Headlights

04 Woods

Didn't you flash your green eyes at me?

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They had been driving for a long time now. For hours, all she had seen was a forest of evergreens that seemed to push on forever through the morning mist. If she were to lower the car window, she would feel the damp chill of the fog. There were no artificial lights breaking through the mugginess. What a difference this is—upstate New York—from New York City, she thought.

As the car sped on, she had allowed him to play part of his playlist quietly in the background, and she sure as hell didn't regret it. She hadn't given him enough credit—he knew the most gorgeous pieces that she had ever heard. In fact, she had only heard about three disco songs in the past four hours.

He was humming along, and when she first heard him, she had stopped dead in her browsing through her phone. It sounded low and intimate, like the rough beginnings of a lullaby. She couldn't say that he was destined for a singing career, but oh, my God. He could sing her to sleep any time.

They hadn't spoken to each other in a while. Hours, in fact. Her throat had a lump in it anyway. And she wouldn't do anything to stop him from humming.

But he spoke once again after a song ended and another started. "Hey, do you remember 'Peace Train' by Cat Stevens? I was talking to you about it a while back."

She didn't respond for a second because his eyes had caught the hazy light of dawn. They looked exactly like the trees then, but lighter, with traces of golden brown swirling around his pupils. How did he do this to her? She cleared her throat. "I don't know that song."

"You don't." He was staring at her earnestly now with the beginnings of a smile. "But this is it. Listen."

She wanted to retort with something like "I've been listening for these past hours," but stopped herself. This was it? She sank back into her seat and closed her eyes. The gentle waves of guitar strums washed around her, and then Cat Stevens began to sing. "Now I've been smiling lately..."

When the song ended, he switched off the system and turned to her. "What do you think?" He grinned, taking his hands off the steering wheel to feign strumming on a guitar. "Peace train, take this country..."

She didn't have to give him a second look before he put his hands back on the wheel. "I'm not trying to die before I turn at least eighty-two, thank you very much."

"You're no fun." He pouted, but he turned sober again, his green eyes searching her face. "But really, what do you think?"

"It's pretty," she said. She licked her lips before continuing. "And this was written around the Vietnam War, right?"

He nodded. "It was," he said quietly. "My parents really love it." He caught her eye again, and his serious face cracked. "I'm sensing a 'but' here..."

"He sounds like a hillbilly," she blurted out.

And for a second, she thought she had offended him because his eyebrows wrinkled and then he looked away from her in favor for the road. But he started laughing, one of those belly laughs that never seemed to end. She blinked, perplexed. Yes, that was one of the stupidest things that she had ever said in her life, but... She let go of herself, laughing along with him until the corners of her mouth and her stomach hurt. They both gasped for air, and he had to pull over to recover, coughing, all with something warm and fuzzy in his eyes as he stared at her.

Maybe this was what love is about.

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In no time at all, they stopped at a gas station upon entering a nice little city. She looked around, blinking the drowsiness away from her eyes furiously. She caught sight of a large clock on the side of the brick building. It was already 11 a.m. She couldn't be tired this early in the day. But she yawned and stretched anyway, hopping out of the car with Calvin.