Serenity - A Journal Of Some Sort

Perfectly Fine

It's October.

We're holding hands at 2 AM in the back of his mom's car, pulling into a gas station and I tug his knuckles to my chest, half asleep and sprawled out on the car seat. His arm stretches over the whole aisle, I know it can't be comfortable. But he is wide awake, gazing down at me as if I was brighter than the moon and the stars. They twinkle in his round eyes and his lips curl in the corner with innocent delight.

"Is this alright?" I murmur groggily, pulling his hand closer and melting into it. It's all I can cling onto. All the hope I have left. That hand.

"It's perfectly fine," he sighs back, squeezing my hands in return, closing his eyes softly. "Perfectly fine for me."

Flashing back to September, to the last time we were in that parking lot, screaming at my brother trying to flash his nipples to the people in the store through the glass windows. "I swear, if you don't stop-" I wheeze, tugging him by the neck of his shirt backward, absolutely mortified.

He just laughs and challenges my boyfriend to a competition that entailed taking their shirts off. "OH YEAH, BABY!" He screams, totally down for it.

My jaw drops open, was he actually-?

Catching my eye, he halts in place. Laughing nervously, his eyes flit back and forth from me to both of our moms' cars across the parking lot. "Yeah, this is a bad idea." My brother gives a glare of disappointment to which he responds, "I'd totally do it if she wasn't here."

"Wait, you would?!" I scoffed, rolling my eyes, "Y'all are insane, man."

"Hey," he laughs, elbowing my brother in the side. "You girls just don't understand."

"I sure don't," I shake my head incredulously, making my way back to the car. I motion over my shoulder for my brother to follow. "Come on, let's go."

"But Ashlynn-" my brother begins.

"Yeah, Ashlynn, you're just gonna leave like that?" His voice stops me in my tracks, and I playfully toss my head over my shoulders.

"What?" I laugh, playing dumb. "My mom's been ready to go for ten minutes. I wasn't even supposed to get down!"

The mocking in his eyes make something turn in my stomach. "Sure, sure. But you're just gonna leave without a hug?"

And that, I can't resist. I turn around and he wraps me in a tight embrace and I can smell the sweet shampoo he uses in his hair. "I'd kiss you right now if I could," he says in my ear.

But both of our eyes fall on our mothers in their individual cars, who are watching us like hawks, clearly ready to get out of the gas station we had met at and go home. My brother is making kissy faces through the window.

"That'd be nice," I sighed back, "But this right here is perfectly fine for now."

"Perfectly fine," he echoed, and I guess the phrase stuck.

"Perfectly fine."

It's March now and I'm standing in the gas station in the middle of the day, a dripping ice cream sandwich in my hand and I'm gazing out the window.

I see the ghosts of us romping around like fools where we once stood, and I keep watching, keep waiting, staying vigilant for something to happen. Some sign of him. Something. Anything. Any reminder at all of what once was, and I remind myself once again that the only reason he ever came this way was for me.

The sandwich is getting hot now, and the chocolate cookie is sticking to my sweaty fingers. I wipe them on my shorts. It's surprisingly muggy for a March afternoon. I'm ready to go home.

My sister comes stumbling out of the back of the store, frantic. Her mouth is already sticky from the ice cream. "Sorry it took me so long, I couldn't find the trash can to throw my wrapper away."

I take one last glance at the parking lot, thankful for the excuse to tear my eyes away.

"It's perfectly fine," I swallow everything down with my last bite of ice cream. "Now, let's get going home."