“Can we go driving?”
It was a codeword, a signal, a cue to indicate danger that was almost exclusively used at 4am. The danger, of course, had come and gone, wrestled into his own bed by Travis and Birdie Jo Valentine, snoring loudly and sleeping comfortably as if nothing had happened at all. Cat, however, sat upright in bed, nerves sparked with panic and phone clutched between both hands. On the other end was Jade, who didn’t need a ruse to know why she was receiving a phone call during the early hours of the morning.
“Go put on a sweatshirt and sit in the driveway. I’ll be over in five.”
She did as she was instructed, purple giraffe in tow. The only sounds in their quiet little cul-de-sac were the buzzing of street lamps and her own hiccups, muffled by the plush fur of the animal. Being so agonizingly used to nights like that one didn’t ever seem to quell her tears or the terror that brought them about. As the years crept by, she couldn’t help but wonder if it would ever end, if she would have a future or if this was it for her. She was unsure of whether or not she even wanted one.
A pair of headlights turned onto the street, and, on trembling legs, Cat stood. She hated doing this to Jade, dragging her out of her house at absurd hours of the night just so she could leave her own. It wasn’t her fault that Calvin couldn’t control himself or that her parents couldn’t control him either. She didn’t deserve the interrupted sleep, the amount of gas wasted on impromptu freeway drives, the worry put towards something that wouldn’t change. But Jade insisted that Cat call her, and she always seemed to know when she didn’t.
The car came to a halt right at the end of the driveway, and Cat tugged the passenger door open. Jade peered at her across the center console, scanning over her visible skin. “Did he hurt you?”
Cat fell into the seat with a light thump, her legs drawn to her chest. There was a first aid kit in the dash compartment, bought out of necessity during a similar outing. “No,” she said plainly, closing the door and clicking her seatbelt into place.
With only a brief moment of hesitation, Jade put the car back into drive and pulled around the curved edge of the cul-de-sac, bringing it back down the street and onto the main road. They drove in silence, the radio asleep and the engine at only a hum. Patches of light enveloped them as streetlights passed overhead, but darkness always returned, concealing the wet shine on Cat’s cheeks. It wasn’t until they merged onto the freeway and settled at a comfortable speed that Jade tried again.
“Do you need anything? Or like, want a slushie, or something?”
Cat watched the dark masses of trees ebb and flow as they passed them, the skyline a wave of leaves and branches. “I don’t want to keep doing this, Jade. I’m tired.”
There was no reflection in the window, but she could feel the blue eyes peering at her across the car. “What, you want me to take you back to my place?” Jade asked. “We can go to sleep or whatever. I just washed that shirt you like to wear.”
It was strange, having her own designated clothing for their school night sleepovers. Jade never wore any of it anymore; all of Cat’s preferred articles became her own. She had stolen them, just as she had stolen her nights, her freedom, her sanity.
“That’s not what I meant,” Cat said, thumbing the hem of her peach print pajama shorts. They were torn, she realized. The seam on the left leg had split into two jagged halves.
For a moment, Jade was quiet. The engine hummed in her silence. “I don’t want you to have to keep doing it, either. I told you, the second you let me, I’ll call.”
“No.” Cat lifted her head to face forward and pressed her chin into her drawn knees. “Then they’re just gonna make me live somewhere else with people I don’t even know.”
“Then come live with me.”
“Stop saying that.” Her fingers tightened around the neck of her giraffe. There was no reason to be upset with Jade, especially when she was so grateful to be out of the house, but the thought of uprooting her friend’s life even more than she had already managed to do filled her chest with an anger that refused to subside. “I already make you come get me in the middle of the night, I’m not gonna live with you and make you deal with all my problems the rest of the time, too.”
Silently, Jade flicked the signal and guided the car onto the exit ramp, pulling into a gas station parking lot. It was only when they were parked that she faced Cat. “Look at me.”
With some reluctance, Cat obeyed.
“Do you seriously think I would come and get you if I didn’t want to?” Her question was met only with an averted gaze, so she continued. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I’m a firm believer in me not doing stupid ass things. If I didn’t care about you or want to help, I’d lie to you and say everything would be fine, tell you to try to sleep, and put my phone on silent. But I don’t do any of that, because I want you safe.”
Cat sighed, but it almost sounded like a scoff. “You come out here and get me ‘cause you’re a good person. I’m sick of making you do good person things that end with you being freaking miserable. You don’t deserve that.”
Despite her bare face, Jade’s eyes still looked wide and wild, standing out against her pale skin as if they were lined in black. Like always, Cat was frustrating her. “I’m only miserable because I’m sick of him doing this to you, and the only thing you’ll let me do to help is take you on a stupid car ride!”
Once again, Cat slumped against the seat, defeated. Tears began to collect in her lash line, the salt stinging as it built a thick droplet that wetted her cheek. “I can’t move in with you,” she said, fighting against the sob swelling in her throat with the last bit of willpower she had left to offer. “I can’t, my parents’ll know it’s ’cause i told you and then they’ll make me stop talking to you at all, and I can’t—” The sob broke free, and Cat crumbled, body trembling like a jackhammer.
Immediately, Jade leaned across the center console, pulling the little redhead into the best hug she could manage. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but Cat leaned into her chest anyway. Above all else, in that moment, she needed to be held, and Jade just seemed to know that.
After a while, when quiet settled in the shitty little car, Jade spoke. “What flavor slushie do you want?”
“What?” Cat asked, rubbing her cheek a raw shade of red.
“I’m buying you a slushie, and we’re gonna go watch the sunrise. What flavor do you want?”
The question nearly shocked her out of her state of panic, a trick only Jade West had ever mastered. She had told herself she didn’t want anything just twenty minutes earlier, that consuming anything would have her throwing up all over the pleather interior, but she still found herself saying “Blue, please.”
“That’s not a flavor, that’s a color,” Jade said with a whisper of a smile, just as she always did. Still, she disappeared into the gas station.