Confidence, Cupcake

Chapter 12

I had taken about a million pictures of Casanova and Rylee. He was obsessed with her. As it turns out he has a deep undying love for dogs. We arrived at Bryce Canyon hours ago. We hiked almost all day. The scenery was beautiful, the canyon was massive. But the best part was the rocks, the walls of the canyon. The rock was red and orange with strips of white, all an act of nature. There were beautiful arches and peaks.

Right now we were near the car, watching the sun set over the mountains. We were planning to eat and rest in front of the view for a bit before heading to the hotel. We popped the trunk and sat as we ate. I was feeding the dog bits of chips and jerky. We really needed to get her some dog food. I was swinging my beat up converse covered feet, bobbing my head to the music Casanova played.

Suddenly he turned it down, "Hey, so, I've been wondering," he started cautiously, "Can we talk about what you actually remember? I'm not sure how you feel about a lot of stuff now that you're sober. I've been thinking about it, and I don't really know how to act I guess? I don't know. I just would rather talk than assume, I guess."

I smiled at the maturity he presented, "Yeah, of course. Ask anything."

I angled my body towards him slightly, trying to assure him that he had my complete attention. But to my surprise, he hesitated. The sound of Rylee lapping up water created a very awkward silence. I looked away as he looked down, clearly thinking. Well, this is anticlimactic.

"Uhm, can you just go from the beginning of the night and tell me all the moments you remember?" He finally asked.

I thought briefly before talking, "Let me take out my memories on snap and use them to help me, like chronologically, you know?"

"That's smart," He laughed slightly.

Something about the situation seemed so tense. Maybe it was both of our anticipation about the conversation that hasn't been had.

"Okay," I said arriving at the beginning of the night on Snapchat, "So I remember talking to you in my kitchen," I laughed, "Flirty vibes, very mysterious. Uhm, I remember us leaving. We went to that gas station and sat in the park, I actually don't remember that. I just know because of the pictures and stuff," I looked at him to see a very flat expression as he looked at the dirt. I swallowed and looked back at my phone, continuing on, "Then the diner, I think I remember most of the diner. Again, very flirty vibes. I think you were totally into me," I joked, trying to lighten the mood. But I could only force a small smile out of him, "We were about to leave when we found out about our names. It was past midnight then."

"Yeah," He smiled more, "We were running out of ideas, everything was closed. So we drove around for a couple hours."

"Yeah, I noticed that," I laughed, "I assume we talked a lot. But I don't remember much of what happened in the car."

"Yeah you brought a water bottle filled with tequila, I actually think half of it is still in here somewhere," He turned his head as if he wanted to look for it.

"We'll find out later," I said, trying to get back on track. I looked at my phone again, "Oh! My favorite part, the beach. I remember this part the most. We walked and talked, we uhm- we swam, and then we talked some more."

"Okay, so which talks do you remember? We were at the beach forever. Like 4 hours or something."

I set my phone down and thought hard.

~

"Yeah, her name is Nita," His expression was grim.

"I don't have a first love," I was chirpy, ignoring his tone, "Tell me about her."