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And most of my confessions had come in the truck or on the roof.
Maybe if I didn’t speak, I could make it. Like I’d told Teague . . . it was only twenty minutes.
I unlocked the passenger side door and held it open for her. She climbed in like she’d never stopped.
Stab.
How could a woman getting in my truck cause that reaction?
I secured her inside and rounded the hood. A black car was parked across the street, the engine quietly running. The windows were too dark to tell if someone was inside.
This was New York. People were out at all hours. Including us.
I cranked the ignition and immediately turned down the radio when a few notes of "Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones came through the speakers. She didn’t need to hear my walk down memory lane and I wasn’t in the mood to make mine any worse.
I checked the rearview and pulled into the street. She sat stiffly with her hands in her lap. That was different. Before, she’d always been relaxed in that seat.
The late hour meant traffic was fairly light.
“Where am I headed?”
My voice was rough, like I hadn’t used it in days. Like she affected me.
“Park.” She was still cold and distant. “I’ll tell you where to turn.”
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. The silence closed in around us. There was a time it would’ve been comfortable. Now, it felt like it was squeezing the life out of me.
I cracked the window, hoping some fresh air would clear my lungs.
It didn’t.
I’d been with her in confined spaces over the past few weeks. That motel we’d gone to the most had tiny rooms. But it hadn’t been like this.
She turned up the radio and the song had changed to “I’m On Fire” by Bruce Springsteen. It might as well have been a hand tightening around my throat.
We’d driven these very streets with that song on repeat. She’d made an entire tape of just that song. It was in the glovebox.
“Is this on the radio?”
There was a touch of hope in her voice. Hope that this was just a random blast from the past.
“No.” I turned my head slightly, trying to suck in more fresh air.
She stared at the dash where it dimly glowed. “A tape?” The question was a croak.
Finally.
An indication that it wasn’t just me who was affected.
I ejected it, held it up so she could see the faded Sharpie on the label.
Her handwriting.
Driving music.
With a heart beside the letters.
I popped it back into the tape deck and music overtook the quiet again. Maybe the song was worse than the silence.
