Cross Country Hearts by Suzanne August
Seventeen
“Do you hate me?”
We last only an hour before Jasper declares he cannot listen to my music anymore.
“It’s the same ten songs over and over,” he says. He shakes his head and looks incredulously at the radio as if it’s the Honda’s entire fault for playing the music that’s coming out the speakers.
Even though he’s insulting my taste in music, I laugh. “Seriously, Jasper? You hate it so much, fine. You can have the radio.” Besides, I’m getting tired of those same songs coming on every other hour too. My music list could be updated.
“You’re going to thank me,” he says. He reaches into the backseat for a package I’d seen Lila hand him after squeezing him to death in her strangling hug. I hadn’t asked what it was, but as he tears it open in his lap, I see that it’s CDs.
He sees me glancing and mutters, “Eyes on the road.”
I ignore him, feeling only slightly insulted. “Lila gave you CDs?”
“Since this new car does actually have a CD player,” Jasper starts, “Lila was kind enough to donate some old CDs.”
I’m not sure what to expect Lila’s taste in music to be, but when Jasper disconnects my phone and he slides the first CD in, I find it’s a mix of early and late two thousands throwbacks to the best of the eighties. And although I would love to pay back Jasper for giving me a hard time about the music I’ve been playing, I can’t bring myself to. That’s because listening to Jennifer Lopez and Queen with Toto’s Africa in between is the best kind of track I’ve listened to and sung to in a while.
And after ten minutes of listening to me belt out to the music, Jasper groans. “This is worse than before.”
“It’s your mistake for thinking Lila made you a CD only you’d like,” I say. “Remember? She says I’m the athletic one. I’m one of you now.”
I’m joking when I say it, but Jasper slides me a look. It’s that blank expression, though this time I can’t see through the minuscule cracks to get a hint at what he’s thinking.
He sighs. “I’m going to take a nap.”
He’s wearing a hat—yes, a black baseball cap—and he pulls it down over his eyes before bunching up his sweater against the window and leaning against it. My feelings struggle with growing uneasiness as I consider what he said aloud and what he chose not to say. Only a few times have I managed to get a handle on what Jasper is thinking. This is not one of those times.
I’ve only managed not to think about Melanie for fifteen minutes. Now she’s back at the forefront of my thoughts, and no Britney Spears or Michael Jackson will push them back, especially with a sleeping Jasper leaving me alone to drive. I will have to bring the issue up soon because I can’t go on wondering about it. Since I won’t get answers from Melanie, Jasper is my next best shot.
An hour after Jasper has fallen asleep and almost three since we’ve been on the road, I pull into a service plaza with a burger joint. First, I fill up the gas, and when I open the car door to reach for my coat because I know a restaurant has got to be cold to fight against this summer heat, Jasper has woken up and is looking around.
“Lunch break,” I tell him. “Come on. There are burgers.”
I don’t wait for him, and by the time he gets into the restaurant after me, the waitress is already showing me to our table. The waitress asks him for his drink order as he’s sliding into the booth across from me. Then he, without looking at me, picks up the menu and looks at the options.
It’s a quiet lunch, but it’s not uncomfortable. Maybe, at the start of this road trip, we would’ve been fuming in silence for the simple fact that we had to be in each other’s presence. Today, we’re both tired. There’s a reason Jasper felt the need to take a nap after only a few hours of sleep.
Still, while I’m sure Jasper sits in his own comfortable silence, I squirm in my seat. The anxiety has been slowly growing, its roots eager to strike at my chest, but how do I bring up Melanie to Jasper when she’s only a topic he scorns at? And maybe part of the reason I’m scared to ask is that I know he’ll give an honest answer. Jasper is a lot of things, but he doesn’t lie or hide the truth. He lets it all out. It’s a good thing. Maybe it’s even an attribute I’ll begrudgingly admit I admire about him, but right now, I’m not sure I could handle the honesty.
I pick up the silverware and unwrap the napkin, fiddling with it under the table. I just need something to do with my hands. The waitress has brought us our drinks by the time I finally muster up a few ounces of courage.
“Jasper…” I start, and when I look up, he’s already watching me. His eyebrows furrow. He’s looking in the direction of my hands that I know he can’t see under the table, but it seems he knows what they’re doing. I still my hands. I try to, anyway.
Jasper brings his gaze to mine. “What?”
And my courage is crushed when the server comes to our table to take our orders. After she notes our sandwich order and walks away, I find that Jasper is watching me with curiosity. His expression is not quite the usually blank facade he enjoys wearing around me. He looks like he wants to ask because, after all, I was about to say something to him before getting interrupted.
I can’t bring myself to do anything more than open my mouth and try to speak.
So, I don’t. Jasper tries to make small conversation. It works, sort of, but the truth is that I feel anxious because we’ve never actually been able to make small talk between ourselves. Left to our own devices and stripped of the intense emotions of hate, we don’t know exactly what to do with each other.
After a quiet lunch, we get back on the highway. Jasper puts in another CD Lila made, but somehow, even with the speakers blaring music, I feel a sort of silence. Jasper knows something is up with me, and I know that I can’t keep quiet. Jasper’s arms around a smiling Melanie’s shoulders nag at me. She’d been so comfortable in his welcoming arms.
In the end, it’s wondering about Thomas’s last words to me and his strained goodbye that finally gives me the courage I need. To make it even worse, I remember how Lila calls him the compassionate one, and I wonder what it means to be a ‘real’ girl to Jasper.
We’ve crossed the border into North Carolina when I finally manage it. My hands grip the steering wheel, and I keep my eyes on the highway before me. Then I ask it. “Do you hate me?”
Whatever it is Jasper has been expecting me to say for most of the afternoon, I know when I glance at him that this wasn’t it.
Instead of one of his eyebrows raised, it’s both. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Thomas says you don’t.”
Jasper’s quiet for a moment. “I wonder why you had that conversation.”
Deep breath. “Why didn’t you tell him I’m Melanie’s friend?”
“He doesn’t know who Melanie is.”
I let the breath out, slow. “He showed me a picture of you and Melanie. He knew her as Mel.”
I finally spare him another glance. He’s staring at me, and his facade has slipped into an expression somewhere between shocked and guarded, maybe even a little aggravated. “What are you asking?”
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“Then don’t ask.”
My grip on the steering wheel tightens. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“You don’t have one.”
“No. I did ask one.”
I can’t look at him a third time. I can’t. I do. He’s turned to the window, hiding his face from me. His shoulders hunch and his hands ball into loose fists.
“No,” he says. “I don’t hate you.”
It’s almost… as if the usual, laid-back persona he’s always managed around me has slipped, and he can’t get it back into control. What does that say? Does it unnerve him that I know about Melanie and him?
I can’t risk another question. What’s more, I used up the reserve of courage I’d collected for hours. I turn back to the road. After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, I turn up the music.
The silence is still deafening. I drive on.
I drive for so long my back starts to hurt, and I feel cramped. I stop for a bathroom break, and when I come back, Jasper has climbed into the backseat for another nap. I suspect it’s not because he’s tired, but because he wants to avoid another conversation with me.
As I slide back into the driver’s seat and bring the car back onto the highway, I’m relieved that he’s no longer in the passenger seat, always there in my peripheral vision.
The sun eventually dips into the horizon, and the faint glow of the moon becomes more prominent. The GPS states we’re minutes away from KOA. It’s almost eight o’clock by the time we reach the site. Like Ren said, we don’t have to camp like real adventurers, but although it costs less than anything we’ve paid for a place to stay so far, the bottom side is that there’s only one room.
Though granted, there are separate beds. When we walk into the tiny cabin designated to us, we discover they’re bunk beds.
“I call top bunk,” Jasper declares. It’s the first full sentence he’s said since falling asleep in the back of the car. He throws his bag onto the top mattress, pulling out a cigarette and walking out the front door without another word.
Well, all right. Maybe he hasn’t forgiven me yet for finding out about Melanie.
As I wait for Jasper to come back, I realize that I didn’t see him with one cigarette yesterday. I wonder if that’s because he didn’t want his friends to see or if there was another reason. I wonder if I drive him to have the urge to smoke. I wonder why he never lights it.
Jasper doesn’t come back inside, but I hear him putting firewood together in the fire pit. I debate whether or not to join him, but considering the strained long afternoon drive down here, I decide we need a little more space than only ten minutes. I grab my flip-flops and brace for the outdoors. Burning wood and one black-clothed Jasper King greets me.
“I’m going to the snack bar,” I tell him. “Do you want anything?”
He shakes his head, and as I walk past him, he doesn’t spare me a glance.
At the snack bar, there’s a group of a few girls and a guy, all my age. I grab some chocolate and some pre-made sandwiches—Jasper will be hungry whether he admits it or not—before stepping in line behind the group. One of them, a tall girl wearing only a white pullover to cover a one-piece bathing suit, looks over her shoulder at me. She considers me for a moment, then turns fully around.
“Just the chocolate?” she asks. “You’re going to make s’mores, right?”
I glance down at the few items in my hands. “Uh… I wasn’t planning on it.”
Another one of the girls, wild brown hair and summer dress on, overhears us and leans over to get a better look at me. “You have to make s’mores! You’re camping!”
“I… Uh…” I have no idea what to say.
“Markus,” the first girl says. “Hand me one of the graham cracker packets and some marshmallows.”
“Hey, Happy—” The guy at the front who is paying for their hoard of snacks objects to the second girl’s—Happy?—hands grabbing what the first girl ordered.
“Relax, Markus.” Happy rolls her eyes and forces the two items into my hands. “My name is Happy. Yours?”
My eyebrows rise at the name. “It’s June.”
“Nice to meet you, June,” she says. “What cabin are you in?”
“Fifty-four.”
“We’re sixty-two!” the first girl declares. “I’m Darius. We’re having a party tonight with some other people our age at KOA. We’re down on the lake and have one of the big cabins to ourselves. Join us!”
“Um, okay,” I say because I’ve never been one to turn down an invitation to a party.
“Great!” Darius salutes me while Happy helps Markus with the hoard of snacks. They’re out the door before I even process what just happened.
When I reach the counter, the cashier says, “You know they didn’t pay for the crackers or marshmallows they gave you, right?”
I sigh, putting the items down for him to scan. “That’s fine.”
When I make it back to the cabin, Jasper is sitting in one of the old wooden chairs surrounding the fire pit. He lifts his hand in a small gesture of greeting, but his attention is on his phone. I sit in the chair next to his, taking note that the cigarette is still lodged in the corner of his mouth.
“I bought ingredients for s’mores,” I tell him. “And some sandwiches.”
At this, Jasper turns off his phone and pushes it into his pocket, sliding his attention to me and the food in my hands. He starts to rise. “I’ll get the sticks.” He throws the cigarette down and crushes it under his heel as if extinguishing it. It’s probably a honed reaction.
“Seriously, Jasper,” I say. “Why don’t you ever light the cigarettes?”
His heel freezes, and he draws back a step, exposing the crushed, unused cigarette. “Carlisle and I are quitting together. I’m his support.”
I blink, completely thrown off. The only other time I’d asked, he had suggested it was for an aesthetic, and we both knew he was lying. I hadn’t been expecting an honest or straightforward answer. And to further throw me off, he elaborates.
“He’s doing it for April, actually,” Jasper says, watching me. “She doesn’t smoke cigarettes.”
It’s said as a statement, but I know it’s a question. I don’t answer it. Instead, I say, “I didn’t know Carlisle smoked. April never told me that.”
“She didn’t tell him to quit, but he’s doing it for her anyway. He’s tried to quit before, so this time I’m moral support. Doing it together and all that. No vaping or anything.”
I don’t immediately respond. Jasper fingers the box of camels in his jean pockets, his lean stance not as laid back as he normally manages to make it seem. He opens his mouth, but it takes a few tries before he gets the words out.
Maybe, like how Jasper had anticipated me asking a question earlier today but gotten thrown by what I’d, at last, managed to say, I’m in Jasper’s shoes now. Because when he finally meets my eyes, he says, “Why are you the way you are?”