17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

I n the end they decided their best course of action was to get to Texas before Guayabera Guy, as Cleo had started calling him. It was a big state and he wouldn’t know where in it they were headed to. It had taken a couple of hours, but her heart finally stopped pounding and her blood pressure seemed like it was back under control. Clark had been quiet, too.

They stopped for lunch in Little Rock and Cleo crossed another state and capital off her checklist. “Which U.S. president came from Little Rock?” she asked.

“Are you asking because you’re quizzing me or because you really don’t know?”

“I’m wondering if you know,” she replied. “We were just babies when he was in office.”

“Clinton was elected the year I was born, but I can remember watching him on CNN with my parents when I was eight or ten.”

Cleo covered her mouth. “You watched CNN when you were eight?”

“I mean, it was on in the background so I sometimes listened…shut up.” He grabbed Cleo’s leg above her knee and squeezed when he realized she was laughing at him. Guayabera Guy was far from her thoughts now.

Cleo couldn’t contain the giggles. “Did you carry around a calculator in your shirt pocket?” she said through them. Clark pulled his hand back and scowled as he focused on the road. “And a pencil right here?” Her fingers grazed the hair behind his ear and he visibly shivered as a tingle ran from her fingertip all the way to her nose. Whoa. What was that? And when had they become so comfortable touching each other? Did that kiss last night–and the wrestling match before–break down some invisible barrier, despite all the blanket walls she’d tried to build between them? Cleo didn’t know, but she wasn’t sure she minded.

“Are you asking me if I was a certified nerd as a boy, or if I still am? Because the answer is probably yes, to both.”

“You really are Clark Kent, aren’t you? Clark Kent and Roy Kent all rolled in one.”

“If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been called that, I’d be…poor,” he smirked.

Cleo turned up the radio and they sang along to the songs they knew and made up lyrics to the ones they didn’t. A song about Jolene became a song about Dottie who would probably smack them both in the head to hear the words they wrote about her. Clark sang, “Dottie, Dottie, Dottie, Dottie, I’m begging of you please don’t get another chicken.” That was followed by other chicken-related lyrics, and when the next song was Bob Dylan’s “Lay, Lady, Lay” they both burst into laughter.

“I think we’re destined to be haunted by chickens for the rest of our days,” Clark said.

“One attacked me in the yard yesterday,” Cleo admitted. “So I will definitely be haunted by chickens, probably for years. At least now I have more material for my therapist.”

“A chicken attacked you? I definitely need a play-by-play for this.”

“I’ve already pushed the memory way, way down to that dark place inside where it will come back up to replay in the least convenient moments.”

“That…sounds unhealthy.”

“Oh, it is. Thus the need for the therapist.”

Clark was quiet for a minute. “I can imagine you’ve probably had a lot to talk about with your therapist, after what you told me earlier.”

Cleo felt defensive of her life until she remembered that she was still mad at her father and all he’d done, especially recently. “I have, yes.” She didn’t elaborate.

She felt she did need to clarify, however. “It wasn’t all bad. My dad was a good father. He used to read to me every night before bed, books like The Princess Bride and Chronicles of Narnia . He taught me how to fish and made me earn my first car, even though he could’ve bought me twenty. He’s actually a really decent fellow.” And now she felt a wave of homesickness nearly overwhelm her. How could she miss a person she was running away from? Feelings were so messy.

“Which reminds me, we haven’t finished our game yet.”

“I don’t even want to know why discussing my therapist made you remember our game, but go ahead. I believe it’s your question.”

“Here it is: what is Cleo short for? I have many guesses, but I don’t know which is right.”

“Who says it’s short for something? Cleo is a common enough name.”

“I have a hunch.”

She blew hair out of her face. “It’s short for Claudette. Go ahead and tease.”

“Why would I tease? Claudette’s a beautiful name.”

“Yeah, for an eighty-year-old.”

“No way. It suits you.”

Cleo made a face like she was sucking limes. “It does not. Cleo suits me.”

“They both do. Sometimes you give me a look that just screams Cleo, and other times Claudette comes out and scolds me. I definitely think you’re both.”

Cleo actually knew exactly what he was talking about. She could be two entirely different people, depending on her mood. She wasn’t sure how Clark seemed to get her in a way some of her oldest friends didn’t. Maybe that was because most of her friendships were surface-level only. She and her friends had fun together, but they rarely talked about things they thought or felt or anything serious. Bea was probably the only friend of hers who saw past what Cleo looked like and how much money she had, or what she could bring to the table.

Why had Cleo never before cared that she didn’t have meaningful friendships? Was it because Bea was enough, or because she figured Bea was a unicorn and most people were only interested in what they could see, not willing to dig any deeper? Did she try to go subatomic with any of them, or did she just take them all at face value, too? She was ashamed to admit that she hadn’t put in the effort to see past the surface much, either, and silently vowed she would do better in the future.