Try to Answer

The road stretches out like the distance between them. It is a hot day, and the car they ride in has no air conditioning. Wind dances frantically through her hair, whipping it against her face. They struggle to get along. Bickering is the security blanket they have vowed to outgrow. He sits in front of her, slouching in the passenger seat and squinting into the desert. His sun visor is down; she can see the top half of his face reflected in it. Can see when he moves his eyes across her reflection. He does this often. His friend drives, filling silences that are impossible to read.

Their hotel bed sags in the middle, pressing them close together. He whispers in her ear until she falls asleep. She worries he will say words she cannot bear to hear. Words too sweet to stomach. In the night, he moves closer as she inches away, eventually leaving herself no room at all. She is forced to nudge him awake, asking him to scoot back for her. She wakes in the morning to the sound of their wake-up call. He is still holding her closely, his face buried in her neck.

"He takes showers with everyone," his wife said to her weeks ago, upon learning of the affair. She doesn't want to be another name in a long list. She wants to be the only star in the sky. She steps out of the shower, leaving him looking after her, soap bubbles freckling his body.

They sit in a courthouse five hours from home. He is waiting to speak with the DA, who will determine the penalty for tickets he and his friend received the last time they were here. They sit in the benches, and she imagines this is what a pew feels like. She has never been in a courtroom or a church before. Neither has ever applied to her. They play hangman and start to take a quiz in a Cosmo that has been left behind. His name is called.

"Lay down," he directs her halfway through the drive home. They are in the backseat together, as if being chauffeured by the friend up front. He puts a pillow on his lap and pulls her gently down to it. She drifts off to sleep aware only of his eyes on her face and his fingers in her hair, which he strokes slowly, whispering things she cannot, or will not, ever hear.