I’m still not sure about what I’m doing but I’m excited about it, so, here’s chapter two!  

It was nearly 5pm when the rehearsal ended and Cath started walking towards the bus stop, the sunlight was beginning to fade in that weird Fall way where everything looked golden. The town was quiet as always.  Ana had left early, muttering something about homework, so she was on her own.

She had one earbud in when a car horn startled her and made her nearly drop her phone. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a beat-up white car that looked like it was a hundred years old, with Eli Carter poking his head out of the back window.

“James says that he’ll  give you a ride home if you tell him your address, ” the kid shouted cheerfully.

“Tell your brother I’ll give him my address when pigs fly. Thank you very much”

“Just get in and tell me when to stop,” James said from the driver’s seat, parking beside her. “I’d hate to see your face on a milk carton.”

“You sound like my mom. This town is boring as hell. No one’s going to kidnap me. And if they did, they’d probably offer me tea and cookies.”

She rolled her eyes at him as she opened the passenger door and got into the car anyway.

“I’m pretty sure my house isn’t even on the way to yours.”

“Well, we’ll find out soon. The car’s old as hell, so it doesn’t have Bluetooth, but there’s a bunch of CDs to choose from. Pick your poison.”

He gestured toward a medium-sized tower of CDs precariously stacked on the passenger-side floor. Besides that, the car looked surprisingly clean — and it smelled way too good for it to belong to a teenage boy.

“Won’t your girlfriend be mad knowing you’re giving other girls rides to their houses in her car?”

James shot her a look that clearly suggested he thought she was insane.

“There’s no ‘girlfriend.’ The car is mine as long as I keep it clean and act as Eli’s personal chauffeur.”

“That’s true,” the kid added from the back seat.

Then, as if it had just occurred to him, James gave her a side grin.

“That’s a strange way of asking if I’m single — but I’ll take it.”

Her cheeks turned pink.

“Just start the car, Carter,” she said, brushing it off as she started sorting through the CD pile.

“Do you only listen to old tragic people that died of overdoses?” she asked, not looking at him.

“Yes. That’s like, the whole vibe,” he replied with his eyes on the road. “The song only sounds right if it was written on the verge of death, with cocaine still in the microphone.”

She raised an eyebrow, but before she could respond, he added:

“Just kidding. They were mostly my dad’s. But they’re good anyway.”

“Put the Queen one,” Eli chimed in from the backseat. “That’s the only one that didn’t die because of drugs.”

The rest of the car ride passed with the hum of Sheer Heart Attack playing from the stereo and the kind of soft silence that wasn’t awkward — just comfortable.

As the first notes of Lily of the Valley started to play, Cath turned her head toward him.

“You can leave me here. I’ll walk the rest of the way,” she said quietly. “I’ll never hear the end of it if my grandma sees me getting out of a boy’s car.

“Well then,” James replied, completely serious, “that’s another reason to drop you off at the doorstep — show them I’m a gentleman.”

She shot him a slightly worried look “no, I’m serious, the woman is terrifying in a ‘I won’t say a word but I’ll judge you till you die’ way”

He looked at her with a smile on his lips “then I’ll knock the door and everything” 

“No, stop the car, or I’ll jump, I’m serious” 

He lifted one hand in mock surrender while the car slowed down “okay, okay, I’ll leave you here in the middle of nowhere, I’m sure your family would be very happy with that. Come on, it can’t be that serious” 

“Yes, it isn’t that serious, this is not the middle of nowhere, there’s literally a cafe in the corner and park beside it” —she said already outside of the car— “Thanks for the ride, by the way,” she said. “You’re not even half as terrible as I thought.”

She closed the car door and started walking before he could say anything.

“Llegué!!” She exclaimed once she was inside the house, it was filled with the usual hum of people, her aunt Jessica was frying something in the kitchen, three of her little cousins were playing hide and seek around the house, there was a fourth one watching videos on an iPad, her grandparents were sitting on the couch and watching some weird YouTube video of a man making shoes on the TV and there was the comforting smell of the wood burning at the chimney.

“What happened Cati, did the bus leave you again? You were supposed to be here an hour ago” her aunt Marina asked with a worried tone.

“My mom didn’t tell you? I got dragged into this ridiculous school play about the odyssey, I had to stay late for rehearsal” Cath said while heating up some food from lunch.

“Mmmh, isn’t that the book of the man that can’t get home?” 

“Exactly, and I got the ‘honor’ of being his incredible patient wife” -she snorted- “as if I would wait for a man” 

The afternoon passed with its usual tone, some drama about a third cousin, doing her homework, helping her little cousin with theirs, dumb-scrolling on her phone before bed, and her mom arriving just in time to give her a good night kiss before she fell asleep.