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“No. All that really did happen,” she clarified. “I just don’t usually use it to manipulate people.”
“It worked. We’re halfway to Harbor Bluffs.”
Cindy was laughing for real now. “Sorry.”
“You don’t sound sorry.”
I turned again, getting onto the highway and speeding up.
“I’m not,” she said.
We were about ten miles out of Blue Creek and, for some reason, the air felt different here.Ifelt different. Cindy seemed different. Maybe being outside of our hometown would actually make this easier.
“Well, brace yourself,” I started. “If you’re going to play the wounded soldier card, I’m about to throw downdivorced before I was twentyandworks a job I hate out of dead father guilt.”
Cindy lets that statement hang there for a moment before replying, “Yeah, that sucks.” She does her best to keep it together, but she’s still choking back laughter. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Luke. None of this is really funny. But it feels like we’re having awhose life is more fucked up contest.”
“It kind of does,” I said, laughing despite myself.
She takes a long, deep breath and calms herself down enough to talk.
“I don’t know why I laugh at really inappropriate moments sometimes,” Cindy confessed. “I just can’t help it.”
“It’s fine. It actually feels kind of good.”
“I know, right?” she said. She kicked her feet up on the dashboard, just like she used to do when we were younger. But she quickly took them off. “Sorry. I should’ve asked before I did that.”
“You can leave your feet there.”
She looked at me funny but stuck her feet back on the dash.
“Think we’re far enough away from Blue Creek now?” I asked.
“Probably.”
I took the next exit and soon we were driving through more residential roads in another small town. It didn’t look too different than Blue Creek, but clearly, that wasn’t the point. I pulled into a parking spot in front of a little cafe called the Nook and we got out.
Once inside and seated at a plush, velvet booth, we looked at the menus.
“This is nice,” she said. “And the menu is eerily similar to the Blue Creek Diner.”
“I know. Marnie should sue for copyright infringement.”
Cindy laughed, but it fell flat. We both flipped through the menu, looking at laminated pictures of pancakes and scrambled eggs.
I snuck a peek at Cindy. She bit her plush bottom lip as she flipped through the pages. I hated this already. I hated looking at Cindy Lawless and not knowing what to say to her. This wasn’t how we were supposed to be.
I looked around for the waitress, but she was several tables away.
I heard Cindy sigh in frustration and put down her menu.
“This is weird, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yeah. Was this a mistake?”
“I don’t want it to have been a mistake,” she backtracked. “I want to be able to hang out with you like old times, but…”
“It’s not old times. Things are different.”
