Juniper’s lips twitch with either a pleased smile or contained laughter at the ridiculousness of my affections. “Tell me,” she says abruptly, “what’s your favorite word for sorrow?”
I’m thrown by the question, still trying to decipher her reaction. “Dolor,” I answer after a moment, hoping my confession hasn’t flung her into hopeless dolor and that’s why she’s asking.
“Thank you for curing my dolor, Fitz.” She takes my hand.
It’s not horrible. Far from it. It feels like the start of something incredible. In the time since the High Line, we’ve joked and fought and fallen out, and even though it’s been only days, I’m boundlessly grateful we’re reconnecting.
I walk with her through the campus, now hardly feeling the cold.
Fitz
EARLY THE NEXT morning, I’d only just finished pulling on my sweater when I heard knocking on the hotel room door. I swung the door open and found Juniper. We smiled stupidly and said our hellos with a breathlessness I didn’t know hellos could have. I think we both felt like last night never really ended, only continued into today.
She looked past me and said hi to Lewis, and then declared she’d changed our plans. Instead of driving to Baltimore and Johns Hopkins, which was on my original itinerary, she’d decided we would instead visit Pittsburgh. She wouldn’t say why, only commenting cryptically she had something she wanted to show me.
I’d nodded like this was completely normal and expected and didn’t ask any questions. I probably kept smiling my same stupid smile. Honestly, she could drive us to the world’s biggest ball of twine or the horology museum. As long as I was with her, I’d be thrilled. This trip has been nothing if not a testament to how wholly and completely places can change because of the people in them.
When she left, Lewis asked me if he needed to come up with an excuse to put me in Juniper’s car for the drive. I shook my head, thinking of her hand in mine and a snowy walk lit by starlight. I think Juniper and I both know we’re driving together.
* * *
We’ve been on the road now for nearly four hours, though it’s felt like less. I’m hardly paying attention to the outside world—trees, off-ramps, more trees, I’m guessing. I don’t even register the difference between the brilliant day and the illuminated darkness of the numerous tunnels we drive through under mountains in the Pennsylvania wilderness. We’ve talked about everything, the conversation flowing easily from our families to our friends back home, extracurriculars and irritating classmates. While the highway passes in the windows, it feels like the rest of the world is on pause.
Finally, we pull over for gas. I noticed the meter on Juniper’s dashboard drop into the red an hour ago. Despite my repeated efforts to convince her to fill the tank, only now have I prevailed. She’s one of those people who claims she “knows her car.” I suspect she really just doesn’t want to stop when she’s on her way somewhere.
We park, and I reach into the back seat for my parka. It’s fallen onto the floor and is covered in detritus I don’t recognize. Scraps of paper, bent photographs, and what looks like an unfinished knit scarf have tumbled from a large shoebox tipped over from the back seat.
“What is this stuff?” I ask Juniper. I hold up the half-finished scarf.
Juniper glances back, and her eyes darken with protectiveness and possibly melancholy when she sees what’s in my hands. “It’s nothing,” she says. She reaches in the open car door and starts returning the items to the shoebox with a care I don’t expect. I hand her the scarf, which she doesn’t exactly look happy to see, but she places the fabric into the shoebox like it’s precious. “They’re just, I don’t know, important keepsakes,” she explains. “Private stuff I didn’t want to leave home with my sisters.”
She stows the box under the driver’s seat and shuts the door. We walk toward the convenience store. “So sentimental,” I say, teasing. “Juniper Ramírez holding on to pieces of the past?”
Juniper rolls her eyes. “Caring about the past and wanting to live in it forever