The sun has just begun its nightly descent when they reach the outskirts of the California state border. Lisa looks at the fluorescent lights of a gas station as they pass and Roseanne jerks her shoulder. 

“Gas station?” 

Lisa considers it and shrugs. An ice-cold drink would be nice. The cooler is fast losing cold, though they're trying their best. 

“Do you want anything?” Lisa says, digging through her duffel bag for a crumpled pile of bills. “I’m getting snacks.”

“If they have mint gum, yeah.” Roseanne says, and adds, “But not spearmint. I hate spearmint. Just the normal blue mint gum.”

Lisa taps a two- salute to her and heads inside. She snatches two packs of ‘normal blue mint gum’ for Roseanne and heads to the back aisles to pick out a few snacks for herself. Once she's done, the salesman, old and balding, rings her up. Lisa pushes her luck and asks for a bottle of vodka, perched high behind the counter. She doesn’t get carded for that, thankfully, and makes it back to the car holding her victory aloft. 

Roseanne finishes refilling the tank, pays for it, and slams the fuel door closed. She hops back into the passenger seat and looks at Lisa skeptically. 

“Did you steal that?”

“He didn’t card me.”

“You’re not drinking and driving.”

Lisa scoffs. “Obviously not. It’s for tonight.”

“You’d get alcohol poisoning if you drank all that.” Roseanne settles back into the passenger seat, this time with a novel. “I don’t want to take care of a drunk Lisa all night.”

“I‘m not going to drink all of it tonight.” Lisa retorts, then adds, “If you wanted, you could get drunk with me.” 

Roseanne curls her lip, makes a disgusted face. “No thank you.”

“Not a drinker?”

“I’m a lightweight,” Roseanne says. “I don’t like being drunk.”

Lisa accepts it without complaint. She's fairly certain she's seen Roseanne at a few scattered high school parties, where there was definitely alcohol, but Roseanne must not have been drinking then. 

“Any particular reason?”

“I don’t like losing control,” says Roseanne. “Alcohol makes you lose control.”

Lisa considers it. Hms thoughtfully. “It lowers your inhibitions, yes.”

“Is that not the same as losing control?”

“Some people are better at holding their liquor than others, yes,” Lisa says. “It’s a matter of knowing your limits. I’m tall, I know I can drink more than someone the size Jennie. But I’m not going to drink as much as a pro football player.”

“I suppose,” Roseanne says slowly. “I still don’t trust myself being drunk around other people.” 

Lisa lets the conversation slide without argument. She turns the key in the ignition and her attention back to driving. The bottle of alcohol goes in the backseat, ignored by both parties. 

Roseanne gestures to the book in her lap. Cover tattered, pages worn down from time, she says, “Do you want me to read it out loud?” 

Lisa raises and drops a shoulder. “If you want.”

It’s a watered-down version of yes, so Roseanne clears and begins reading. It’s a different book from last time (Of Mice and Men) and it only takes Lisa a few moments to place it. 

“A Wrinkle in Time,” says Lisa. “Original.”

“It’s relatable,” Roseanne says. “Except we’re not traveling to different planets to defeat endless darkness, just going on a road trip.”

“Of course,” Lisa says. “How more relatable could it get?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Roseanne says. She turns a page and continues; Lisa recognizes the chapter and the scene. She's read this book before, back when she was a child. Roseanne’s voice is smooth and soft, consonants rounded and delicate in , and Lisa finds herself focusing less and less on the words of the book and more on the way they sound in Roseanne’s voice.

Lisa could fall asleep to this. She could listen to Roseanne talk, over and over, painting the sky every color known to man. She could listen to Roseanne talk herself hoarse and never once grow tired of it.

The sun is low in the sky, hanging bulbous and fat over the horizon. It shines directly onto them, yellow and vibrant. 

They’re in the middle of the desert. When Lisa rolls the window down, the temperature has barely dropped from the eighties. Even though the moon is peeking up at the horizon, in shades of silver. It seems like they’ve truly hit summer weather. 

“I think we should just stop here for tonight,” Roseanne says, yawning, “What do you think?”

Lisa nods. It’s probably best because both of them are tired to the bone. It’s not smart for them to keep driving, even if Roseanne did take the wheel after this. 

It takes them another fifteen minutes for them to find an appropriate stop to pull over at. Neither of them starts a fire, both too conscious of the fact that they’re in the middle of one of the driest states well known for its wildfires, and instead just turn on their yellow lanterns. It sends light flowing over the walls of the van, and absentmindedly Lisa runs her hands over a flyer for Linville Caverns that Roseanne plastered up, way back at the beginning of their trip. It’s worn down and faded, from being retaped up over and over again. 

“Remember when we were talking about parallel universes?”

Roseanne’s question comes out of nowhere, and Lisa pauses for a moment. 

“Kind of,” she says. “About other versions of ourselves.”

“Yeah,” Roseanne says. “Do you think there’s an alternate universe where we’re different?”

Lisa considers this, and says, “Of course.”

“Quick answer.”

“There’s no way I’m the same in every universe,” Lisa says. “Maybe in one I’m famous. Maybe in another I’m already dead. Who knows?”

“Famous,” Roseanne laughs. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Why are you asking now?” Lisa says. “What about you?”

“I don’t know,” Roseanne says. “I was just wondering.”

There’s an alternate universe where instead of turning away to sleep, feeling the other person’s weight on the mattress across from them, they turn and face each other instead. There’s an alternate universe where Lisa links hands with Roseanne. There’s an alternate universe where Lisa leans forward and kisses her under their glow in the dark stars, slow and smooth, and there’s an alternate universe where Roseanne kisses her back eagerly. 

Lisa sleeps. She reminds herself, this is not that universe. 

--

Roseanne spreads one of their picnic blankets across the field and gestures for Lisa to sit next to her. She convinced Lisa to pull over five minutes ago, preaching something about picnics and sunlight and afternoons. It’s one of the rare green fields of California that they’ve found, and Roseanne wouldn’t let go of it. 

Puffy clouds track across the sky in white trails. The summer day is beautiful. 

A ladybug scuttles up Lisa’s finger, perches there with hedonistic delight. It’s startlingly red against her tan skin. Lisa watches it crawl with muted interest. 

“My mom told me they were good luck,” Roseanne says. “I never saw them much as a kid.”

“I’m sure they’re everywhere in California,” Lisa says. “Especially during the summer.”

The ladybug perches on her fingernail for a moment. Lisa raises her hand against the sun, sees the veins glow red. In the next instant, the ladybug spreads its wings and disappears. 

Lisa drops her hand. When it hits the ground, Roseanne’s hand shifts next to her. Roseanne stares at the sky, expression determinedly blank, and cautiously links pinkies with Lisa.

Every nerve in Lisa’s body sings, her world narrows to the electric link between her and Roseanne. For a moment she can barely function. 

“I’m really enjoying this summer,” Roseanne says, as if she's not lighting all of Lisa aflame. 

“Me too,” Lisa breathes.

She moves her hand just slightly, enough to interlock her ring finger with Roseanne’s. 

“It’s fun to go anywhere. Not have anyone tell me what to do.”

“There’s so much freedom,” Lisa agrees.

She turns her head to the right, and Roseanne’s smile makes her heart do cartwheels in her chest. Almost unknowingly, their middle fingers link. The blue sky is second only to Roseanne’s eyes. 

Roseanne says, “I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone but you.”

Slowly they figure out the alignment of knuckles and joints and curves. The gentleness of it is foreign to Lisa. But she wouldn’t give it up. Not for the sky or moon or flowers, not for the world, not for anything. 

Heart in throat: “Me either.”

There’s nothing between them except a few wildflowers. Vaguely, Lisa registers birds chirping vibrantly, calling out to one another. The sun spills down on them. 

“Who would have thought this would be us?” Roseanne muses. “When I first met you—”

“Oh joy,” Lisa says. “Tell me your first impressions.”

Roseanne hums. “You were very intimidating. I was new, and you were good friends with Jisoo, and I wanted to stay with my friend.”

“Intimidating,” Lisa repeats.

“Mm. That popular kid aesthetic. Your impossible attitude.”

Lisa curls her lip. Roseanne squeezes her hand and grins. 

“It’s not like you were any better. I don’t think you wore one good-looking outfit all of freshman year.”

“Old habits die hard,” she sighs. “I guess I really did look atrocious, huh.”

“You looked good,” Lisa says. “You just needed a sense of style.”

Roseanne turns to look at her. “Are you calling me pretty, Lisa?”

Lisa’s heart drops into her stomach. “I’m calling your fashion taste ugly. Don’t get them confused.”

“You don’t have to lie,” Roseanne teases. “It’s okay, I think you’re pretty too.”

“Shut up,” Lisa says, face hot. “You’re the worst.”

With her free hand, Roseanne pokes Lisa’s cheek, and Lisa turns her face away. She can’t see Roseanne’s expression, but apparently Roseanne takes the hint because the conversation switches tacks.

“Freshman year feels so long ago,” Roseanne says, neatly diverting Lisa’s thoughts. “I was so different.”

“Me too,” Lisa says. 

“I think this is the most fun I’ve had in ages,” Roseanne says. “Just you and me.”

“You and me,” Lisa echoes. 

Roseanne’s thumb traces delicate circles around the back of Lisa’s hand. The movement sends tingles through Lisa’s nerves. 

Lisa admits, “I don’t know what I would do without you.” 

Roseanne lolls her head to the side, squeezes Lisa’s hand. They fit so perfectly, Lisa thinks, thumbs hooked over the other, fingers entwined, lining up with every freckle on the back of Roseanne’s hands. 

“I think we were made for each other,” Roseanne says softly. “Weren’t we?”

Lisa’s lungs stop working. 

The heat of her body next to her, the tickling of grass. The spacey, hazy blue of the sky. The honey of Roseanne’s eyes. A cardinal chirps in the background, the hum of a bumblebee. It’s suddenly too much, too bright, too raw. 

She pushes herself up, untangles herself, paces away, digs fingers into her forearms. Roseanne sits up in confusion. 

“Lisa?”

Lisa doesn’t take any heed of her, doesn’t listen to her. Because Roseanne can talk all she likes, of songbirds and stars and soulmates, but Lisa cannot. Will not. There’s nothing that can happen, will ever happen between them. Because Roseanne doesn’t love her, she never will, and she'll only ever see Lisa as a friend. 

And Lisa will only ever exist in this half-circle of hell, designed solely for her. 

“Lisa?” Roseanne calls, sounding lost. “I didn’t— I don’t know what I did wrong. Please don’t leave.”

“Stop talking,” says Lisa.

Roseanne falls silent. 

The wind whistles an empty reply. 

“We’re not made for each other,” Lisa says eventually.

“Okay.”

“It will never be just you and me .”

“Okay.”

Roseanne’s voice trembles, barely so. 

Silence.

“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep.”

Silence. 

“Can we just go back to talking?”

Lisa turns, and Roseanne’s sitting half-up, hands braced against the ground. Young, uncertain. Grass flattened beneath her. Behind her, wildflowers flutter in the wind. Her voice is fragile, the string between them tenuous. 

“We should keep driving,” says Lisa. 

Roseanne’s face crumples and hammers flat, all in the space of a second. She nods, begins packing up their things, closes the trunk with surgical precision. She doesn’t look at Lisa as she clambers into the passenger seat. 

“I’m going to sleep,” she says. She already has her blanket and pillow.

Lisa says nothing.

Roseanne clutches her pillow to her head, curls towards the passenger door, tugs the blanket up to her ears, and closes her eyes. Lisa has known her nearly four years and painfully knows her well enough to say that for the next three hours, Roseanne does not sleep at all. 

Lisa stares at the road ahead and thinks of nothing. 

--

Tensions ease slightly that night.

They stop at a Mcdonald’s on the side of the road for a bathroom break and an Oreo McFlurry. Lisa tries to focus on the ice cream and comes up with a chalky, tasteless flavor. Roseanne comes back out of the bathroom, eyes red-rimmed. Takes a seat, bounces her knee under the table. Looks somehow everywhere and nowhere at once.

“I’m sorry,” she says abruptly.

The linoleum table is suddenly very interesting to Lisa. When did she become unable to face these things head-on?

Blandly: “I don’t want your apology.”

Roseanne falters. “, Lisa, I don’t know what else to say. I know I made you upset. I don’t know what to do to fix it.”

“There’s nothing to be fixed,” Lisa says. “Everything’s fine.”

Roseanne stares at her for a long moment, discontentment etched into every line. She repeats, “Everything is fine.”

Lisa nods. 

Roseanne opens , closes it, opens it again, closes it. “You’re impossible.”

“It’s what I’m known for.”

A crack of a smile. “I suppose so.”

The tension bleeds out slowly, coagulated and sticky. It still feels like she's tip-toeing on eggshells; it still feels like Roseanne’s holding herself together at the seams; it still feels like they’ve crossed a line into dangerous territory. 

As if she's testing the waters, Roseanne reaches across the table and steals Lisa’s ice cream. She takes a bite, scrunches her nose, passes it back; Lisa flicks her wrist, says something about a sweet tooth. 

Just like that, things go back to normal.

Except not quite.

Roseanne fiddles with the disposable camera now. She turns it over and over in her hands. The cartridge inside rattles; Lisa has half a mind to ask her to stop. 

“We need to buy a new one somewhere,” she says abruptly. “This one only has three pictures left.” 

“We’ll stop by a convenience store.”

“Hm.”

Silence. 

Roseanne starts fidgeting again. The camera rattles. Lisa risks a glance over, looks away from the road. Roseanne’s legs are angled toward the door. Her gaze is distant. The camera turns over and over and over.

Lisa sighs. “Spit it out.”

“What?”

“Whatever you’re thinking. Spit it out.”

“I’m not thinking about anything.”

“Whatever is making you anxious, then.”

“Nothing is making me anxious,” Roseanne says. Sullen. Drops the camera in the cupholder, crosses her arms. Tense and tight one moment, and in the second moment she's walled off and closed. “I’m fine.”

Flatly, Lisa says, “You’re fine.”

“I’m fine,” repeats Roseanne. 

Lisa flicks her a second look. The words she wants to say are swallowed. Roseanne clearly wants her to stop pressing, and so she will. 

Lisa turns her gaze back to the road and tries to steady her thoughts. As if Roseanne can read them, Roseanne turns and says, “I’ll figure it out on my own.”

“Okay.”

“It’s personal.”

“Okay,” Lisa says. 

She grits her teeth and stares at the road ahead and does her best to not pick apart every piece of Roseanne’s actions. What could she be worried about; something so deep and wild that she wouldn’t share it with Lisa? Something large enough to keep a secret?

She’s not entitled to Roseanne’s inner workings. Still, Lisa misses their easy communication, the way they could read each other so easily. There’s an invisible barrier now, between them. Lisa can’t help but feel like she's the one who shifted them out of place. 

Lisa glances at her again. Roseanne’s staring out the window. Her eyes are glazed, taking no part in the present. Lisa turns her attention back to the road, brain circling, trying to think of what has made Roseanne so impossibly quiet.

For all her thinking, she comes up with no answers. 

--

Again, the motel that night has only one room with a king bed available. Lisa’s eyes are already drooping, and the last thing she wants is to spend the night with Roseanne in the same bed when every piece of her urges to be closer. When she'll be distracted the entire night, feeling so vividly the presence of Roseanne next to her.

Crush isn’t a big enough word for it. Love isn’t a big enough word for it.

If Lisa were a smarter woman, she might say soulmate. 

But Roseanne doesn’t argue about the prospect of sharing a bed, like always, and so Lisa doesn’t argue. They take their duffel bags upstairs in silence. 

Their showers last barely minutes. Lisa claims the side of the bed closest to the window first, and turns her head towards the window. She's been the one driving most of this trip (as much as Roseanne likes to deny it, Lisa is a much better driver than she is), and so her mind eagerly welcomes sleep the moment her eyes fall shut.

She barely registers the shower turning off in the background, the fresh, clean lemon scent of the soap that Roseanne uses. The mattress dips, and all Lisa does is fall further into sleep. 

After a moment, Roseanne whispers, “Lisa?” 

Lisa doesn’t respond. Roseanne asks, “Are you awake?” 

Lisa doesn’t respond, again. She doesn't think she could get to cooperate even if she could acknowledge that she's awake. 

Roseanne swallows thickly, and she says, “Your hair looked really pretty today. In the sunlight. I wanted to touch it.” 

She doesn’t say anything for a while, and right as Lisa is on the verge of sleep, she hushed: “If I wanted to kiss you, would you kiss me back?”

Lisa falls asleep.

When she wakes up, she almost convinces herself it was a dream.

--

The car breaks down.

“You have to be ing kidding me,” says Lisa flatly. 

Roseanne slams the hood and slumps against the side of it. “We’ll have to wait for someone to come so we can jump it.”

Lisa looks up at the sky and lifts a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “We’ll be stuck here forever.”

“Could be five minutes or five hours, whenever a car willing to stop by helps.” Roseanne wipes a hand across her brow and groans. “It’s so ing hot. This is awful.”

Sweat trickles in a thin line down to the small of Lisa’s back and she already feels the faint itching of a sunburn spread across the back of her neck. They’re barely through the top half of California, steaming in the summer heat. She feels boiled alive.

Lisa goes to open the trunk and drags their cooler out. Inside, the ice has kept some of their things perfectly chilled, and Roseanne gratefully clutches an ice-cold water bottle. 

Roseanne tilts her head back, sweaty and tired, and Lisa feels her stomach drop. 

She doesn’t know what to make of it: that night, a week ago, Roseanne’s voice in the silent room. The way they had woken up, unconsciously turning to face each other in the dead of night, close enough to touch. 

Would you kiss me back?

Lisa’s turned the words over in her head endlessly, so many times that they might as well be meaningless. Would you kiss me back? Her heart does a funny half leap, half skip in her chest whenever she looks at Roseanne. She can’t stop her eyes from straying to her. She can’t stop thinking about kissing her. Running her hands over her, over every last inch of her. Marking her collarbones or thighs in red. , even holding her hand. Tracing careful lines down her arm. Her heart is going to beat right out of her chest with how close she wants to be to Roseanne. Pressing herself ever closer. 

, she would kiss her back. Every second of every day of every week. 

Of course she would. 

One car passes in a blaze of dust and sand, and barely looks at them, much less offers to stop and help. Roseanne lets her hand drop with a sigh. Lisa drags herself back to the suffering present. 

“Is there a gas station within walking distance?”

“Maybe,” Lisa says, “But it’s a hundred degrees and you could walk for an hour and not find one.”

“Are you getting any cell service?”

Lisa shakes her head. Roseanne sighs and settles back against the hood of the car.

Sweat beads at Lisa’s temple. It’s nearing the hottest hours of the day, where the afternoon sun is at its most dangerous. Lisa switches places with Roseanne and holds her thumb up whenever a car passes. Slowly, surely, the afternoon trickles away. The sun lowers steadily, lengthening the shadows. Finally, nearly three hours after their van first crawled to a stop, gasping its last breath, a car comes. 

Roseanne, who is on thumb-up duty, is the one who gets him to pull over. In a bright blue pickup truck, the guy wears a wide-brimmed straw hat. He's weathered and tan and pulls out jumper cables before Lisa and Roseanne can even begin to grab theirs.

He smiles. “Rough place to get stuck, huh?”

“Tell me about it,” grouses Roseanne. “It’s awfully hot.” 

Lisa reaches inside the car to pop the hood. Roseanne grabs one of the cables and goes to the other guy’s car.

“I’m Jackson,” the guy says, sticking a hand out. Roseanne shakes it. “Have you ever jumped a car before?”

“Yeah,” Roseanne says. “A few times with my dad.”

“You must be pretty good at it then,” the guy says, with a flash of a smile. 

“I’ve had lots of practice,” Roseanne says, oblivious to the end. 

Conversationally: “So where are you guys headed? Anywhere special?”

“Heading upstate,” Roseanne says. Somewhat evasively. “Nowhere particular.”

Jackson nods knowingly. “Summer road trip, right?”

Lisa scowls. 

Roseanne nods, friendly to the end. 

Jackson continues, “Any plans for later today?” 

“Not much.” 

He attaches the last cable to the battery and motions for Lisa to get inside the driver's seat. 

“Start it,” Jackson calls, and Lisa turns the key in the ignition. The first time, the car stays silent; the second time, it growls to life. Cool reassurance floods through Lisa. Roseanne grins and disconnects the jumper cables. The guy wraps them back up, sticks them in the trunk of his car, and slams the door.

“You have enough gas to get to the next station?” 

“Yeah,” Roseanne says, relief evident in her voice. “Just the battery. Thank you, we appreciate it.”

Lisa turns on the air conditioning, reveling in the breath of fresh air it provides, and fights to keep her hands steady on the wheel. 

“I hope things are easy going from here on out,” the guy says. “I could give you my number if you ever need it.”

Jackson is still smiling, with his stubbornly white teeth. 

“Thanks,” Roseanne says, taking a practiced step back,  “But I’m good, we need to get going.”

Jackson mirrors her, says a few more words of acknowledgment that Lisa filters out. The pickup truck disappears in a wave of summer dust and dirt. Lisa watches it go, dust settling thickly over everything, over every last word, and smile and frown.  

Roseanne hops into the car, turns the air conditioning another notch. Brusquely, Lisa says, “Ready?” 

Roseanne clicks her seatbelt into place and gives her a thumbs up. Without another word, Lisa turns onto the highway, a touch more aggressively than need be. Roseanne furrows her brow but says nothing. 

After a minute, Lisa’s frustration only mounts. The tension in the car is thick enough to cut through with a knife. Roseanne sighs, put upon impatience.

“What?”

Lisa rolls down her window, air rushing past, and says nothing. 

Roseanne sighs. “Fine. I’ll bite. What’s going on?”

“Do you have any survival instincts?”

It’s not what Roseanne must have been expecting, because she's startled into silence for a moment. Then she retorts, “Don’t answer my question with more questions.”

“He wanted to give you his number,” Lisa says, “He asked where you were going. Where you had been. What your plans were for later that day. Did it ever cross your mind that strangers can be dangerous?”

“He jumped our car,” Roseanne points out. “We would’ve been stuck otherwise. I’ll make polite conversation if that’s what it takes for us to keep moving.”

“You’re oblivious,” Lisa mutters darkly. 

“You’re paranoid,” Roseanne retorts. 

“At least one of us knows when we’re being flirted with.”

Roseanne stops, mouth open to say something back, and snaps it shut. “What?”

Lisa looks at her. “Are you serious?”

“I—” Roseanne frowns, bemused, “That’s flirting?”

Lisa reaches a hand across the console and flicks her forehead. “Yes. You really are oblivious.”

“But he wasn’t doing anything that people do when they flirt,” Roseanne argues, cheeks a little red, “Don’t people say things— things other than—” 

Lisa raises an eyebrow. “Things like what?”

“I don’t know,” Roseanne says, fumbling for words. “Isn’t flirting more aggressive than that?”

“Aggressive?”

Roseanne scowls. “You know what I mean.” 

Some of Lisa’s irritation bleeds out. It’s not her fault that Roseanne is so dumbly oblivious to romantic cues, not when she's spent the last two years being stubbornly ignorant to Lisa’s every move. 

“Flirting is different for everyone,” Lisa explains, feeling like a preschool teacher, “But body language, smiling, all of that, it’s textbook.” Belatedly: “Everything that guy was just doing.”

“I wasn’t flirting with him,” Roseanne says. “Is that why you’re so upset?”

Lisa can nearly see the wheels turning in her head, churning out answers and explanations and anxieties. Before Roseanne manages to piece everything together, Lisa interrupts her. 

“I want you to be safe,” she says, ignoring the jealousy roaring inside her stomach, a monster demanding to be fed. “And that wasn’t being safe.”

“I can take care of myself.” she sounds impatient. 

“I know,” says Lisa. 

“Then why—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lisa says. Because it truly doesn’t. Take the hint, Roseanne, take it.

Roseanne opens again, looking for all the world like a child with puzzle pieces that she stubbornly can’t fit together. Lisa looks back to the windshield and tries not to let her anxiety run away with her. 

Would you kiss me back?

It’s haunting. 

Lisa doesn’t even know what to think. 

--

Driving through the mountains is a whole new form of torture. 

Roseanne is driving, thankfully, because Lisa doesn’t think she would be able to keep her hands still if she was tasked with the job of keeping them both on the mountainside. There’s a roadside barrier to her right, on the passenger seat, and Lisa risks a glance over the edge, and her stomach drops. 

, Lisa thinks, and her mind is abruptly plagued with the image of wheels skittering off the side, tumultuous and falling, and she doesn’t notice how hard her hand is gripping her side until conversationally, Roseanne says, “Are we almost done with A Wrinkle in Time?”

Lisa forcibly drags herself back to the present. 

“What?” she manages.

“The book,” Roseanne says, calmly. “That we’ve been reading. We’re on the last chapter, right?”

Almost dizzy, almost lightheaded, Lisa says, “I think so?”

“Do you want to read it?” 

Lisa closes her eyes briefly, right as Roseanne takes a turn, and tries to still her beating heart. “Do you want me to?”

“Why not?” Roseanne says, and without taking her eyes away from the road, points to the glovebox. “It’ll keep me focused.”

With what feels like numb hands, Lisa fumbles for the book, pages worn down and tired. Roseanne has helpfully dog-eared the page they left off on last. It takes a while for her spinning, nauseated mind to focus on the print, but finally, Lisa clears and begins, voice shaky, “ Meg could see nothing, but she felt her heart pounding with hope…”

Roseanne hums, adjusts her hands, and directs them towards steady ground. 

What feels like an eternity later, Lisa finally reads, “ Then there was a whirring, and Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which were standing in front of them, and the joy and love were so tangible that Meg felt that if she only knew where to reach she could touch it with her bare hands.

“Mrs. Whatsit said breathlessly, ‘Oh my darlings, I’m sorry we don’t have time to say goodbye to you properly. You see, we have to—‘

“But they never learned what it was that Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which had to do, for there was a gust of wind, and they were gone. ”

She closes the book. 

Somewhere in the last thirty minutes between her beginning the final few pages and her reading out the last word, the road has straightened and they’ve left the curves of the mountainside behind. The valley they’re in stretches flat, for miles now. 

“The end,” Lisa says. In case Roseanne hadn’t gotten the memo.

Roseanne’s idea to have Lisa distract herself from the heights by reading was a wonderful idea. She feels much more grounded now, after losing herself in an entirely different world for a few minutes. And now looking out the window, she sees nothing but equal heights. They’ve left the cliffs behind. 

Roseanne looks out the window, eyebrows knitted together, free knee bouncing slightly, and then she says, “What kind of an ending is that?”

“Hm?”

“It ended,” Roseanne says, and gestures with a hand, “But it doesn't explain anything.” 

“That’s the point,” Lisa says. It’s been a long time since she has read A Wrinkle in Time, and yet she appreciates it every time. It’s a wonderful ending. One of the best she's ever read.

“But what did they have to do?” Roseanne says, slightly frustrated. “Why was it so sudden?”

“That’s the point,” Lisa says. “You have to figure it out for yourself.”

“It’s a great book, sure,” Roseanne says, “But none of it makes sense.”

Again, Lisa says, “That’s the point. It’s very symbolic. It’s all about love and family.”

“I just wish there was more,” Roseanne says. “I want to know what happens.”

“There are sequels, I think. But the original is best.” 

“Hm.” 

Lisa glances over at her. The sunlight comes in from Lisa’s window, and so Roseanne is perfectly lit up. The color of the sun tonight is pink, pinker than the hibiscus and oleander flowers that grow around Lisa’s porch at home. It makes Roseanne look less pale than she actually is. 

“I don’t understand,” Roseanne says again. “How did Meg loving Charles make her come back?”

“Because it’s love,” Lisa says. “It doesn’t have to have a logical explanation, does it?”

“I guess not,” Roseanne says. “But—” 

“You don’t have to read into it that deeply,” Lisa says. “It’s just a book.”

“But that’s not how love works,” Roseanne says. Quieter. As if she's struck a nerve. “Because—”

She cuts herself off abruptly. Lisa pauses, book in her lap slipping to the floor. Forgotten. 

Curiously: “What do you mean?”

“Because I don’t think love works like that,” Roseanne says, voice tight. “If it did, couldn’t I just— couldn’t I just love who I love? And everything would work itself out?” 

“It’s a work of fiction,” Lisa says, almost uncomprehendingly. 

“I don’t think love can solve everyone’s problems like that,” Roseanne says. 

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet,” Lisa dares to say.

The silence that falls over the two of them is thick and fraught with tension. Lisa, desperately, wishes that she had just stayed silent, because she can see the cogs turning in Roseanne’s head, trying to churn out an answer.

Finally, Roseanne says, “I don’t know.”

Lisa says nothing.

Roseanne continues, so quietly that Lisa can barely hear, “I think I might have already, though.” 

The sun continues to set. 

Neither of them speaks for the rest of the evening. 

--

The bottle of vodka makes a dramatic reappearance fifty miles into the wilderness. Lisa, who pours some into their matching shot glass sets, has already taken her first shot. It burned momentarily, and then the warmth spread from her chest. She offers a drink to Roseanne, not expecting anything much, but Roseanne gives it a considerable shrug and takes the smallest sip. Her face scrunches up in distaste and Lisa snorts, taking the rest of the shot back.  

Roseanne shuffles closer, the plaid quilt over both their legs, and her ankle bumps against Lisa’s. She radiates heat, warming Lisa just from being close.

It’s the twelfth of August, the best day to see the Perseids. In the middle of the California desert, with the only light around from their headlights, the stars are so bright that the Milky Way is visibly splashed across the sky. 

Lisa can point out the majority of constellations now, spattered across the sky. Orion’s Belt stands out. Pisces is vibrant against the dark. Cygnus, the swan, flies through the sky. She points out the Pleiades, unusually bright. Roseanne directs her finger toward Mars, glowing red. If the sky gets dark enough, they’ll be able to see Jupiter tonight. 

Lisa drops her hand, and Roseanne takes it. Wordlessly, she interlaces their fingers and circles Lisa’s knuckles with her thumb. 

They have been holding hands a lot lately. It’s new. It’s… nice.

Roseanne is the one who starts it, most of the time. When they’re walking down the street. Across the console, as they’re driving. Watching ty reality TV in motels. 

Lisa doesn’t know how to feel about it. Her body does, though; she has to breathe manually when Roseanne is close to her, has to focus on each of her steps to ensure she's not tripping over her own feet. She can’t stop her mind from spinning in dizzying circles, trying to make sense of Roseanne, of every one of her actions. She bounces between the idea that Roseanne likes her, that Roseanne doesn’t, that everything about Roseanne is platonic, that, miraculously, it isn’t. 

Lisa looks down at their hands and thinks about Roseanne, Roseanne, everything about her, her hair and eyes and smile and laugh and heart and the constellations she teaches Lisa and the way that Lisa knows Cygnus by heart now, because she can draw Cygnus on her thigh from freckles. She thinks about Roseanne’s fingers, soft, tiptoeing across her. Thinks about how everything she really wants is tearing at her, ripping her apart at the seams, and soon she'll be leaving from their conversations in pain. She's already in pain.

The alcohol slides at her mind, loosely tugging away at all her defenses. 

Into the silence, Roseanne says, “I’m really glad we did this.”  

“Me too.” 

“One more month,” she says. “This month is going to be the best one yet.”

“Yeah?” 

“Mhm,” she says. 

Two stars wink into existence. Lisa checks her phone; as soon as night falls, the Perseids should bloom above them. The sky is quickly dissolving into inky blackness. Any minute now.  

Three more minutes pass in slow silence, sand dripping away through an hourglass. Lisa’s about to check her phone again for the time when Roseanne exclaims, “Look!” 

She follows Roseanne’s pointing finger up to the flash of a comet, trailing across the sky. Another one joins it. Another, then another, then another. The sky lights up piece by piece, coming alive in glorious shooting stars. 

“We have the best view,” Roseanne breathes, eyes fixed on the sky.

“Yeah,” Lisa agrees, eyes fixed on Roseanne. “We do.”

Roseanne turns to look at her, before Lisa looks away, and Lisa’s face goes hot at being caught staring. Roseanne doesn’t say anything on it, only moves just barely closer to her, leaving a scant inch between their thighs. She's warm. She makes Lisa feel more alive, just from being next to her. 

“This is wonderful,” Roseanne murmurs. “They’re supposed to be really bright this year. I can’t wait to see.”

“It’s already started.”

Roseanne’s bright, loopy smile. “It’s barely been a minute.” 

“You know what I mean,” Lisa says.

“It’ll only get better from here.”

One of them shifts, or both, and suddenly their legs are pressed together in one long line from hip to ankle, and without meaning to, or maybe completely intentionally, Roseanne’s head rests on Lisa’s shoulder. A fine shiver runs from the base of her neck down her spine, and from the way Roseanne goes still for a moment, Lisa doesn’t think that she's missed it.

“Are you cold?” Roseanne asks curiously.

Lisa shakes her head. “Maybe a little.”

“Hm.” 

Then Roseanne does the most audacious thing she's done in a while, which is— 

Shifts closer to Lisa, puts her legs in Lisa’s lap, tilts her head against Lisa’s chest, and the plaid quilt covers them both evenly. Lisa’s arm, Roseanne directs around her shoulder. There they sit, entangled. 

“Is this okay?” Roseanne asks.

“Mhm.”

“Are you warmer now?”

I hate you, Lisa says, I hate you so, so much that all I feel is love, only it comes out, “Yes.” 

“Good.”

The bottle of vodka slides against Lisa’s thigh, clinks against a rock on the ground. Suddenly, Lisa really wants a drink. She wants something to make this night more bearable. 

“Drink with me,” she says.

She doesn’t expect Roseanne to say yes, but surprisingly, Roseanne says, “Pour me a shot, then.”

It takes a bit of maneuvering, but Lisa manages to pass Roseanne a b shot of vodka as well as pour one of her own without spilling a drop, and without shifting their position. In the darkness, Roseanne’s eyes are as dark as coffee. Black with one sugar, just the way Roseanne likes his. 

“What are we drinking to?” Roseanne asks.

Without thinking, Lisa says, “New memories.”

The slightest smile, pressed into Roseanne’s lips like the indent of a fingernail. “To new memories, then.” 

“To new memories,” Lisa echoes. They drink at the same time. The alcohol spreads through Lisa’s stomach, resonating sleepy warmth. The bitterness follows, but Lisa barely registers it. 

Roseanne grimaces, chasing the shot with water. “Alright. That’s it for me, I’m done drinking.”

“So soon?” 

Roseanne shakes her head, cheeks flushed. “I’m not much of a drinker.”

“Clearly,” Lisa says. Roseanne laughs, a little giddy, a little looser than she would usually be. Lisa caps the bottle and puts it away. She's likely done for drinking too. Already, she has the slight sense of the world spinning around her, even though she's certainly sitting still. 

Neither of them speaks for a time. They’re just waiting, watching the sky burst to life overhead.

“You know,” Roseanne whispers, like she's sharing a secret, “I think you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

Lisa’s heart skips. “I think you’re pretty cool too.”

“Really,” Roseanne insists. “I know I’ve said it before, but I’m so glad I’m doing this with you.”

“Me too,” Lisa says, and she wants to say more, but Roseanne seemingly pulls the words from before she can say anything worthwhile. 

“It’s so nice,” Roseanne says, “Almost perfect, but…” And she trails off, like she's said something without meaning to.

“Almost perfect?”

“Sorry,” Roseanne says, “I think I’m drunk.” she giggles, smiles wide. “Just a little bit, though.”

She’s gorgeous. 

And she's so close. 

And she's so, so warm. 

The sky is alive with stars, blanketing them both, Lisa swallows her pride and fear and decides that anything, even rejection, would be better than this awful, awful longing.

“Rosie,” she says, heart thudding impossibly loud, drowning all other sounds, “Kiss me?” 

For a shattering moment, Roseanne blinks at her and says nothing. Lisa opens again, maybe to offer an explanation, maybe to apologize, maybe to take it back, but no words come out because Roseanne presses her lips to Lisa’s.

She kisses like she talks: passionate, ardent, soft, beautiful. Kisses with the reckless abandon that Lisa loves. It lasts for both a second and an eternity, simultaneously ageless and over too soon. Lisa draws back, needing air, needing to make sure that everything is real, that she's not just living out the most vivid dream in ages, but all she sees is Roseanne and the sky and endless, endless stars overhead. 

“Finally,” Roseanne says breathlessly, “I was so worried, for the longest time…” 

She doesn’t finish her sentence. Roseanne looks up at Lisa, flushed and radiant, and Lisa demands, “Kiss me again,” and Roseanne does. 

Lisa cups Roseanne’s jaw with one hand, steadies herself with the other. It’s so much better than she could have possibly imagined, so much more real, puzzle pieces clicking into place with satisfying certainty. Roseanne hums, curling her hands into Lisa’s hair, kisses her harder. The world sings with them, glorious and colorful and happy. 

Above them, the Perseids blaze through the sky, streaks of orange and red and gold.

--

They spend a lot more time on the road. 

They spend a lot more time kissing. 

In the car. Outside the car. On motel beds and in motel bathrooms. Under streetlights, in laundromats. Roseanne hops on top of the washer and lets Lisa slot herself between her legs. A woman with two kids gives them a scandalized look, mutters something slanderous under her breath. Lisa and Roseanne pay her no mind.

Roseanne’s film camera has fewer pictures of the landscape and more pictures of Lisa. Tufts of black hair peeking out from blankets. Scabbed knuckles holding the driver’s wheel, resting out the window. Two socked feet hooked over the other. A s’more, half-burned and dripping chocolate over warm fingers. The back of her head under fluorescent gas station lights. Rare smiles captured from the driver’s seat. 

Slowly, their collection grows. Lisa writes more poems, Roseanne tapes them up, even the bad ones. Brochures from the Portland Japanese Garden, Crater Lake though Lisa gets vertigo from peering over the edge, the bottom door of the Space Needle in Seattle (Lisa refused to get in the elevator to go all the way up). Roseanne buys a two-dollar geode in an Oregon gift shop just to split it open on the side of the road.

“For you,” she says, and passes Lisa a half-moon of rock. Glittery white crystals line the inside. Roseanne ties her own half to an increasingly heavy mobile in the back, that they made with their Junior Ranger badges and bits of sea glass from Floridian beaches and pink, smooth conch shell pieces and ten-cent stamps from a roadside stop. 

“One day that’s going to fall,” Lisa says. The hanging mobile spins, clinking together in bits and pieces. 

“Sure,” Roseanne agrees easily. “In twenty years, maybe.” 

She finishes tying the geode up, and it spins like a top, around and around and around. 

At night, Lisa tugs Roseanne towards her until she's sitting firmly over her hips and leans up to kiss her. The muffled sound that emerges from Roseanne’s throats is slow and drawn out, sending a hot pulse of wanting down Lisa’s spine.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Lisa mumbles against her lips. “You can make noise.”

Roseanne pauses for a moment, her lips in a way that makes Lisa’s heart skip a beat. “I— it’s odd.”

She shifts her weight. Lisa braces hands on Roseanne’s thighs. “Are you still good? Still okay?”

“Yeah,” Roseanne breathes, “I’m good. I’ve just… this is all so new to me.”

The position they’re in suddenly feels nearly obscene, too intimate. Lisa takes her palm away from Roseanne. The yes floating between them feels thready, uncertain. 

“I’m not forcing you to do anything,” Lisa says. Her stomach twists in sick knots. “Am I?”

“No, no,” reassures Roseanne, “You’re not, I want this. I want you. I like everything we’re doing, I promise.”

The soft, melting look on Roseanne’s face is nearly too much to bear, and Lisa kisses it off her. 

She doesn’t think she'll ever get tired of kissing her. 

As if testing the waters, Roseanne hums, low and slow, and Lisa swallows the noise. Her hand finds her way to the edge of Roseanne’s waistband, traces lines, and Roseanne makes the sweetest sound Lisa’s ever heard. Lisa hides her smile of satisfaction in the curve of Roseanne’s neck, and drinks in the sounds she makes, thick and sweet as syrup. 

--

The morning is slow, moving like molasses. They wake up curled into each other like flower petals, the heat of Roseanne imprinted against Lisa’s skin. She doesn’t know where her body ends and where Roseanne’s begins, and they untangle themselves beneath the morning sun. 

“Alright,” Roseanne says, hair a tousled mess, once she takes the wheel for once, “Do you have the map?”

Lisa unfolds it from the glovebox. She traces a line down the dotted marks they’ve made in bright orange pen, the last time they looked at this map. They’re heading past Idaho (a useless state, filled with Nazis) and they’re skipping the Dakotas (equally empty states). They’ll stop at Wyoming for Yellowstone, if they want, but Roseanne says that she only wants to see Old Faithful erupt and they can skip the rest. 

“Head east on the highway,” Lisa says. “If we only stop for food breaks, we should make it to Nebraska by nighttime.”

--

They kiss under the moon. They hold hands over the console. Lisa traces the lines of Roseanne’s arm, wrist to shoulder. She looks at their hands and wonders how two people could be made to fit together so evenly. 

I think we were made for each other, the ghost of Roseanne’s voice whispers. 

One week passes, then a second. States drift by in bits and pieces. Under the universe, they exist solely for each other. 

She doesn’t think she's ever been this happy.

--

Rain patters against the windshield in gentle rivulets. The windshield wipers squeak. Their radio, issuing static for the last hour and a half, is turned off. 

“Should we just stop here for the night?” 

Lisa considers it; they have another half hour until their supposed motel and night is thick and heavy over the highway. They’ve driven through the night before, mostly because Lisa didn’t trust the town they were in and Roseanne wasn’t tired enough to sleep.

“Why not?” she says eventually. They won’t have to go outside, and they can just keep the heat on. Roseanne will keep her warm too, she runs hot. She always does. 

They pull over to the side of the road. The rain doesn’t lighten up, but it remains a constant sprinkle. It’s soothing, and Lisa changes into sweatpants and a loose shirt that may or may not belong to Roseanne. She climbs onto the mattress in the back, and Roseanne joins her, just a moment later. 

They shift together, malleable and soft. Roseanne’s arm is over Lisa’s stomach, interlaces with her hand. Her back, touching her chest. Her breath, warm against her ear. Roseanne holds her. Lisa likes it. 

It takes Roseanne five minutes, give or take, before she speaks. 

“What are we?”

Lisa’s stomach jolts, falls, drops. She doesn’t know why the trepidation in Roseanne’s voice makes her feel so anxious, but there’s something tentatively edging at her tone that makes Lisa uncomfortable.

Quietly, Lisa says, “What do you mean?”

Roseanne’s hand, interlaced with her own. She lets go of Lisa’s hand to gesture to the van, decorated with all of their things. Their home for the last two months. 

“When all of this is over, what happens next?”

“I’m going to college,” Lisa says, almost uncomprehendingly. “You’ll go to college too.”

“But with us,” Roseanne says. “What happens to us?”

Lisa rolls over, and they look at each other for a moment. Their noses are close enough to touch. 

“We stay together,” Lisa says, though she sounds uncertain. “If you wanted.” 

“Even when we’re on opposite sides of the country,” Roseanne says. “Even when we don’t see each other for months?”

“Yes,” Lisa says. “Even then.” 

“I’ve never felt like this,” Roseanne whispers, and the insecurity, so hidden before, floods her voice, “Not with anyone. And I don’t— I don’t know what I would do, if—”

“Rosie,” Lisa says, pouring as much sincerity into her voice as she can, “These last few days, I’ve never been this happy. I always want to be this happy. And I always want to be with you.”

Roseanne doesn’t say anything, and Lisa brings two fingers up to her chin and taps her nose. “Are you okay?”

Roseanne nods shakily, and she says suddenly, “ all the other parallel universes.” 

Lisa her head.

“I love this one,” Roseanne whispers. “I want to stay here.”  

Lisa nods feverishly, and she echoes, “I want to stay here.”

With you, with you, with you. 

Roseanne leans forward and kisses Lisa’s forehead. Warmth radiates from that spot. 

The entire night, neither of them shift.

--

They make it to their fifth disposable camera, because the previous four are filled solely with Roseanne’s snapshots of Lisa.

Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts pass by. They go to Times Square for the thrill of it. They buy a soft pretzel in Philadelphia and tear it in even halves to split it. They buy tickets to the Museum of Natural History in D.C. and get trapped inside when a thunderstorm strikes. 

“It’s you,” Roseanne says, pointing at a bronze statue of a rodent. Lisa side-eyes her, bends closer to read the plaque.

“It’s a Morganucadon oehleri,” she reads. “It’s one of the earliest known mammals.” 

“It reminds me of you,” Roseanne says.

“What, because it’s a rat?”

“Yeah, and ugly too.”

Lisa pushes her shoulder and has to turn away to hide her laugh. 

“That’s you,” she says a few moments later, pointing at a carbon copy of a Neanderthal.

“Why, because I’m strong?”

“No, because you’re ugly.”

Roseanne scowls, but it’s b with fondness. “I hate you so much.”  

“It’s not my fault that it’s your spitting image,” Lisa says. “See, it even has the bad posture.”

Unconsciously Roseanne rolls her shoulders back and straightens her spine. “Please stop calling me out like that.” 

Lisa pokes her in the small of her back. “Never. Not until you manage to sit up straight.”

Roseanne curls her lip at her, but she can’t keep the expression long before she breaks into a smile. She grabs Lisa’s hand and tugs her onward. The Smithsonian has endless rooms for them to lose themselves in. 

--

In the motel the night before they’re set to arrive back home, neither of them talk for a long time. 

The future feels airy and strange and full of dramatic questions, too big to be answered in one night. For now, Lisa and Roseanne fold into each other, a card house unable to fall, wrists and legs and divots curving in perfectly with each other. Lisa presses her head into the crook of Roseanne’s neck and breathes. 

“It’s going to be weird going back home,” Roseanne says quietly. With the lamp off, the only light comes from the city outside. Her hair is dark, eyes nearly black. “Sleeping in my own bed is going to feel weird.”

“I’ll have to put up with Jennie and Jisoo again,” Lisa mumbles, and fights back the urge to shudder at the eventual comments about her and Roseanne. 

“Ew,” Roseanne says, “Jennie and Jisoo.”

Lisa snorts. “I’ll wake up in the mornings and wonder why we’re not driving.”

“I’m going to eat so much fresh fruit,” Roseanne sighs. “I’ll go through a pound of strawberries a day.”

“Ice cream,” Lisa fantasizes. “And ice-cold drinks.”

“I’ll sleep in so late,” Roseanne says, “Now that we won’t have to keep moving every day.”

“And we’ll have guaranteed air conditioning every single day.”

“It’ll be so nice,” Roseanne breathes.

Silence, and then:

“It’ll also be so different.” 

“In a good way, though,” Lisa says. “Right?”

It takes Roseanne a moment to respond, and then she nods.

“Right.” 

In the morning, they take extra time packing up their clothes and suitcases, and instead of pushing them anywhere they fit, divide them into Lisa and Roseanne’s sides. It’s going to make it easier when they have to split their belongings back in Orlando. 

The strangest thing happens when they have to pack their suitcases though, and it’s the realization that half of Roseanne’s things are Lisa’s, and half of Lisa’s things are Roseanne’s. They sort through sweatpants and sleep-shirts and frayed jeans and sweaters until everything is mostly evened out. Lisa keeps Roseanne’s shirt, the pink one from the Graceland mansion. Roseanne keeps Lisa’s hoodie, the one they bought at the visitor’s center in the Smithsonian. It’s decided without any words.

It takes longer for them to get on the road. There are two hours left in their journey. Lisa wants to make them stretch as long as possible. In the end, the hours speed by like grains of sand slipping through her fingers. The minutes pass by and drip through the cracks until the turn-off for their small neighborhood in Orlando approaches.

Roseanne takes the final stretch while Lisa watches the scenery pass by in flashes of gold, green, yellow. The highway transforms from unfamiliar to recognizable. That exit leads to a coffee shop, the next one to Waffle House. The gas station off the freeway there never carded Lisa when she bought alcohol in junior year. Two streets and a traffic light over is the shelter she volunteered at during the last semester of senior year. 

“We’ll go to your house first,” Roseanne says. “That sound good?” 

“Mhm.” 

Lisa sees the street signs flash by, neighborhoods she recognizes, trees she's seen bear fruit for the first time, coffee shops that pop up and vanish within the year. The sidewalks that have held her footsteps in her hands. There’s the turn for Lakeside High, and in a few blocks, they’ll be at Lisa’s house.

She feels antsy, fingers tapping on the window. Roseanne’s hands are steady on the wheel, following the traffic laws with precise certainty. 

She doesn’t know why she's so anxious. She's coming home. She doesn’t know why it feels so jarring. 

Lean into the discomfort, Lisa thinks, and she says, “It’s weird to be back.” 

“I know,” Roseanne readily agrees. “I guess… well, I thought things would change as much as I have. But everything still looks the same.”

“I almost wish it took longer.”

Roseanne huffs, a small laugh. “I know. Three months went by so fast.”

She turns the left blinker on, waits for a car to pass, and turns onto Lisa’s street. She pulls to a stop in front of Lisa’s house. 

Silence falls. It’s thick, and Lisa feels like she could chew it like taffy.

“Should we go in?” Roseanne says.

Lisa says, “I want a few more minutes.”

Those few more minutes pass in silence. It’s broken only when Lisa sees the curtain to the front window shift. She sees her mother open the window, push the curtain back, and grin broadly. She disappears from view, and Lisa knows she’s going to unlock the front door in a moment. 

“I think this is going to be a good year,” Roseanne says suddenly.

Lisa turns to face her, looks at the sunlight streaming through the window, sunlight that traveled millions of miles purely to have the joy of shining on her. A riveting, gorgeous feeling swells in her suddenly, enough that Lisa thinks it will spill out of her if it keeps growing. 

“Yeah,” Lisa says. “It is.”