Rayston Point Road || Editing

Chapter Fourteen

At exactly eleven the next morning I was sliding onto the black leather seat of Andie's pristine, air conditioned car. I hadn't been able to sleep last night, so despite the partially overcast day, I had my sunglasses already over my eyes as I settled into the seat, my eyes heavy and my entire body moving sluggishly as if trying to navigate through water.

"Morning, sunshine!" Andie beamed at me. Her blonde hair was twisted into an intricate braid from the crown of her head to between her shoulder blades, glasses from the night before replaced by contacts, and the freckles across her nose and cheekbones stood out even more in the daylight, which I had hardly seen her in since we met a few days ago. I offered her a small smile in return as I leaned my head back, closing my eyes, listening to the quiet country song on the radio. It was far from my interest in music, but I was too tired to question Andie's taste, and assumed she would be all too willing to change the station for me, which, for some reason, made me not want to ask.

"I thought you said you were just going home last night?" She wondered as I felt the car underneath me start to move.

"I did," I sighed, keeping my eyes closed, my words coming out in a mumble as I couldn't even muster the energy to move my lips enough to sound coherent. "I just couldn't sleep."

"Still on New York time? The city that never sleeps." I couldn't tell if she was joking or not, as the natural infliction of her voice was so light she could have been making a joke, but I didn't know her well enough to make that assumption yet, either. I peered over at her, looking at her expression over the tops of my sunglasses, the smile on her face as she mouthed the words to the song on the radio, not saying anything else, even when I settled back into my seat without a verbal response.

"So," she started again, just as I had let my eyes fall shut, "What's it like, living in New York?" I turned my head towards Andie again as we pulled onto the main road and then lifted my sunglasses from my eyes to rest on the top of my head. When Andie glanced back at me, her lips turned down into a slight frown, and I wondered if it was because of my bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep that hadn't worn off yet or from the deep purple that had settled underneath, but if it wasn't, she didn't say anything. "Probably not that exciting for someone who's spent their whole life there, right?" She corrected herself and her face pacified as she refocused on the road.

"Sometimes," I admitted, sighing, catching the change in her expression "But it hasn't lost all of its magic yet," I added, getting the sense that Andie was filled with the same sense of wonder about the city as anyone who had never experienced save for the glorified version found in TV and movies. I found myself not wanting to spoil that for her because deep down, underneath all the horrors and dark corners of the city that I had found myself in over the years, I still loved the city, and all it had to offer hidden between the gridlines.

"But you're here for the summer? This has to feel like the middle of nowhere compared to Manhattan."

"It's not that bad," I mumbled, looking out the window as we drove further out of Rayston, towards the highway, momentarily thankful when Andie opted to ignore my comment, until I noticed the way she kept glancing at me from the corner of her eye. I turned to her as she looked away for the third time and shifted in her seat, a concentrated look on her face, as if something was bothering her, and I knew before she even asked what she was thinking.

"Go ahead," I sighed heavily, rolling my eyes as I leaned my head in my hand towards the window, watching the still unfamiliar landscape pass me by, thinking that I was impressed with how quickly we managed to reach this point of the conversation, and that I hoped it could have at least waited until we were at the mall and I had better tools at my disposal to distract her. When Andie turned her head towards me, beaming, I couldn't help but smile slightly and want to laugh, thinking again how my sisters and Bailee would have acted the same, dying to ask me a certain question.