Chapter Eight

Austin - New Mexico - Arizona

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"I have seen God and he is this girl." What's Eating Gilbert Grape - Ellis

El Paso, Tx, 8.30pm - August 14th

Ellis

Jessie is in a mood with me. It's obvious.

She's been all too happy to share her nachos and her dip. Earlier, back in Austin she even let me have a lick of her frozen yogurt from Amy's. 

Jessie also didn't complain when I turned her playlist off to put on the radio for a change. She didn't throw her toys out the pram or give me the death stare either when it became obvious that she would have to drive us to the border before New Mexico due to my stinking hangover, in a rental car we picked up at 9am from a dodgy forecourt. 

It's the first time she's ever driven an automatic and on the wrong side of the road and she didn't say a word against it. Nothing. 

Something is wrong. Terribly wrong. There's no way Jessie is naturally being this nice and agreeable. Especially not after my show last night, stumbling into the cottage, my head wrecked by strong weed and stronger spirits - whiskey, rum, who knows what else. I don't remember how. Faces and places are a blur. 

I think someone did a keg stand, just like in the movies but maybe I imagined it all. All I do know is that when I woke up this morning I was tucked up on the sofa, t-shirt and shoes off, with a freshly brewed coffee on the table and all my bags packed. 

And a weirdly, familiar taste on my lips. Fruity, almost. 

Jessie even said, "Good morning handsome", as if I didn't look like a bloated piece of shit or smell like one. 

And now, here, eight hours later in El Paso after a long journey, she's still smiling. It might be for the fact she's got a plate as big as her head full of nachos and melted cheese in front of her or because she went through two bags of gummy worms and a few packets of Fun Dip on the way over, but whatever it is, it's not right. 

It's unnerving. 

I can't help but theorise what I've done wrong. Because this is exactly how she was the day after Stella broke up with me at College and I cried like a drunk baby.

The same as the after day we first started High School and I told her that there was a pretty girl sat behind me in English, which made me excited for the new school year ahead. 

Jessie was and still is my best friend. I've pretty much told her everything, no filter but, just maybe not the right things, all of the time. 

And the two big no no's swimming round my head right now mean I can't tell her about waiting on my university acceptance for fear of ruining our road trip and I cant explain that when I tell her she's beautiful it's not to earn brownie points, or to make her feel better. It's the truth. 

"So, you okay?" I ask, pushing a half eaten taco round my plate as we continue to sit and rest at Carson's Cantina in the middle of El Paso. 

Her eyebrows raise slightly but she nods her head. "Yeah."

It's like a flashback to the time I broke her favourite CD by mistake and didn't offer to replace it, or buy her a new one and she just smiled at me and said, "Don't worry about it," even though I know she was utterly crushed and devastated. 

This weirdly passive, lacking in aggression but clearly still there vibe, bubbling way under her sunny disposition is freaking me out and I can barely stand it. 

"But are you sure?" I press, nudging her leg under the table. "I mean, come on, I was pretty drunk last night and probably acted like a fool and yet, you're totally fine with me."

"You were drunk, it happens."

"But, like, are you sure that I didn't do anything?" I hate the way she's just smiling, like she's posing for a stock photo. It looks empty. Forced. "Did I say something to you? Did I offend you in some way?"

Dipping a hand into her satchel, she pulls out a small pot Strawberry lip balm and unscrews the top. As she uses a finger to coat her lips in a pinkish gloss, the scent hits me.

"No," she sighs. 

I suck in a deep breath and watch her lips twitch. "Jessie, did we... Did I..." It's hard to spit the words out. "...Did we kiss? Or something?"

I don't know why I'm questioning it. That smell - fruity - it tells me all I need to know. 

For a brief moment she pauses and I think she knows I know. Maybe hope flashes in my eyes or maybe she can feel the vibration of my chest beating so damn hard because her gaze flits between the strawberry balm and me. And then at a waitress who passes by with a tray of burritos, before she just shrugs. 

I try again. "Look, I was pretty out of it last night but your-"

"You were."

"Which means that I have no idea, literally no recollection of any of it, expect arriving at the party and getting a drink, and-"

Jessie drops the balm back in her back and picks up a sour cream slathered nacho and sighs, "-and talking to Marie for the whole night. I wiped her lipgloss off your face, last night, in case you're wondering why you smell like baby wipes."

Ah. There it is. Crap. Does she think I kissed her? Marie? Is that why she's secretly seething under false smiles? 

"Wait, we never... Nothing happened between us. We were like alone for two seconds, in the kitchen and that was it, I don't even like her in that way!" I say, my voice weak and feeble and totally unbelievable even though it's the honest truth. 

"Says the guy who can't remember singing Bohemian Rhapsody in the car, all the way back to the cottage. Says the guy who was glued to Marie's side like a lost dog. Says the guy who doesn't remember then trying to ki-." Jessie abruptly stops. 

I nod, willing her to go on but she doesn't. Her lips go all tight and then, the smile returns. "It doesn't even matter."

"But why not?"

I know I shouldn't be doing this right now, especially not with a raging hangover and with the news that I did in fact try to kiss her. 

It'll only complicate things, but then again, isn't that how it's always been between us? 

Maybe Jessie wants me to lay all my cards out. Maybe she wants to hear that contrary to how it might have looked last night, I wasn't and am not interested in Marie that way. Okay, so maybe at the beginning I was and maybe just because Jessie's been all too willing to parade and make it known who her admirer's are and who she admirer's, but not enough to do anything about it. 

I just wish she could give me a sign or a look, anything to let me know that I'm not the only one who feels like this too. 

Not the only one to imagine how things might be different. 

If she tells me now that I tried to kiss her, then I'll tell her why it's not the first time I've wanted that to happen. Nor do I want it to be the last. 

But Jessie only shrugs again, her shoulders falling low. Like it wouldn't matter even if I did spill my guts out on the table, once and for all. 

"Because it's not important, that's why. It means nothing."

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Phoenix, Arizona, 4.30pm - August 15th

Jessie deals out the deck of cards evenly between us and leans back in the plastic lawn chair. "Your go."

We're sat outside another interchangeable motel room, in a tiny town just outside of Phoenix, waiting for the sun to go down so we can drive the rest of the way to Las Vegas without dying of heat exhaustion. 

I'm also hoping that the long drive and night air will clear my head of everything that's going on in side of it. A great big muddle and mess of feelings and things I'd like to say but don't know how to now that Jessie's made it clear kissing her (however drunk) meant nothing. 

That hurts. 

"Bullshit!" Jessie shouts, calling my bluff. She pushes all the cards I have to pick up across the table and they fall into my lap and to the ground. 

"Thanks a bunch," I say, dipping my head low to scoop them up. "I actually forgot how much I hate playing card games with you."

"Because I'm too good?"

"No, because you're too competitive." I hit the cards against my palm and stick my tongue out at her. "Always have been. And you can never admit when you're wrong."

Jessie takes a sip from her can of coke and laughs into it. "Hah. Yeah right. It's only because I'm never wrong, that's why."

I shake my head. "Case in point."

Putting down a card that means I have to pick up, again, she rocks back and forth on her chair and changes the subject. "So, this hotel we're staying in when we get to Vegas..."

"What about it?"

"Do you think we should call ahead, to check that we've actually got separate beds and not a double again?" Her eyes narrow as she waits for my response. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was testing me. It hasn't been much of a problem so far, why now?

Is it because we've been waking up with tangled limbs and with our arms a little too close? 

Jessie's bottom lips juts out and she speaks before I have the chance to. "I just think it might be better, you must hate having me steal all the covers."

"I really don't."

"You're too polite." She playfully kicks my shin under the table. "Right come on, enough talking, I want to win this next round and then head out."

I don't put up a fight. "Sure."

"I'm going to nap in the car, if that's cool. I'm knackered," Jessie says this all with a smile but I know it's not the full truth. She just doesn't want to talk or look at me or get into anything that may potentially cause an argument. Which is usually the role I adopt but it's been reversed. 

"Whatever you want."

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On the drive through Arizona, with Jessie asleep on the back seat, I think about the possibility that maybe I'm ignoring something crucially important: the fact that she may not feel the same way. 

What if she's freaked out by the concept of it and how it might work after all these years? Would she be willing to risk friendship and the future of it?

But then again, what if Jessie see's me the way she's always seen me? 

Just as a friend. 

What then?