Here's something a bit longer than the usual chapters to make up for the absence of content. Also, remember when telephone books were a thing? Are they still a thing?

Kudos to the friend of mine, close to my heart, for editing this chapter. You know who you are.

Morning came upon the town in small smiles and beaming touches, scattering thin veils of light across the treetops that dotted the town's streets. The heaviness of the deep blue night still remained overhead like the shadow of a darker past, blending into the crisp white of the early dawn. Pavements and sidewalks were left bare and boneless with the special exception of the occasional car driving past that always made it a habit to ignore the stoplight.

He sighed, his breath curling into the cold, and pulled his black scarf upon his nose higher. Unconsciously, he shouldn't have had to think about whether or not his gloved fingers brushed his face, and if they did he may have found with equal parts disgust and relief that it felt fine.

Not many people were up at such an hour regardless. Aside from the seldom passerby and lamps flickering on in the dark morning, there were rarely any signs of life. Only a beautiful solitude that seemed to exist to him outside the confines to time.

His car chirped to life once he turned the key and he dragged his suitcase into the trunk, grunting as he lifted the thing into the car and huffing once it was over.

"Put this in too."

He turned and nearly jumped into the empty street when he saw someone standing by the sidewalk next to him. It was the sunlight in her hair he saw first, then the homely coat crowned by a nostalgic teal-coloured headscarf that wrapped around her hair and ears. His heart shot through his chest and sprouted wings, and a flock of birds gliding overhead paused a while to claim it as one of their own. But through the wispy elation and the sparkle of the daytime in her eyes, his jaw set as he waited for the illusion to fade.

In what almost felt like instinct, alarm shot through his body at her presence and he hiked his scarf to cover his face quickly, in the event some invisible passerby would see.

She placed her own suitcase onto the pavement before her feet, seemingly unaffected by his fear.

"You've got to be joking," he said.

She shook her head and the small droplets of dawn shot through her hair and danced on the tips. "I deserve to know, Erik."

He picked up her suitcase which, despite its smaller size, was far heavier than his own and it surprised him that he managed to pick it up despite that fact. "And I told you, I'll relay to you what exactly she says to me. I'll be precise."

"I want to hear it from her. I want to know what exactly I did to make this happen."

"This isn't your fault."

And those words felt like daggers that cut through the gossamer curtain of an atmosphere. They both stilled and he hesitated in looking like it would be the death of him. She cast her eyes down and his face seemed to melt under the scarf.

"Why are you so hell-bent on going with me?" he snapped.

"Why are you so hell-bent on pushing me away?" she shot back.

The answer to that was so simple it came out in a laboured breath. "Christine, my mother is… many things, but kind is not one of them. She does not take lightly to anyone—especially not anyone affiliated with my company, and you do not need to see what she's capable of."

"Then I will represent myself, and my questions will be my own."

If his face was exposed he would have run a hand through it, hoping that would pull away the exasperation.

"Please, Erik. If not for me, then at least let me stay so you don't have to face that by yourself."

He couldn't tell when but the distance between them closed until they were only her luggage's width apart. If she could reach up she'd be fingering the lapels of his coat, and just the thought itself thawed the tension holding his shoulders upright. The only thing keeping his guard up were her eyes, drilling into his own as if they were searching for a different sort of colour, or observing just how stark the brown was in comparison to the white. Her own blue irises were laced with streaks of green and white and teal, and resembled the pattern of ocean waves that ebbed against a reluctant shore. He suspected that it wouldn't have been noticeable from a far distance because this was the first time he had seen them.

God, she's far too close.

If it would have been comfortable for them, they would have moved. But they stood like gravestones, and the song of the sparrows settled like dew on their lips.

That's the thing, wasn't it? He would have let her come with him regardless, and it wouldn't have been for him. But shame felt so close to anger in his mind he couldn't tell the difference between them.

His sigh turned crystalline in the cold and he stepped back, retreating into the safety of the driver's seat with a sickening open-and-shut beat that nearly made him jump. Discarding himself of his hat and scarf into the relatively unused backseat, he cast his lot and waited for the chips to come down and scatter in the lowlight. He could scare her; it was a gruesome thought, but whatever his face looked like now—be it gore or a disgusting assortment of molting candle wax—could frighten her a mere few minutes into the trip. The feeling embedded itself into his chest like a cough he couldn't expel and it unnerved him, that he was willing to frighten her if it meant leaving. Or was it, more worryingly, that they were both beginning not to mind this strange magic that tethered them together?

He watched her from the rear-view mirror and waited for her to answer the gambit. There was hesitation first; then the car shuddered with the weight of something before the trunk clamped shut.

It felt like an eternity when she climbed into the passenger seat, the door answering the rhythm he began. They looked across the distance and waited, and waited, and waited. The sun painted the sky a timid, shy gold and the faint blue paved way for the day; he wanted to take the colour from her eyes and place it behind the clouds where it belonged.

Without breaking eye contact, she reached behind her and took the seat belt, clicking it into the latch. But she smiled so innocently that he couldn't deny her anything.

In a string of muttered curses, more to himself than anything else, he locked the doors, shifted into drive and pressed the gas. With a miraculous weightlessness, the car sped on down the road that left town, and a nauseous sensation of nostalgia made him worry that he may have left something behind. But with a weight in the passenger seat and two suitcases instead of one sitting in the empty space of the trunk, he should have been rather confident that he had brought everything he needed.

"Wait, where are we going?" she asked suddenly.

He attempted to control himself but instead fought down a chuckle, and still she stared. And whether it was because he could have laughed (which, by the way, was incredibly uncharacteristic, and he should think twice about when to be more lax) or because she was staring, he hoped his nerves would steel and settle back in.

"You mean to tell me you wanted to come with me, and you didn't even think to inquire where?"

She opened her mouth and then shut it, flush spreading across her face the way a rose bloomed that sunk into her headscarf. And her skin it was never like wildfire, or ink; she could only be compared to flowers and nothing else, so curse every word and poem that couldn't rise to the challenge.

"Well—I assumed you'd know, and if you said your mother, then I—oh, don't look at me like that, Erik."

He scoffed and he felt the air lighten between them, softer than anything he'd ever touched. It was a welcome change to the weighted, dark gloom that hung over them the weeks before, and it was almost that fateful day again: when she asked for a Montand and he thought for a moment of a cafe.

"Rouen," he said simply, and she blinked, eyes like curious little stars.

She did not press about his mother, or why she was living in Rouen, or even the origins of the intense and ancient animosity between a parent and the son she refused to call her own. He wouldn't have blamed her, but he didn't know if he would have answered. And he found himself wondering and rehearsing what he could reply if she asked. The answers were invisible and thinner than air, but hung heavy in his mind.

At some point, she had fallen asleep with her cheek pressed against the seat belt and he slowed down enough to adjust her head against the rest, loosening the strap until it fell just against the headscarf. It appeared to be knitted; in all of his (admittedly, rather limited) exploration of the town, he had never seen a store that sold that exact colour.

And for a while, he gave up the pretense and stared once he came to a stoplight, softly roving his eyes over the curved lines of her jaw, the bend of her eyelashes like brushstrokes, mussed, shiny hair peeking out of the scarf's hem that could put the morning to shame, and parted lips that slowly sighed in ordinary time. His face felt weightless and something collapsed within him, stones falling one by one, by one, in the timing of her breathing, the furrow of her brows whenever she stirred a little. Was she dreaming? And what was she dreaming of?

His neck burned and pressed the gas far too quickly for an impulse the moment the light turned green.

The car lurched to a stop at the third gas station they had passed. A quick glance at the convenience store suggested it was still open despite its dim lights, and time lurched to a sudden pause once he put the car into park. She started with a small twitch and she woke the same way a flower did, unfolding its petals one by one.

"Are we there yet?" she mumbled.

"No," he said, switching off the gas and untangling himself from his seatbelt. "Rouen isn't until nightfall." He was grateful he was at least given anything to preoccupy his hands or he would have detested every moment he was sitting idle next to her.

"Oh." She gazed out the windows, her sleep-mussed hair struggling free from where she tucked it into her scarf. "Are we low on gas?"

"That, and we need food to sustain ourselves." He paused to open the door and the latch click felt invasive to the silence. "And I desperately need coffee."

"Alright."

And when she began to undo her own seatbelt, a bolt of panic rushed through him and he struggled not to leap at her and keep her hands away from the buckle.

"No, Christine," he said instead, and he was surprised to find how calm his voice sounded despite the panic rising in his shoulders.

"No?" she echoed, incredulous.

"No, you're not coming inside."

"Why not? What if I want something from the store?"

Most of the fondness he held for her began to wash away in the light of both the malaise of irritability and her petulant behaviour. He was so painfully aware that some other time, he could have found it endearing, and would have kissed them both awake. The thought was enough to sear what remained of his face, and reached into the backseat to cover himself with his scarf.

"Then this would be the part where you tell me exactly what you want from the store."

She opened her mouth, then closed it, and he hated to admit a strange obsession he had with her lips. "No, I'm not telling you. You're going to have to bring me with you if you want to get something for me."

The sigh he let go felt heavy. "Christine, you can't."

And the air around them grew dense, like it was heavy with the weight of rain. Then it washed over her like a revelation, casting her gaze back to her feet.

"I'm sorry," she began again.

"That's alright," he said, and the words felt twisted and grotesque in his mouth. "Would you like to tell me what to get you then?"

And she was silent. Not even the shake of a head. Not a wisp of conversation left in her.

"Wait here," he said pathetically.

And he shut the door. It felt like he shoved a hand into his chest, cracked a rib and tore it out. A string of curses wedged into the car door and unspooled itself from his mouth as he walked away.

It was no secret that he hated public spaces, and hypothetically less so before the arrival of this enigmatic curse haunting his every step. The bright blue and beige walls, the flickering fluorescent lights, the rows of food and hardware whose order made his own organising sensibilities cringe in second-hand embarrassment—it was an extremely unpleasant environment for shadows and anything that hated light.

Yet of all the things to bring on this weekly existential crisis, it should not have been chocolate; the aisle wasn't even in sight yet. Women liked chocolates, didn't they? Or had it moved beyond something explicitly romantic into a simple gift anyone could get? Why did he feel the strange impulse to both hesitate and throw himself headlong into just grabbing whatever was on the shelf and toss it into the basket without a second glance?

Yet another reason to detest convenience stores: their name was a paradox and a lie. It was a terrible place for people with a lack of decisive skills to demonstrate their abilities.

He stood there, as still as a bird, pondering over the different brands which were both far too much of a selection and far too little. He heard the door open once, but no footsteps succeeded it. Strange; perhaps the store employee just opened the panel to let in some fresh morning air? Even stranger; he had never been this keen to the miniscule goings-on of his surrounding environment. The air conditioner buzzed in a titillating and absolutely aggravating minor key, the radio played a soft jazz number that sounded utterly unfamiliar to him, and he was aware of two people in the store. He was unable to identify who they were or what they looked like, but their presence was undeniable. Was this, too, another strange addition to the curse? Some heightened and absolutely mortifying perception of whatever moved around him?

The fingers of his palm curved inward to test it. He could feel the leather move under the echoed motion of his hand.

Dammit.

He reached for the chocolate bar.

"You like sweets too?"

That voice froze him cold and he wheeled to the side only to find a curious ocean-eyed face next to him; and it was unmistakable exactly who that was because only one person whose head came up to only his shoulder was ever willing to approach him. Suddenly panic seared through his body like wildfire as he dropped the basket with a violent clatter and rushed to her, gripping her shoulders with a sharpness unlike anything he'd ever felt.

Should have been more careful, should have been more prudent, or clearer with the instructions, and if what was said had been just a little more meticulous or—

"What are you doing here?" he hissed vehemently.

"I-I was alone, in the car," she stammered, her nervousness a perfect match to his anxiety. "And I thought you were the only one here, Erik—"

"Who's watching the car?"

He kept his eyes trained on her, drilling a thin line of sight on the top of her head where her hair spilled from her scalp like waterfalls. Her own gaze seemed to jump from either of her feet to either of his own.

"Christine…" he said carefully, each syllable distinct and low, "I told you to wait in the car."

She opened her clenched fist between them clockwork, and in the palm sat his car keys.

He let an exhausted sigh go.

"Erik, I didn't want to leave you alone," she admitted.

Irritation crept into his body, hands first. "Have you ever considered for a moment that I needed the time alone?"

He could pinpoint the exact moment when his words fractured her posture, and he immediately regretted speaking the moment he opened his mouth. He pressed his lips into a thin line to sculpt the sentence much more carefully, and he could taste the words like the shape of bitterness on the tip of his tongue.

I didn't mean—

"Excuse me, can I help you?"

A voice from the end of the aisle pulled their attention until they found the face of a tall, gangly adolescent who was holding two glass bottles of what appeared to be soda. The boy's eyes landed on Erik's face, and the fear was so physical that he felt something like a dagger pierce the area between his shoulder blades and bleed like ice through his coat.

Erik stilled and his breath caught in the snare of his sternum, and Christine's shoulders stopped dead underneath the sudden grasp of his hand. (How odd, he didn't remember touching her.) Her body was warm underneath all of her layers and through the material of his gloves, it was almost a welcome distraction from the fact that if Christine so much as looked at anything higher than his neck, they were done for.

He was done for.

Her head under his gaze didn't move. They waited for the boy's wide eyes, shaking lips, muttered curses or shock, the pallid face of fear. A sound like a scream.

"Ah, we're quite fine, thank you," Christine finally said after seconds that went on for years. "We're just… uh, having difficulty picking some chocolates, that's all."

Erik followed her response in a small, nervous wince that made him sound like a frightened rat. And he hated himself more for it.

The teenager nodded, yawned, and opened the freezing door to stuff the cans onto the shelves haphazardly; but not in that order. After he was finished, he walked along the other way, hopefully out of mind as well.

Erik let out a sigh that could have rivaled even the weight of the evening before. Christine's own shoulders relaxed under his hand and his face still felt light, but the sensation left a rift through the thing tying them together.

"Wait outside," he said simply, and it felt like condemnation.

She huffed in response, grabbing a chocolate bar from the shelf, stuffing it into the palm that once held her shoulder, and strode to the door in wide and angry steps that seemed a little too exaggerated. When the creak of the door opened and shut to herald her departure, the bar suddenly grew heavy, as if it was the largest in the world, even as he tossed it into the basket.

When he brought it to the cashier, the employee that greeted them was the same one from earlier who had taken care of those irrelevant soda bottles. He must have been about Reza's age, complete with the unkempt hair and terrible posture, with what one would assume to have been night shifts darkening the skin under his eyes; Erik's jaw set, in some silent hope that Reza was never this incompetent as store staff. He must have taught him a little better.

As the first of the items went into the paper bag, Erik took a distracted glance towards the display shelves, filled with candies and pencils and other… rather necessary apparatus for intimate activities. He shelved the thought far into forgetfulness, instead went for the Normandy telephone directory that sat square at the bottom shelf, running its hands along its silk-thin pages and hoping that nothing he needed was there.

"So," the teenager said again. "Was that your, uh… niece? She's quite gorgeous."

Erik's blood froze in his veins and he shot the boy a glance that could have very well petrified a man on the spot. It zipped the boy's mouth straight and sent his face marble-white. Instead of any word as a reply, he slammed the book into the basket, hoping in equal measure that it both spared and broke Christine's chocolate bar in half.

He couldn't have been that old, could he?

"Now, if you'll be helpful," Erik said instead, "you'll stop inquiring about her and instead tell me where your phone booth is. And get me a cup of black coffee."

The paper bag of groceries and sandwiches dangled precariously over his folded arm as a single cup of coffee managed to balance between one hand. It also held the telephone directory wide open as he scrutinised it with the studiousness of a scholar. He managed gracefully out of the store and even past Christine, who was waiting by the door with folded arms and a look of petty exasperation. He wondered, in some other time, if there was some way to bribe her happiness or cheer that didn't require sweets; that option would certainly be cheaper.

"Wait, where are you going?" she prodded again, quickly following him.

God, something had to be done about that apparently unending curiosity of hers; it was going to be the blade that cleared both their necks clean by the time they even touched Rouen.

"I'll tell you if you get back in the car," he said.

"You're counting on me to forget about what happened, and just so you know, I won't."

Forget about it.

If poison ever tasted like anything, if he was to stay alive for the few seconds it allotted him, it would taste like iron and the salt of her mere stare. That set his jaw firm and he turned to her, to that knife of a gaze with long lashes like butterfly wings until the revelation set heavy on both of them. He'd have wanted her to forget every part she could have seen, every part she could see. Every part she was probably seeing now.

"Oh."

They were quite fortunate no one was standing in the empty space of the gasoline station. He felt his face disappear and hoped none of the anger he felt would rush to his lungs.

"Erik, I—"

"Stop looking at me," he retorted, and the words felt like metal scraping the inside of his mouth.

He turned instead and opened the phone booth door with his knee, positioning himself inside it so whatever ruin hollowed his temples and cheek would be hidden by the walls.

She stomped her foot. "You are just… insufferable with all this, do you know that?"

He scoffed and hoped the sound itself was enough to communicate his frustration. "Me? Insufferable?"

"Yes, you: insufferable. You'd be less insufferable if you stopped interrupting me most of the time." She tore the grocery bag from his arms and held it between her own, and he realised just how large it was in comparison to her small frame.

"Give that back," he demanded.

"Why, so you can dial up the telephone with another set of arms? Did that curse of yours allow you to grow a second pair too?"

He stood rod-straight and embarrassment flooded his chest in waves, setting a meddlesome ache by his neck as he crammed himself further into the telephone booth and held the directory in one hand. It was much heavier than he anticipated, and with the booth's ceiling pressing up to his head and his coffee wedged between his elbows, it was a rather mortifying ordeal for her to watch. Perhaps he deserved it, and perhaps with her little nose turned up in the air to defy him she was thinking just that.

He attempted to put on an authoritative tone, despite being flushed red, or as one could get with a face half destroyed. "You've done quite enough for one morning, I think, so why don't you do one more thing for me and get back in the damned car?"

"No. I am through with you telling me what I can and cannot do. You're not my nanny, and I'm not a child you can order around."

He tried the glance that scared the poor cashier once again but it had no effect on her, unless the effect was a more adorable iteration of annoyance back at him.

Setting the book on his knee in an uncomfortable fashion, he flipped across the pages until his eyes landed on D. With the bitterness of coffee on his tongue and anger seething warm under his skin, he read through each number with lightning speed.

D… D-A… D-A-V… D-E—

"What are you even doing?" she mumbled again, and of course it had to be in the form of a query.

"Do you ever stop asking questions?" he shot back.

Desormeaux, Desper, Despres, Desrochers, Desroches...

"If I'm to be a companion on this trip, no, I won't stop asking questions."

There: Desrosiers.

The name looked sharp and jagged despite the many curves of its print, and he felt if he was to draw away his finger from the pages, blood would have managed to soak through the material of his glove from the cut it may have inflicted. With anticipation soaking itself into the quiet air, his sight inscribed the number into perfect memory and he dialed it with dexterity that was far too fast for his liking. The automated operator told him to hold and the incessant ringing over the speaker began.

A ring. Two rings.

"Well?" she said.

He said nothing, for a while. He was hoping nobody was going to pick up.

"I encourage you to leave," he said as a final resort.

"I will not," she said again.

"You don't understand." The ringing grew incessant, a bell tolling like death's herald.

"I don't understand anything because you refuse to explain."

"Haven't I explained enough?" His hands on the receiver curled thin until they grasped at it less like hands but more like claws. "That you weren't supposed to come along with me, I'm sure I explained that much."

The furrow of her brow appeared to shift her entire stance. "What, only now are you regretting bringing me along? Why don't you drive me back, since that's so convenient?"

He felt the compulsion to pinch the bridge of his nose, but he feared that if he was to hold any part of his face while her gaze was trained on it, then any skin, teeth or even bone might vanish; if only she wasn't staring. "That wasn't what I meant."

She scoffed incredulously. "Would it kill you to say what you mean, or are you satisfied by being mysterious? Then you sneer at anything and get too cross when someone asks for an explanation."

"Fine." He turned to her, and the action made her flinch; he couldn't care if anyone would pass anymore, because the mortification (or at least, the attempt to stomach it) was enough to kill him. The words crammed into the back of his throat and spilled in a cascade of anger he had never felt before.

"You want your explanation? I'm confused—no, I am insulted by your lack of awareness about this entire situation. You wanted to accompany me, yet display a bewildering negligence for my condition; a condition, may I remind you, that is completely up to your mercy. And I simply just have to accept that! Or have you forgotten just how ugly I look if you do so much as stare?"

In the silent aftermath, the receiver rang once in his ear, twice, thrice. Her face went deathly pale.

"Erik, that's not what I think you look like," she said softly.

Ire gave way to sorrow and then to regret. Underneath the telephone book, he clenched his fist until the pain matched the one digging into his chest.

He attempted to grasp at forgiveness again, but kinder this time. "Christine—"

"Hello?"

The receiver had stopped ringing and was replaced by the kindly voice of a trained receptionist. Panic spiked through his spine and he nearly hit the ceiling of the phone booth with how visibly he must have flinched. Even Christine's pity now was the least of his worries.

"Ah, hello," he replied, and he locked eyes with her; she was staring at him incredulously, like the shift in his voice into naive innocence and kindness was unnatural, and perhaps it was.

"To whom am I speaking with?"

"I'm Erik… Desrosiers."

His own damn surname felt like rot in his mouth and he coughed it off his lips. From the entrance of the booth, Christine furrowed her brows in disbelief, and he grimaced at the humiliation that was turning his hands into brittle thorns.

"Oh, it's good to hear from you again, M. Desrosiers. Are you asking after Camille?"

He never quite believed in any sort of higher destined power, or even fate for that matter, but he prayed that anything resembling it would ensure that Christine didn't hear the lady on the other side of the phone.

"Yes, I am. Is… she still with you?"

"She is, Monsieur."

"And is the address, ah… still the same?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

And some amount of strange alleviation of worry that felt more like grief doused his voice. He bookmarked the page on the phone book with a dog-ear, and he was concerned with how little resistance the material had to the force of fingertips. Mapped somewhere between his fears was the road back to his childhood, to the locked doors and creaking floors and little beams of light from the windowsills, and somewhere inside him his stomach curled. He remembered the screaming too, and dirty rags against his skin, and the sharp pain and shattering of glass that spilled sugar into the floorboards.

"Are you coming to visit, M. Desrosiers?"

"I…"

Something pulled his gaze back to Christine. Her expression was unreadable and it was almost as if for a moment he had forgotten that the curse ever existed at all, and if there was the thinnest possibility that they were destined to grow mad together, alone in the world, no other loneliness like that could be so sweet. The curse could go unexplained forever and he wouldn't care, as long as he would never meet the beast of his past whose head and claws he once called his mother. He should have been more adamant in his denial for her to come with him, his longing (if it was even to be called anything close to longing) should have been less fervent, he was angry and satisfied and regretful and mournful. Every emotion swallowed him whole, every wishful thought and hope that they could have met in some more fortunate, lovelier life where his face was something she could hold without apprehension.

But the sun began to peek through the treeline, throwing javelins of soft light onto the strange air of the gas station. It felt as if the world didn't exist fully here, and he could see the thin space where his dreams and reality melded together, and they all coalesced their stitches in the place Christine stood.

"Yes, I'm visiting," he said solemnly, refusing to tear his eyes from hers. "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell her that she is expecting me."

"Very well. Shall I tell her instead that she is anticipating a visitor soon?"

He paused. Christine's eyes painted the seaside at dusk.

"Yes," he said.

"Alright, it's set. I'll be sure to let her know. Thank you, M. Desrosiers."

He felt the inside of his mouth go dry as he hung the phone back on the receiver with a raucous click that silenced the rest of the world around them. No breeze, no birds, no more sunlight, just the two of them across the shortest distance between two hearts, and he couldn't feel hers beating anymore. His, instead, was loud enough to break his body.

She opened her mouth, he held up a hand, the world stopped moving. Instead, he offered it and, as if she knew, she placed the car keys in the black expanse of the middle of his palm. Whatever pity she was to extend was not needed, nor any conversation necessary. The memory itself was slowly passing but he wanted to grab it from the line of time itself and tear it apart until nothing was left.

"Your chocolate bar is in there," he said instead, and with her gaze busy burying itself into the contents of the grocery bag, he deemed it safe enough to return to the car without her looking at him.

The phone directory shut with the closing of a fist, and with an unnatural deftness, he hooked it under his arm so drinking the coffee cup was easier. It had gotten annoyingly lukewarm, and the rising sun itself was beginning to herald an awareness of the passing of time. It was time he no longer had.

He'd like to think the car's engine was a kind of music itself as it sped on the road and he was quite foolish indeed for it. Stretching on for what appeared to be infinity, the asphalt hummed underneath the Cadillac's tires; he supposed there was a sort of symphony to it that only the observant could hear. She sat there in the passenger's seat with the silence suffocating the car to the point breathing itself was the blare of a horn or a shout, as she unwrapped and wrapped her chocolate bar's tin foil over and over and over in repetitive, mirrored motions.

He couldn't stare her in the face, not after what she had heard, or seen. From the far corner of his blurred vision, he could surmise that she didn't touch her treat at all. This was killing him, in the cold way only the painful necessity of small talk and remedy tended to be.

The smoothness of the steering wheel felt like rough sand against the material of his gloves. Was an apology in order, and would she accept it? Forget her acceptance, would she even listen to him? It seemed she had an affinity for that kind of bold disobedience, and risking it again seemed worthless. And yet the pity she was giving him was far worse than anything either of them could have said to break the tension.

The space inside the car felt suffocating, and he quickly reached out to the radio dial to try and find something to at least fill the space, or distract them both. The knob turned as the crackle of white noise followed an amalgam of voices, sounds, cymbals, bass lines, riffs and chords that all rushed to step forward.

But first, static. Click.

"…and now the weather. It's clear skies by Caen, marking the first of—"

Like anyone still cared about Caen during the cold. Click.

"—souffle de la mer,
et la plage qui attend.
C'est l'oiseau qui a chant—"

Françoise Hardy. Normally would have set a nice mood, but far too sombre following their footsteps. Click.

"—reports that the Louvre is receiving multiple renovations, many of which are going to take an estimate of a year or two to—"

Ah, Paris: the city of love and ghosts, always came back like a revenant to remind him of what he had lost. Click.

"—weetheart,
Tomorrow is another day,
Don't break my h—"

Oh, God, Ella Fitzgerald. Too relevant for the situation. Click.

"And now, something a bit new from the Beach Boys, 'God Only Kn—'"

He grimaced in his seat; the Beach Boys. No, absolutely not. Click.

"—omment faire pour la trouv—"

"Wait, go back," she said suddenly.

He hesitated over the dial. "Go back? It's Johnny Hallyday playing now."

"Of course, go back to the Beach Boys." And she sat snuggly in the chair, adjusting her headscarf as if she was about to meet them herself. "Hurry, before they start the song."

He shut his mouth stupidly, surprised at how unaware that his jaw was agape the whole time. The Beach Boys, of all possible vocal groups. Where he had his doubts that it was an error of emotion that allowed him to bring her along, he realised now that it was a true mistake, if any of their songs were to pollute the peace of his car with rubbish.

He didn't touch the dial and let Johnny Hallyday sing a bit longer.

"Oh, dear," she said as she tore off a bit of her chocolate, and he did not want to look at what he assumed to be her surprise.

"What?" he asked, and hoped she wouldn't answer.

"You don't like the Beach Boys." And the tone accompanying her revelation was one of dejection, but the sort that was more incredulous and disbelieving than heartbroken.

At least it spared him the punishment of having to say it. "So what?"

She scoffed; it was uncannily beginning to sound like him. "So what? Erik, they're the Beach Boys, and for all your record selling you should know about them."

He groaned inwardly. "I sincerely wish I hadn't. With the repetitive and predictable chord sequences, constant harmonising, and lest we talk about the gimmick of singing about surfing, of all things? And not only that, but the gall to release and release this drivel and have it break sales, coveted by many? Ridiculous."

And she looked at him, and so did he at her, but for the first time, neither of them seemed to mind. She pouted defiantly and shooed his hand away from the dial, with a surprising lack of resistance on his end as she turned it back to the station hosting that ridiculous vocal group just as their song began. It bothered him quite a bit that the conversation they had in both the convenience store and the gas station seemed easily forgotten about, but he also sensed that Christine wished to leave it behind at that stop too. He began to think of better days, when an argument didn't lie on the ground behind them both, that he would be in a more argumentative state to fight for the right of Johnny Hallyday to play on his car radio over the Beach Boys. But she could have her victory here, for today.

He already recognised the faux organ sounds and hollow bass, with the strange addition of what he could only assume to be Christmas bells keeping the beat as a replacement for a snare. That wasn't even saying anything about the nasally, unforgivable vocals.

"I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you,"

He hit his forehead against the steering wheel while to both his chagrin and amusement, Christine swayed in time with the beat, mouthing the lyrics as she clapped along with that… maybe it was a tambourine. He had to admit that the harmonies were quite unique, however.

"You never need to doubt it,
I'll make you so sure about it,
God only knows what I'd be without you."

It had to be this song, of all songs to be possibly playing. Attempting to focus more on driving proved useless when the song was just that bothersome. He would take the horrendous surfing one compared to this. Cruel destiny once again his only enemy, as it had been the day she walked into the record shop, and the evening he watched her sing Paul Anka, and the next few days to come.

She was completely engulfed by the first few lines of the song at this point, gleefully laughing at her inability to hit the descending notes on 'without you,' (which he should have taught her better, at least, for her to sing outside of her comfortable range). How true it was, and how terrifying—that there were days where he did not love her.

"If you should ever leave me,
Though life would still go on, believe me,
The world could show nothing to me,
So what good would living do me,"

And soon he was tapping that mindless false snare beat on the steering wheel with his fingers.

"God only knows what I'd be without you…"

I like to think that the Beach Boys were to the 60's what the Backstreet Boys were to the 90's. Boybands continue to be a necessary staple upholding modern society.