Page 111 of Touch the Sky

I squint at the white line running up the center of the highway.

“Did we ever think it would be simple?” I ask. “Or did we just pretend so we could…?”

I can’t say it, but I feel it, and I know she does too. I can taste it—that one delicious word like a forbidden fruit we’re always going to crave no matter how many times we give into temptation.

Did we just pretend so we could fuck?

Something about fucking Tess makes me wish I’d never used that word for anything else. I wish I’d kept it like a secret, like a strum of chords I only play when I want to think about her.

Fucking Tess deserves its own sound.

“I don’t know what we thought,” she says.

Maybe we weren’t thinking at all. Maybe we were just feeling.

She makes it easy to feel, like falling into a current. You can fight the flow, but everything gets sweeter when you just drift away.

We spend the rest of the drive in silence. It’s only another few minutes before we reach La Grange Rouge. Tess parks next to the house, and I hop out and hurry up to the porch.

I remember what happened last time we let ourselves sit in a truck together in the dark.

The house is quiet. I call out forMaman, but there’s no answer. My stomach knots with worry, but it only takes a couple seconds to find her passed out on the couch with a blanket tucked around her shoulders and a news channel playing on the TV.

I walk over to adjust the blanket a little. She mumbles something but doesn’t wake up. I flick the TV off and tiptoe back out to the entryway, where Tess is just about to step inside.

“She’s sleeping on the couch,” I whisper.

Tess freezes, her eyes widening.

“Oh no!” she whispers back. “She must be exhausted. Should we cancel movie night?”

I shake my head. “No way. She’ll kill me if she wakes up and finds out I made her miss all of Halloween.”

I glance over my shoulder and purse my lips for a moment, but I can’t find it in me to go interrupt her nap, not when her pain makes it so hard for her to get to sleep in the first place.

“Maybe we can let her rest until Shel gets here?” I say, turning back to Tess.

“Of course,” she answers. “Do you want to come to the back? I think I have some popcorn and things for us to get ready.”

I agree, and we head to the back. Inside, Tess goes straight for her little kitchen, but I stand hovering in the doorway.

I haven’t been in here since the night that started everything.

“Are you coming inside?”

Tess gives me a curious look from where she’s hunched down in front of the mini fridge.

“Ah,ouais,” I mutter, yanking the door shut behind me.

“Do you think Maddie and Natalie will want beer?” Tess asks, elbow-deep in the fridge as she shuffles some packages around. “I have a few buried in here somewhere.”

“Probably,” I answer. “I’m sure they will bring stuff too.”

She pulls out a four pack, knocking a few bags of vegetables on the floor in the process, and then stuffs everything back inside the fridge before setting the beer on the table.

I hover behind one of the chairs, gripping the top of the backrest and wondering if I should be helping as she starts digging through her cupboards.

“Ah, here’s the popcorn!” she says.