a game sometime, but as much as I wanted to do something that would make him so happy, that felt too much like promising to stay here.
I wasn’t sure anymore that I would be able to do that.
Sunny and I wandered the campus, not really saying much. Sometimes she’d point out a particularly cute building or some gorgeous flower, but mostly we just walked under the sun and the warm weather. It was pretty, though very different from the east coast universities I visited with Mary Anne or the sprawling California beauty I saw every day.
Eventually, we ended up behind a giant bell tower. A short path led up to it, flanked by dark green bushes that were precisely maintained. Sunny sank down onto the sun-warmed courtyard, and I followed, leaning back on my hands so I could stare up at the tower. Its pointed top seemed breathtakingly-high from this angle, looming over everything. It would cast a shadow across the entire campus, if it was as big as it felt.
“Talk to me, Dawn,” Sunny said. I glanced over at her quickly, but she wasn’t looking at me. That made it easier. The sunshine spilling over us made it easier. The quiet campus was absolutely silent here, and we could have been alone in all the world. That made it easier, too.
“I’m scared,” I said, admitting it out loud for the first time, and looked at her again, wanting to see her reaction, not wanting to know. I was a mess.
“Of course you are.” Sunny tipped her face into the sunlight, her eyes closed, and looked more at peace than I’d seen her since we were kids. “It’s a big change.”
I shook my head, then shrugged. “Yeah, okay, it is, but - I researched my schools. UNC is a good school, a good place for me.”
That made her laugh. “Of course you did. And it is.” She looked at me at last. “It’s not the school, it’s not the move. We graduated, Dawn. We’re not high school students anymore. We’re adults.” Though she kept smiling, there was a twist to it, a sadness. “Everything changes. We have to change, too, and that’s terrifying. What if we don’t change the way we think we’re going to?”
I tried to respond, but all my words caught on my tongue. She was quiet for a long time, but eventually she spoke again.
“Dawn.” I caught her wide grin. “Sunshine.”
“Oh god, stop, too oedipal,” I mumbled, and that made her laugh.
“It doesn’t matter.” She scooted over until she was close enough to take my hand, lace our fingers together. I could feel her pulse where my thumb rested against her wrist. “We don’t have to know right now what we’re going to become. We don’t have to know anything. This is our chance to just, just,” she stopped, shrugging, “figure it out as we go. You don’t have to have a plan.”
I slumped forward, my hair falling all around me, a thick curtain to keep out the world. Sunny’s hand was steady in mine, though, and she waited me out.
“But,” I started to say, then stopped, speechless. Everything she said made so much sense. I knew it, logically. The part of me that was so worked up wasn’t getting that message, though. “I’ve always been the one who knows what I’m doing, who I am. I’m, you know, calm and unruffleable and satisfied with who I am.”
Sunny brushed my hair out of the way until she could see my face. “Okay, maybe you are. That doesn’t mean you can’t change - shouldn’t change. You don’t have to be anything you’ve always been, or anything anyone, including me, has ever told you that you were.”
“When’d you get so smart?” I asked her, trying to lighten the mood.
She squeezed my hand. “Well, I might know a thing or two about changing because of what people think I should be, or shouldn’t be.” Her smile was shaky; mine felt just as weak. “I don’t want to be all cliché, but Mom dying, that changed things for me, changed me. More than once. I’ve been a lot of different Sunnys.”
I nodded, hoping she would take it as encouraging as I meant it to be. I didn't know what to say, but I wanted her to keep talking.
“You might get here and hate it,” she told me. “You might love it. You might spend four years here because you’ve already made a decision about where to go, and it’s neither all good nor all bad. Any of those are okay.”
“It’s supposed to be this big, perfect adventure,” I admitted. “Carol keeps talking about how much she loved college, Mom and Dad have great stories about the stuff they got up to - what if I do it wrong?” Since when did I worry about doing things wrong? But that had been building for awhile.
“There’s no right or wrong.” Sunny smiled at me, gentle and sweet. “You need to do what works for Dawn Read Schafer, no one else.”
I huffed a laugh. “Can you remind me of that sometime?” I asked, then immediately wanted to take it back, because that was treading way too close to the fact that our road trip was almost over. The summer had barely started, but it felt like that was almost over, too. And then I was off to, well, here, and she would be in San Francisco.
Treading way too close to the future, and even if I was ready for it on my own, which I so wasn’t, I didn’t know how to tell her I wanted her to be a part of it.
She kissed my fingertips. “Yes. Any time.”
Almost, I told her I loved her, but that was way too fast. I kissed her instead, making sure my first memory of campus was a good one.
7.
I said I love you over Christmas break while we watched the big firework show at Disneyland. I still wasn’t sure about college, or North Carolina, or the kind of person I was becoming, but I was sure that not knowing wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.
And I was one hundred percent sure about Sunny.
0.
Dawn dreams of the ocean, unending, dark and deep. She floats in it, not breathing, but her lungs never burn. It swallows her, buoys her, but she can see golden light piercing the water, leading her home -
No, not home.
Dawn surfaces, water streaming from her hair, and finds herself walking through great purple poppies. Something glistens in the distance, and she chases sunshine into the unknown.
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