She’s looking down at the floor. She’s holding her hands in front of her.
“I shouldn’t be saying this, I know I shouldn’t. I know what happens. I’m scared. I know. It’s not good. It’s bad.”
“Are you okay?”
“You don’t have to go.”
I can feel my pulse skipping ahead. Jake is getting straws, I think, and napkins from the dispenser. We won’t need spoons after all.
One of the girls laughs, louder this time. The skinny girl in front of me is still looking down, hair covering her face.
“What are you scared of?”
“It’s not what I’m scared of. It’s who I’m scared for.”
“Who are you scared for?”
She picks up the cups. “For you,” she says, handing me the cups before disappearing back into the kitchen.
JAKE IS OBLIVIOUS, AS USUAL. We get back to the car, and he doesn’t mention anything about the girls in the Dairy Queen. At times he can be very unaware, very self-obsessed.
“Did you see that girl?”
“Which one?”
“The one who made the lemonades?”
“There were several girls.”
“No, only one girl made the drinks. Skinny. Long hair.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know. Weren’t they all skinny?”
I want to say more. I want to talk about that girl and her rash and her sad eyes. I want to tell him what she said. I hope she has someone to talk to. I want to understand why she’s afraid. It doesn’t make sense for her to be afraid for me.
“How’s your drink?” Jake asks. “Too sweet?”
“It’s okay. Not too sweet.”
“That’s why I don’t like getting those iced drinks, the lemonades and slushies, because they’re always cloyingly sweet. I should have gotten a Blizzard.”
“It must be nice to be able to have ice cream when you want it.”
“You know what I’m saying.”
I shake the cup in my hand and push the straw down and up, the friction making a squeaking sound. “It’s sour, too,” I say. “Fake sour, but sour. It evens out the sweet.”
Jake’s drink is melting in the cup holder. Soon it will be completely liquid. He’s drunk about half.
“I always forget how hard these are to finish. I only needed a small. There’s nothing medium about the medium.”
I lean forward and turn up the heat.
“Cold?” asks Jake.
“Yeah, a little. Probably from the lemonade.”
“We’re also in a snowstorm. Whose idea was it to get iced drinks, anyway?”
He looks at me and raises his eyebrows.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he says. “I get sick of these after four sips.”
“I’m not saying anything,” I say, raising both hands. “Not a word.”
We both laugh.
This will probably be the last time I’m in a car with Jake. It seems a shame when he’s like this, joking, almost happy. Maybe I shouldn’t end things. Maybe I should stop thinking about it and just enjoy him. Enjoy us. Enjoy getting to know someone. Why am I putting so much pressure on us? Maybe I will eventually fall in love and lose any fears I have. Maybe it will get better. Maybe that’s possible. Maybe that’s how it works with time and effort. But if you can’t tell the other person what you’re thinking, what does that mean?
I think that’s a bad sign. What if he was thinking the same things about me right now? What if he was the one thinking about ending things but also was still having fun, or not entirely sick of me yet, so was keeping me around just to see what would happen. If that’s what was going on in his head, I’d be upset.
I should end it. I have to.
Whenever I hear the “it’s not you, it’s me” cliché, it’s hard not to laugh. But it really is true in this case. Jake is just Jake. He’s a good person. He’s smart and handsome, in his way. If he were an asshole or stupid or mean or ugly or anything, then it would be his fault that I end things, kind of. But he’s not any of those things. He’s a person. I just don’t think the two of us are a match. An ingredient is missing, and, if I’m being honest, it always has been.
So that’s probably what I’ll say: It’s not you, it’s me. It’s my issue. I’m the one with the problem. I’m putting you in an unfair position. You’re a good person. I need to work through some things. You need to move on. We tried, we did. And you never know what’ll happen in the future.
“Looks like you’re done,” says Jake.
I realize I’ve put my lemonade in the cup holder. It’s melting. I am done. Done.
“I’m cold. It’s interesting to watch things melt and feel cold.”
“That was a bit of a wasted stop.” He looks at me. “Sorry.”
“At least I can say I’ve been to a Dairy Queen in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm. That’s something I’ll never do again.”
“We should get rid of these cups. They’ll melt and the cup holders will get sticky.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“I think I know where we can go.”
“You mean to throw them out?”
“If we keep going, up ahead, there’s a road on the left. Down that road a bit is a school, a high school. We can get rid of the cups there.”
Is it really that important to get rid of these cups? Why would we stop just to do that?
“It’s not far, is it?” I ask. “The snow’s not gonna get any better. I’d really like to get home.”
“Not too far, I don’t think. I just don’t want to throw the cups out the window. It’ll give you a chance to see a bit more of this area.”
I’m not sure if he’s joking about “seeing” more of this area. I look out the window. It’s just a mix of blowing snow and darkness.
“You know what I mean,” he says.
Several more minutes down the road, we come to the left turn. Jake takes it. If I thought the original road was a back road, this one redefines the concept of back road. It’s not wide enough for two cars. It’s heavily treed, a forest.
“Down here,” says Jake. “I remember this now.”
“You didn’t go to this school, though, did you? It’s far from your house.”
“I was never a student here. But I’ve driven down here before.”
The road is narrow and snakes back and forth. I can see only what the headlights allow. The trees have given way to fields. The visibility is still almost zero. I put the back of my hand on my window. The glass is cold.
“How far along is it, exactly?”
“I don’t think much farther. I can’t remember.”
I’m wondering why we are doing this. Why don’t we just leave the drinks to melt? I would rather get home and clean up myself than spend however long driving deeper into these fields. Nothing makes sense. I want this to end.
“I bet it’s nice during the day,” I say. “Peaceful.” Trying to be positive.
“Yeah, definitely remote.”
“How’s the road?”