Another chapter update! Please cheer me on! I'm going to have it completed by the morning .

26

Gray clouds flirted with mountaintops and cast shadows over wheat fields. The shadows trickled into the streets and splashed against the Civics and minivans that zoomed around our car. Edward drove just above the speed limit and annoyed the multitude of drivers stacked behind us. Their stares could be felt through our thick upholstered seats, but Edward ignored it. He pressed down on the gas just enough to reach a consistent sixty-four miles per hour.

Around us, everything was too artistic to feel like reality. Things blended together—colors mixing to create something new—as we drove down the interstate. We had been on the road to Emery County for a little over an hour, and already, I noticed how many little things about my home had escaped my notice. Colorado was all I knew, making everything seem dull and monotonous in my view. With Edward behind the wheel and the contours of indie melodies filtering through the stereo, everything around me felt vibrant and new. Charlie giggled from his car seat in the back and kicked his feet along with the melody as he tried to dance. He made everything into dance music, determined to develop a move regardless of the pacing of the song.

As the car moved forward, time felt different, too. It bled together, creating something just as beautifully flawed as the scenery. Outside the passenger seat window, the colors were so vivid—it was easy to overlook the fractured crops and bits of ugly. Every imperfection seemed purposeful as it blended with the general landscape. Charlie was just as enamored—somehow, he managed to stay calm in the cramped space of our car and enjoyed the passing cars and mountains. There were little whimpers here and there but nothing major. Only when we neared I-70 did he start to cry.

"You want coffee?" Edward asked as he sunk back against his seat.

He looked exhausted—driving long distances with an infant was a different experience. My hand found its place on his thigh and I squeeze the muscle. He shot me a look and relaxed further, running his hand through his newly chopped hair before he let go of a sigh. Exit signs came into view, followed by indiKateions of bars and restaurants. I pressed my legs together as he pulled off the interstate. The last few espresso shots had gone straight through me and Edward wasn't too keen on stopping. Now, it was his turn to rest his hand on my thigh as he found and pulled into the nearest coffee shop. Wherever we were was a dead town and outside the shop, there were a group of men congregated around, what looked to be, a new car. It was suburban and nothing special but the group talked about it so animatedly, it garnered my attention. As soon as I stepped out of the car, their focus turned on me. I managed a polite smile—which must have been far more awkward then I imagined—and turned to Edward who was pulling a fussy Charlie from his car seat.

"I can get us drinks? What do you want?"

Edward rocked his son in his arms, trying to assuage him as his eyes darted around the parking lot. After seeing the group of men, Edward rolled his eyes, shooting them a pointed look before turning his attention back to me.

"Just whatever you get. I don't know the names of anything."

With a nod, I left him by the car and moved into the coffee shop. Families were sKatetered everywhere mixed with a few people who were glued to their cells. Everyone was aching for caffeine and barely nudged as I tried to move past them. The bathroom was in my eyeline as a kid scrambled out and nearly spilled their hot chocolate.

"Watch where you're going, Spencer," his mom snapped as she pushed him past me.

Without an apology, they moved to get their drinks. Dim lights and a musky hallway led to the restroom, which was filled only with one occupant. She wiped away her tears and adjusted her breasts in her top as she spoke loudly on the phone.

"What the hell do you want me to do? It's not my kid, Jack. It's not my fucking problem. You deal with it."

She slathered on lipstick as I finally slipped into a stall. The clacking of her heels disappeared outside the bathroom, leaving me alone to my thoughts. I pulled out my compact mirror and took a glimpse at my reflection—flushed cheeks kissed by the cool air and a bottom lip with a little, red dent from where my teeth had been pressing. I ran my tongue across my lip as the urine came and let my back slouch. Hours were ahead of us on the road, and my bones were already aching.

I reached my hands over my head, stretching as I moved to order our drinks. Everyone was so involved in their own world, and my problems felt insignificant. Anxiety seemed to bloom in everyone. It filled the air as people were lost in phone calls and text messages. Today would be a day to get through and tomorrow would, too. This trip felt like it belonged to someone else. I shouldn't be here, should I? He needs his mother … she should be the one enjoying him. A role I fell into hardly feels deserved. Why am I the one standing here? Why am I the one standing at all?

"Miss?"

The line in front of me was gone, and I was met with the eyes of an expectant barista instead. I rambled off an order, feeling the backs of my eyes burn as I hustled away to wait by the espresso machine. I can't cry here … how freaking embarrassing. What do I have to cry about? Someone I never knew is gone. Someone I never knew … someone Charlie will never get to know … The reminder tasted bitter and lumped in my throat. Everyone who had left me had left me with memories, and those bits of them, however small, got me through the hours that felt like an endless sting. Charlie had nothing to hold on to—only pictures and secondhand memories.

"Two vanilla lattes with extra shots of espresso," the barista announced as she set two drinks on the counter.

I smiled at her as I forced my facial muscles to relax. If only I could force my eyes to stop stinging. A few rapid blinks and I felt my mascara begin to stick and become clumpy. The fresh air was a relief as soon as I pushed through the coffee shop's doors. The fall chill caused my nipples to pucker against the thin fabric of a shirt that was meant for exercise—of course, all I ever did was lounge around in it. The wind was cleansing as it breezed through my hair, and as soon as Edward came into view, holding a now calm Charlie, I felt my negative thoughts being expelled. Now wasn't the time for negativity. Edward was nervous enough as it was.

"It's nice to get a little break," Edward commented as he moved to strap Charlie back in his car seat. "I was starting to feel claustrophobic."

"I know." I paused to take a sip of my drink and smiled at the taste of espresso as soon as it hit my tongue. "Your knuckles were white around the steering wheel. I thought you were going to crush it."

"No." He laughed and then reached for his drink. He eyed it for a moment, curious, before taking a giant chug. "Cars just make me anxious."

"Didn't you drive all around the US?"

"That was before."

He didn't say anything else—he didn't need to.

"I think I forgot how beautiful Colorado is," I changed the subject. "I never appreciated it before now."

He nodded and moved to the passenger side to open my door for me. "I haven't appreciated it either," he said quietly. "I've been too wrapped up in everything."

"Maybe this is a sign that we should get out more."

His smile was fleeting and was met with the anxiousness he had been displaying all day. "I just want to get through today."

Sprawled out on our cramped, hotel bed, Edward encompassed his son. Charlie's little fingers tapped against his father's ink in his sleep, tracing the geometric designs in black and gray. I leaned against the bathroom doorway, casting a shadow across their bodies as I stood in front of the only source of light in the small room. With them laying like that, so relaxed and lost in their own world, I made myself stop so I could commit it to memory. It may have been something that was deemed as insignificant to some, but to me, moments like this were everything. They were little moments of humanity—seconds that made heartbreak and destruction seem minor. This was love.

Tomorrow would be another chapter. The more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt about the past. As a kid, I had been rotten. I could blame it on grief, but truly, I blamed it on my uncontrolled anger. For years, I had hated my father for bringing in an outsider, but now, I was the outsider. Tomorrow, I would stand before them, wanting the acceptance I was never willing to give. Nothing else mattered but the love I felt for Charlie, however. Everything else was background noise—white noise on an old CRT-TV. Love was nonsensical—it was ugly and imperfect. It surrounded us, structureless, waiting to consume. Love was something meant to be felt. Every time it was felt by me, it managed to eat me alive. I crawled into bed next to the pair, wondering if this would ever turn into another time in which I would be cannibalized by my own feelings.