featherlight ✅

car ride

"From the way you smile to the way you look
You capture me unlike no other"

The final morning and the ride home were drastic improvements to the trip going to my grandparents' house.

It was- to be honest- enjoyable.

The calm after the storm, maybe. Or before. Or something. Most importantly, the calm.

One of the reasons was this: Ashton coming downstairs in the morning, hair tousled, words mumbled, eyes bleary. It was going up to the attic with him mere minutes before we had to leave and setting a paper airplane on the windowsill to mark the house with we were here. It was closing my eyes and smelling my grandma's blueberry muffins and rain and my dad's shampoo on Ashton's hair and Tide laundry detergent.

Another reason was this: Ashton slipping one of my CDs into the music player as we drove off. I looked back as he did and saw the bizarre salmon color of the house and laughed with my dad at what a stupid kid I'd been. Stupider still, I guessed, because I'd kept the tradition I'd made as a kid. But the paper airplane seemed important somehow.

And it was letting myself buy a bottle of ice lemon tea and drink it as I tried to push the memories of last night out of my brain. It was eating a blueberry muffin afterwards and god, was it good. 

Another reason why was this: Chase calling Ashton midway to ask how to remedy Kyle's hungover state. Kyle had punctured one of his car tyres and had turned up to Chase's house early in the morning, smelling like he'd swam in a pool of beer. And then it was Ashton putting the phone on speaker mode so I could listen to Kyle's unintelligible sentences, kept comically swearing-free because my dad was in the car.

You wanna know something weird, Curly? he said through the phone. Russia is bigger than Pluto. Fu- Flipping Pluto, man. No wonder he got kicked out of the solar system. Pluto is literally that kid in middle school who nobody wants on their volleyball team. 'Cause he's so small everybody doubts he's got much talent in him. I feel bad for him, y'know? I betcha he's the coolest planet in the world or something. Oh God, Chase, I do not need any fu- I mean stupid- aspirin. I am fine. They do absolute jack sh- never mind. They don't help headaches. Anyway, Curly, I have a theory that we're all gonna get attacked by aliens on Pluto someday. That's karma, man. Karma. And then the phone went off, and my dad just laughed and laughed until Ashton volunteered to take over the driving in case we crashed.

It was telling jokes and riddles and playing Word Chain with Ashton and my dad and being able to forget the voice inside my brain for a few moments as I did. Hippo, my dad said. Orang Utan, Ashton continued. Narwhal. And on and on, stopping only to change to the radio when the CD track ended. It was listening to the live commentary of a Yankees game and hearing the commentator have to sniff loudly every couple of minutes because of his gloriously blocked nose. It was, above everything, being able to laugh along as Ashton snorted every time we heard the sniff.

It was falling asleep and waking up and Ashton turning around with a smile as he braked at a red light. Can you think of an animal, he said, that starts with a t?
Tiger, I offered.
Got that. I've already said tiger, termite, turkey, turtle and tortoise. 
It was him rolling his eyes when I suggested Googling a word.

Car ride meant Ashton singing along to my phone's ringtone as my mom called me, asking when we'd be home. It meant Ashton slipping out of the driver's seat as we pulled up to his driveway and opening the passenger side door to hug me and whisper bye in my ear. It meant this: my dad teasing him about the fact that he'd won Word Chain, and Ashton poking me in the nose as he replied that unlike me, at least he hadn't thought about turning to Google.

It meant this: Ashton's smile as he finally drew out of the car and closed the door. It meant the complicated aerial act that my stomach performed as we drove away. Car ride meant staggering from the haze of black that crossed my eyes as I stood from the car but keeping my balance so that I could catch Ava when she leapt on me. It was seeing my mom hug my dad and then put her arms around me. It was thinking home home home.

It meant wondering if everything could be okay. Someday. One day.