“Hey. Yay!” Autumn says as I slide in next to her.
I drop her loot in her lap and restart the car. I glance at the counter as I pull out, but the man is busy with another customer. He’ll never see her again.
The CD is still playing. If she hadn’t liked it, she would have found something else on the radio. We’re quiet together as another song plays that makes me think of her. I want to drive with her like this for the rest of the night, for the rest of our lives. The road stretches out in front of us, seemingly unending.
After the song finishes, I ask, “Are you certain you don’t want to practice driving tonight?”
“Nah,” she says. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“Maybe later.”
I wonder if she notices the way I loop the long way along North County, the way I drive the speed limit. I hope she’s absorbing the words from the songs, like my love could be a protective spell, even if she’s unaware of it.
Christmas might be too soon. She can’t keep track of her phone or her keys. How is she going to keep track of her drinks at parties? I’m going to have to stick around to make sure whatever guy she falls for treats her right. This time, if I see something, I’ll say something.
Autumn is where she wants to be, sitting next to me, her friend, and I’ll be there if she needs me.
“Have you been thinking about what you’ll focus on in med school?” She’s leaning her temple against the window again. The floor of my car is littered with taco wrappers.
I turn the music down. “I won’t figure that out until a couple years into classes,” I say. “It’s not like I know that much about the human body yet.” I pause, because I want to share something more with her. “I’ve been thinking about the brain a lot lately.”
“What about it?” She sounds dreamy, but I can tell she’s listening.
“Well.” I pause to make sure I’m saying it right. “I’m driving, so on one level, I’m thinking about visibility, speed, and car spacing, and I’m making adjustments with the steering wheel, but I’m not really thinking about any of those things. I’m really thinking”—that you’re so close to me—“about our conversation. Meanwhile, my brain is also telling my lungs to breathe and my heart to beat, but I’m not thinking about any of that either, not at all. My brain makes sure my body is doing all this, while I’m thinking about”—how much I adore you—“whether I’m explaining any of this well.”
I’ve run out of air. I guess my brain isn’t doing so hot after all.
I breathe deep and plunge back in. “One organ is responsible for all those things, and it’s so small. Most people don’t realize how small their brain really is, probably because we talk about how big the human brain is compared to other animals. But you can hold it in one hand. And it’s responsible for everything that we consider to be ‘us.’ Your novel came from your brain, Autumn, word by word, and I wish I could understand how your brain is able to do that.”
Autumn is silent. I can’t end there. It implies too much.
Then she says, “Or how a brain can know things logically but still send illogical signals and emotions? Tell you to do stupid things?”
“Yeah, exactly.” I steer the car off the highway. “It does all these things right and gets all these things wrong. It records all this information and still misses so much.” I shrug. “I’m looking forward to learning something about how it does all that.” I glance at her.
She smiles at me, making my heart beat faster.
I turn up the music. The album has started again at the first song, and maybe, on some level, her brain understands that I’m playing this song for her.
eight
We head into my house without discussion. She’s withdrawn again. I want to reassure her that I’ll love her novel, but I know it won’t help. I gesture to the rum on the counter.
“Do you want me to pour a little in your Coke?”
She wrinkles her nose.
“I’m never drinking rum and Coke again.” She adds, “Don’t laugh at me. I might actually mean that.”
“I just thought you might need some liquid courage.” I nod toward the laptop in her arms, cradled like a baby. She hugs it closer.
“Do I have to be here while you read it?” Autumn asks.
“Do you want to go home?” I feel myself frown. I’m not sure which I want more: for her to stay or for me to read it.