The Passenger's Seat

The two of them sat in deafening silence for what seemed like forever.

Finally, Garrett spoke. “Do you want to talk about this?” he said carefully, the way you talked to a petulant child.

“No.”

Silence again.

Garrett rubbed his throbbing temples. Tired wouldn’t be the appropriate word to describe how he was feeling at the moment. The police have most likely given up, and now was the time for them to leave. He would take Roxie home first, and then he would rest. He knew he promised, but he had nowhere else to take her. Garrett reached for the key in the ignition.

“No! No, please… I don’t want to go,” she said pleadingly, the red in her eyes fainter now.

“Then what do you want?” he said.

“I… I…,” she muttered, and put her knees up her seat, hugging them once more, resting her chin on them. She shifted her head to the right, toward Garrett. “I don’t want to go home,” she whispered.

“Why?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“My father’s there. I don’t want to see him.”

Suddenly, a thought came to him. “Did you want to get caught by the police tonight… so you would end up in jail instead of home?”

She nodded. A single tear fell from her eye, landing on her bare knee. “You shouldn’t have come for me. I didn’t want to get you involved.”

“Well, I think I was already involved,” said Garrett. “Chantal went all, ‘The accomplice! The accomplice!’ on me so I scrammed, too," he said, trying his best to imitate the man’s accent.

Roxie smiled slightly.

Hesitantly, Garrett reached out a hand to her cheek, stroking it gently with his thumb. Her skin was like no other’s, flawless and soft like silk. Roxie closed her eyes.

“Why don’t you want to be with your dad?”

“He killed my mom,” she said in a voice even lower than a whisper.

Garrett drew back his hands from her cheek in utter shock. “What?”

Roxie repeated what she said.

He shook his head, refusing to believe it. “And, er, how exactly did he do that?”

Eyes still closed, she took a deep breath and said, “He cheated on her a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. Mom only pretended not to know, thinking it was only flings, you know. But it kept happening. And by that time Mom was letting it affect her. She stopped doing movies. She stopped acting. She just locked herself up in that room doing…” Roxie began sobbing.

“Shhh… come here,” he said, pulling her closer. Garrett kissed her forehead. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this.”

“My mom didn’t deserve any of this. She never hurt anyone. She just kept hurting herself,” she wept.

Garrett’s heart sank at the sound of her cries. For some reason, he hated it when Roxie cried. It made him equally unhappy. And then, it dawned on him that she affected him in ways no one else has. In just a few hours… she had completely captivated him and turned his whole night around. Now Garrett was drawn to her. He knew that he would do anything to keep her safe and make her happy, even risk eating terrible prison food. What was this feeling? Was it something good? Or was it just the alcohol in his system? Or did he just lack sleep?

He didn’t know what to say or what to do. What does a guy do when a girl cries? Then, it struck him.

“I think I know where we need to go,” he said.