Page 13 of Hairpin Curves

“Of course I do.” Megan had nothing but ideas. She glanced at the scrapbook on her nightstand, the one that she’d been poring over most nights since her conversation with Scarlett.

Maybe she was staring at it for too long, because Scarlett snapped her fingers in front of Megan’s face. “Hey! Stop zoning out.”

“I wasn’t zoning out. I was thinking.” Megan snatched the scrapbook up off her nightstand. “I’ve got a scrapbook here of all the places I want to visit. I didn’t put anything on the map because I wasn’t sure you’d be up for going to any of them.”

“A scrapbook? Let me see.” Scarlett held out her hands, which made Megan clutch the scrapbook ever tighter.

“No. I’ll go through it.”

“Do you have naked pictures of yourself in that scrapbook?” Scarlett waggled her eyebrows, making Megan laugh despite herself.

Two could play at that game. “I keep my naked pictures on my computer like everybody else.” She pushed past a gobsmacked Scarlett, taking a bit of satisfaction from that look of shock, and headed back to the kitchen and the maps.

Scarlett trailed after her. “Wait. Seriously. Have you taken naked pictures of yourself?”

“Why, do you want to see them?”

Megan said it as a retort, but Scarlett’s eyes went fractionally wider, and Megan’s face blazed hot all over again. Shit. This was some unspoken territory, and she had no idea how to negotiate it. “Come look at this map,” she said, changing the subject as quickly as she could.

“Right.” Scarlett dropped it, too, fortunately, and for a moment, she looked as unsettled as Megan felt before her regular demeanor snapped back into place. “You know, I thought maybe you’d have, like, a whole itemized list drawn up with mileage and key facts. It doesn’t seem like you to procrastinate.”

“I didn’t procrastinate. I wanted your input.” Megan tapped the map. “I will draw your attention again to my excellent highlighting skills.”

Scarlett leaned over to nod at the single line. “A notable start.”

“So you are okay with detours?” Megan had been worried Scarlett would want to do this the most direct way possible so as not to spend time in the car with her, and she hadn’t wanted to fight about it.

“I thought you were planning to stop at every ass-backwards tourist trap between here and the border. I’ve already resigned myself to my fate.” Scarlett spread her arms wide. “Hit me with your destinations.”

Megan got hesitantly to her feet. Now, faced with the paper map and the permanence of marking something on it, she paused. Her sensible ballpoint pen lay untouched in the middle of the map, resting in a crease.

She couldn’t put her dreams aside forever. At some point, she had to start living.

She grabbed the pen and drew a tight circle around New York City. “There.”

Scarlett nodded slowly, looking at the circle. “It’s a good choice.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you approve.” Megan couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice, but it was just defensiveness without malice, and Scarlett didn’t take the bait.

Scarlett waited, her expression expectant. “And what else?”

She might as well dig into the scrapbook. Megan flipped it open with a sigh of resignation. Scarlett was going to see this stuff anyway. If Scarlett made fun of her choices, she could always say that she was allowed to do whatever she wanted since she was paying most of the money, and she kept that excuse in her back pocket.

New York was the first page, so she was able to skip right by that. Scarlett put out a hand as she turned the page, though, and stopped her. “Wait a minute. Let me see.” She kept her hand there, holding the page open. “You made this?”

It was just a scrapbook page, decorated with images of the city, photographs and a couple of drawings, the words “New York City” spread across the page. “Yeah.” Megan drew back her hand. Scarlett didn’t look about to make fun of her, so maybe this was fine. “I like scrapbooking.”

“Why’d you leave all these blank spots?” Scarlett asked.

“For my own pictures.”

Megan turned to the very front page, the one at the start of this section, where she’d created a sort of vision board for her scrapbook. It had all kinds of inspirational words like “travel” and “dream,” which was maybe a bit cheesy but she liked it. The center focal point was a couple of Polaroids she’d taken: one of the beach at sunset that she’d taken over the Gulf of Mexico, and one of a dandelion just starting to lose its seeds to the wind.

“This is really good, Meg.” Scarlett sounded genuine. Genuine, and impressed, and kind. Oh, suddenly Megan wanted to forgive all the ways she’d been wronged, wanted to tell Scarlett all her deepest hopes and dreams, wanted them to go back to the way they were.

Instead, Megan clamped her lips shut and nodded once, curtly. Those were dangerous feelings, the kind that got her in over her head. She couldn’t get her heart broken again by trusting Scarlett too much.

“Can I look at the rest of it?” Scarlett asked, drawing the book closer to herself.