Public Relations

Chapter 10: Brett

I pull us onto the highway, fluorescent and overstimulating, and I'm thankful for the distraction from Mia beside me, who is chowing down. I've always liked the highway at night, the people who are all in their own worlds, focused on getting home or wherever they'll be resting. It's the world at its simplest, just living out its rhythms.

"Take the floor," I say, challenging her. "Be direct, then."

"I've got nothing to say."

I tilt my head, squinting at the road as it rolls beneath us. "Is that so? Not a thing?"

"Nope." She pops a whole nugget in her mouth in response. "Nuhn."

I let this statement hang between us, feeling as tangible as a marble in my palm, unassuming but weighted. Mia tugs at the hem of her dress, completely enveloped in her own mind. I'm trying not to stare, like stealing glances would be stealing something from her.

"So tell me why you wanted to leave," I say. "Seemed like a fun night with friends.

She shrugs. "It was. Fun, I mean. I just got tired."

"You sleep, like, four hours a night. It's the reason for your crippling caffeine addiction." I reach for the drink in the cupholder, a sweaty, paper cup containing pure iced water, and hold it out to her. "Speaking of."

She huffs dramatically but takes it from me. From the corner of my eye I can see her sipping from it aggressively. In exchange, she offers me another fry, and I lean in to bite it from her fingers.

"I spend my whole week with people. Managing people, being managed by people. I'm peopled out," she says. "I liked being with the girls, and I liked having a moment where I could flirt and dance and drink, but it's not my lifestyle. It feels like playing pretend."

I fold my lips into my mouth, tearing mindlessly at the dead skin hanging off. I want her to keep talking; I want to drown in her voice. I'm deliberately silent.

The issue with that, though, is that Mia is not the type of person who needs to speak to fill the silence. She's comfortable in it, contented, even. Even if things grow awkward - and they have, in meetings and media training we've done before with some of the other influencers with my agency - she absorbs that energy and channels it back to everyone else to deal with. She's sturdy, unbothered.

And even though every nerve ending in my body is burning, screaming at me to keep the conversation rolling, I can't bring myself to do it. She's curled up in the passenger seat, balancing various sauces and food containers on her legs. Interrupting her peace, her meal, her thoughts, it feels slightly criminal.

So we stay like that, silent, sharing water and fries for the thirty minutes back to her apartment.

She guides me to the guest spots in the parking garage, gathers her trash in the paper McDonald's bag, and turns to me to ask, "You coming?"

Without thinking, I immediately respond, "Inside?" then cringe at how dumbfounded I sound. I've only barely put the car in park, my headlights reflecting off the concrete wall in front of us to blind us.

This moment of disbelief fuels Mia, dry wood to her raging fire of overt confidence. "It's the middle of the night. You're going to drive forty minutes the opposite way back to your place right now?"

"I've got to do it anyway," I say. "Tonight or tomorrow, doesn't matter."

She opens the car door and turns to me sharply. "It does matter. I don't leave your house late at night. It's dangerous - you're tired, and it's hard to see, and the bars close soon and then there's drunk drivers on the road." She pauses, hoisting her tiny purse further up on her bare shoulder. "I would feel better if you just stayed. But I won't make you do anything."