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“One of them.” Her eyes pass over me slowly, with that Deanna-like mix of curiosity, interest, need. “But I don’t really want to talk right now.” She turns her attention to the road, studying it, figuring something out there. “Turn right at the light.”
That isn’t the way home. That’s the way to the toll road, to the 405, to Irvine, to the 55 even. We’re on the other side of the freeway. We’re far from all of that.
“Trust me, okay? I know where we’re going.”
I do trust her. That’s the strange thing. Even though we’ve only been together for a few days, I trust her.
She directs me through the hills then onto a strange side street. Up the hill there, and all the way to the empty power plant—or an observatory of some kind—at the top of the hill.
This is it. The make-out spot all the kids coveted. Top of the World.
The same place her sister took guys. At least, that was the rumor. At the moment, I don’t care. Lexi is a faraway memory. A strange echo of the person I was, the way pop music from middle school is.
Of course, I loved it at the time. Now, with all the distance and taste adulthood brings, I see it as a reminder of a different time, a younger version of myself.
Right now, I don’t want anyone or anything else.
Only Deanna.
“Where do we park?” She laughs as she studies the gates of the plant slash observatory slash whatever the fuck it is. “I’ve never been here.”
“Me neither.”
“I think I saw something down the hill.”
I turn the car around in a very awkward K-turn and find the spot she meant. A dirt overlook.
I park on it.
Silence falls as I turn the car off. A strange sensation fills the cabin. The sexual tension of the two of us together. And something else, something from a long time ago.
My desire to come here with Lexi, once upon a time. Deanna’s observation of her sister. The rumors about the place. It was supposed to be magical. Sexy and romantic. A place that cemented your relationship as everything or nothing—
Either it was just sex, or it was love and you’d know, based on what you did here.
Or maybe I invented that. I don’t know anymore. So much of our view of the world is inventions of our mind.
The assumption a face breaks into certain dimensions. Only it doesn’t. The eyes are halfway down the face. Lower than most people expect.
We all see through a faulty lens.
And mine—
I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with it anymore.
“This is her move, you know,” Deanna says. “Slow jams, fast cars—”
“My Prius is a fast car?”
She laughs. “Slow jams, slow cars—”
“Hey—”
“And a scenic overlook.” She looks at the city, all spread out beneath us, quiet and twinkling with possibility. “Should we get out of the car and marvel?”
“Is that why you invited me here?”
“I don’t know. What do you think she does?”
