Things You Never Say

A Story by geraldrice76

You came back to the car with two cups and a new stain on your shirt. It was hot outside, over ninety degrees, but we had an alien craving for something warm. You handed me a cup of coffee, even bad gas station coffee is good coffee, and took a sip of what smelled like hot chocolate.

“What the hell did I just put in my mouth?” you said, your face pulling back with disgust. Manufactured cold chilled the sweat gliding down our bodies into a thin, sticky gel and a sneaking smile crawled across your face as we headed back to the freeway, you pouring the cup’s contents out the driver’s side window.

Saying things that never come up in casual conversation quickly became an unspoken rule as we headed west on 94. Conversation had long since dissipated into meaningless, repetitive talking for the sake of talking and this was a welcomed change. I spotted a dead, broken deer, tossed onto the shoulder.

“I bet he sucked at Frogger,” I said. You joined me in a chuckle, weaving around an elderly woman nose-to-nose with the minimum speed limit in a silver, boat-sized Cadillac, her hands cuffed around the wheel. She was driving by herself and I felt like I was the one looking up over that dashboard, that somehow when I was her age I’d be that lonely. I kept the thought to myself, not wanting to ruin our game with my petty B.S., as you often put it, when I saw you looking at me with that cocky grin.

You lifted your chin, pointing with your eyes, the vehicle you’ve been keeping pace with just outside my window. A white-haired, middle-aged man in a pink, short-sleeved shirt was plucking a thin brown cigarette in and out of his mouth. I didn’t know the make of his car, but it looked foreign, feminine and built for speeding.

“That was when I foise realized I was a wuman trapped in a man’s bawwwdy,” you said in your best gravelly smoker’s voice, applying the tight V made by your index and middle fingers to your lips, making sucking sounds for maximum effect. The old woman slipped from my mind just like you always make me forget the things bothering me about us.

You dialed down the air conditioner when the sun was barely peaking above the horizon. I pinched the shirt off my clammy flesh, seeing a sign reading, ‘Bangor, next exit.’

“Bangor?” I said. “I hardly even know her!” Our easy laughter was brought to a halt as we come up behind a cluster of cars. Flashing red and blue lights are somewhere ahead of us.

You beat on the horn, rolled down your window and poked your head out. “My wife’s pregnant and I’m sittin on lunch here!” you shouted. You don’t seem to notice I’m not laughing this time, my hands covering my empty belly as we slow to a creep behind the other cars, your prideful smirk still in tow.

It took over forty minutes for us to travel the two miles of freeway to where a police officer in a translucent raincoat married the two lanes of traffic into one. Rice-sized pellets of rain pat against the windows, intermittently. We slowly skirted around the accident, a chain of cars illuminating a drive-through funeral. The two cars were a twisted wedding of steel. A spatter of blood like angel wings was across the crumpled hood. I caught a glimpse of the woman before she was loaded into the ambulance and her face was a veil of red. Looking down, I realized I was crossing myself, over and over again.

You were staring over where the emergency vehicles were too. The lights flashed in your eyes and I could see the child drained out of them. Your look had something I wasn’t seeing intermingled with the accident scene, but you said nothing. I looked back as we idled past, seeing the party of police vehicles, fire trucks, twin ambulances and road flares. There was a woman’s shoe overturned I hadn’t noticed before. Glancing back at you, I wanted to turn on the light to see if those were tears welling up in your eyes. Your hand lifted and moved closer to me and at first I thought you were about to put the car in Park. Instead, you fumbled against my arm until you found my hand, lacing your fingers between mine.

“I love you,” you said in the dark cave of the car without taking your eyes off the accident.