There turns out to be plenty of room and there’s an empty seat between us, the middle seat, and no one takes it, and I’m not going to scoot into it just so I can be closer to Aaron, even though that’s what I want. At first we’re quiet, but then, I don’t know who goes first, we start talking and we don’t stop.
We don’t talk about running. We don’t talk about Marcus. We talk about how Aaron wants to go to med school but is worried he won’t be able to afford it. He’s been trying to pull up his grades, he didn’t do too hot freshman and sophomore years, and he’s hoping his last two years will be enough to boost his GPA to get in somewhere with a good pre-med program. He wonders if he’ll be able to run track, the only mention of running, and still be pre-med. How he’ll balance it.
The van stops for gas and someone in the front hollers back to us and asks if we want to switch seats, but we don’t.
“I’m good!” I call back.
“Me too,” says Aaron, and again, that slight pause, as if everyone else in the van can feel whatever it is sizzling between us.
The van starts back up again, and the roar it makes as it hits the highway is a comfort. Between that and the music Eliza is blaring, no one can hear me and Aaron in the back.
We talk about how I want to travel. I want to go to Shanghai and see where LaoLao is from and where my mom was born. And to Ghana, to the village where my Granny Dee’s parents lived. I tell him, smiling shyly, that I want to study both Chinese and Japanese when I get to university. I know a little bit of Mandarin from LaoLao, but I want to be fluent.
“I didn’t know you were so interested in languages,” he says. “Or so interested in Asia. I thought I knew you, Wing-a-ling, but I’m finding out new things about you every day.”
“What do you know about me?” Our knees knock against each other in the small space behind the seat in front of us.
“I know that you love to sing. And that you’re afraid of heights. And you like to go to the beach. I know that you watch old cartoons on weekend mornings. And you bake real good chocolate chip cookies. And you’re messy. And you’d do anything for the people you love.” He leans closer, voice low, eyes tight on mine. “I know that when you’re happy, you shine. And I love it when you laugh, I love the sound, and I feel it.” He sits back and gestures with his hands around his chest.
He does feel my feather giggles.
“I like getting to know you, Wing Jones.”
“I like getting to know you too.”
Aaron reaches over across the empty seat between us and puts the smallest amount of pressure on the back of my hand, sending shooting stars up my arm. My hand flips over, making its own decision, I sure as hell didn’t tell it to do that, so our hands are lying palm to palm. That line from Romeo and Juliet, the one about the lips being palms, and palms kissing, flits through my mind. Then he squeezes my hand, and if the first touch sent shooting stars, this is a whole meteor shower, racing up my veins from my palm straight to my heart.
Hours later, we drive through a tunnel of green. I’ve never seen trees like this before. Trees with long, wispy branches that droop and drape over the road like velvet curtains. I push the window open and breathe in salty, unfamiliar air. The ocean lies ahead of us, beckoning with open arms.
Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Our van trundles along, getting closer and closer to the ocean, and I stare out the window like a little kid staring at a tiger at the zoo.
“You gotta watch out for alligators here,” Aaron says, leaning over my shoulder, and I can feel his breath on my neck.
“I don’t believe you,” I say, sitting as still and stiff as I can, not wanting to lean into him, not wanting to lean away.
He leans closer; his face is right next to mine. “Look,” he says, pushing the van window open as far as it’ll go. “Do you see that right there? Up ahead, next to that lady in the blue dress. She hasn’t even noticed there’s an alligator right next to her!”
I squint, trying to see. “That thing? That’s a log.”
“Nope.” Aaron shakes his head. “That’s an alligator.”
He’s teasing me; he’s got to be.
Then, just as we’re passing by the thing, it moves up out of the water and onto the bank. It has eyes. And teeth. It definitely isn’t a log. It definitely is an alligator.
“Ah!” I scoot back away from the window, but there isn’t enough room, Aaron is right behind me, and I slam against him, my head knocking into his jaw.
“Sorry!” I try to scramble back into my seat.
“Told you so,” he says with a smirk.
“We’re camping with alligators nearby?”
He laughs, and his laugh buzzes through me. “They won’t bother us. They stay in the creeks and we’ll be down on the beach.”
“That isn’t very reassuring,” I say, picturing an alligator chomping through our tents.
“Don’t you trust me?” His question stops my heart.
I trusted Marcus more than I trusted anyone in my whole life and look what happened.