The day is too bright even from behind sunglasses but the headache is not all hangover. She doesn’t play flippant well, and the silence in the car has been telling. Their house comes in the view and I realize that I’ve stopped more than two blocks away without conscious thought. She looks at me now, and I shrug.

“I still have raccoon eyes.” We both know nothing is visible behind my sunglasses, but she nods along as I finish. “Wouldn’t want to scare your mom more than she already is by showing up like this.” Truth is, silent disapproval from one member of the Carlin clan is more than enough to start the day – adding a possible encounter from Mrs. C would be too much.

“Okay, then.” She opens the door and my chest constricts. My hand is on hers, stopping her.

“Wait. Are we… okay?” I hate how my voice sounds, young and vulnerable and everything I don’t want to be. Not again.

She looks back at me and for the first time since I met her, I can read nothing in her eyes. Then she reaches out and lifts my sunglasses to the top of my head, laying me bare. I let her, I let her see me and it has to be one of the hardest things I have ever done, sitting like this under the glare of the sun and the inscrutability of her gaze. When did she learn to hide her eyes like that?

She blinks then, and lowers her head, and when she looks back at me her smile is tender, but tinged with a touch of something I recognize only too well; resignation.

“Yes, yes we are. Go home and take care of that hangover, and I’ll call you later.” And then she leans in quickly, and I can smell her hair as she kisses me on the cheek. I realize that the smell of her hair was threaded through my dreams last night. My hand is up, pads of my fingers tentative against the skin of my cheek where her lips were just a moment ago, and when she looks at me this time, her smile is all Spencer Carlin; open, kind and a tad mischievous. “’kay. I’m off to dash Glen’s high hetero hopes.”

I turn the car around, not wanting to watch her walk away. Five minutes later, after taking the seventh blind turn, I have to pull up. I don’t know where I am. My forehead against the steering wheel, I briefly wonder if I will have to throw up. This is not hangover, I know. This is equal parts fear and excitement. There is more, I know, but I am not strong enough to take stock of it. I straighten up and slip my glasses back down again. How easy it is to get lost. How difficult to find your way again.

LA glitters in the sunlight before me, deceptively benign. I descend into the madness.