The Girl and the Desert

Submitted into Contest #284 in response to: Write a story that includes the line “I should’ve known better.”... view prompt

13 comments

Coming of Age Fiction Teens & Young Adult

It was the summer before college, when the world seemed to lay out in front of her, just waiting to be walked upon. Any path, in any direction, could be hers. Ava was young and grown up all at the same time and she was ready to have adventures. It was the year 2000 and the world hadn’t ended, as predicted. Anything was possible.

She was going to visit her friend Ryan. Ryan was a girl who never missed an opportunity to tell people her name meant “descendant of the king”. She thought she was so cool for having a boy’s name. Ava thought it was cool too.

Ava and Ryan had met at summer camp in Utah when they were 14. They were babies but didn’t know it, and both were far from home. A friendship made at summer camp, whispering in dark cabins, laughing in the summer’s yellow, and lamenting about the communal restrooms, is one you don’t forget. Summer camp experiences make you feel like you’ve known someone forever, and Ryan and Ava were inseparable immediately. Ryan was bold and dominating, she made sure to be the center of attention wherever she went. Ava wanted to be those things.

Once the magic of camp ended, the girls returned to their corners of the country. Ava to the outskirts of Indianapolis, Ryan to those of Las Vegas. They maintained their long-distance best friendship with devoted letters and phone calls lasting hours. Ava would finish high school; going to the movies on the weekend with her local best friend, working at the Gap, and wondering what it felt like to kiss a boy. Ryan would blow around like the dust, kissing all the boys she could. Now, years later, they were finally able to visit again in person. Ava’s excitement burst through her arms and chest. It was going to be a blast; she would see to that.

Ryan lived in a small town because not many people want to live in the middle of nowhere. It was a desert town that got almost as hot as Death Valley. Legend has it that people’s cars would break down on the freeway from the heat and they’d pull over in the town and then they’d never leave. They’d get stuck, their sneakers melting on the hot cement, never to be heard from again. Legend also has it that The Eagles wrote their song “Hotel California” while traveling through the desert and that town. At least that’s what the locals say.

Ava was visiting her best, best friend far from home, with no adult supervision. She was independent and carefree, hungry, and eager to consume the world. On the night of her arrival, Ryan was hosting a party to introduce Ava around. It was Ava’s first official house party. They drank Smirnoff lemonade and smoked in circles until she was no longer square. They hung out with boys who didn’t know she was a shy outcast back home. In this town, Ava was the prettiest girl in the room. She’d never felt so powerful.

There was a boy at the party named Aaron, who had sharp lines for a jaw and spoke to her with an ease like soft butter melting on hot bread. He too was 18 but seemed so much more mature. He had a tattoo! Even his voice sounded older than the boys back home. It was gravelly, yet gentle when he spoke to her.

“So, you’re from the big city, huh?” he teased. His eyes sparkled when he looked at her. She was certain she was the only one who could make his eyes sparkle like that.

Ava gave a short laugh. “Well, I don’t know if you’d call Indianapolis a big city. And I’m not really from there. I live in a suburb.”

She was so shy, but it was so easy to talk to him. He was so hot, but she wasn’t invisible to him. This had never happened before, and Ava was the romantic type. Surely this was true love. This was destiny. Aaron and Ava. Their names were meant to be said together.

The night wore on and they talked of music, family, and Aaron’s tattoo. It meant strength, he told her. Ava told him she’d always wanted a tattoo. She said maybe she’d get the symbol for eternity. “Because eternity is the only thing that’s guaranteed,” she explained. “Long after we die, the earth lives on. Time goes on. Eternity lives forever.” She meant it, but still, she said it in hopes she sounded smart. Aaron gazed at her with eyes the colors of the desert. Grainy gray and brown and green.

The night dwindled, as did the crowd in the apartment, leaving Ryan with two wannabe love birds. Ryan was the third wheel on a two wheeled vehicle that would only make it crash. She was getting restless.

“Hey, can we go for a ride?” Ryan asked Aaron. Aaron had an old Ford Bronco, and it had large enough tires to go off-roading through the desert.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “You want to come?” he asked Ava.

Ava almost hesitated, but something tugged. It was longing. She took a breath. When in doubt…get in the Ford Bronco.

“Yeah, ok,” she said, trying to sound like she went for late night drives all the time. They walked out the door and Aaron looped his arm around her neck. She tried to not think about how heavy and strange it felt.

“Shotgun!” called Ryan, as they walked to the car.

Aaron took the keys from his pocket and held them out to Ava. “You wanna drive?”

She was shocked. Would he really trust her with his truck? They’d only just met. Was she really allowed to drive a car that wasn’t hers? She was so flattered and bewildered all at the same time.

“Ok, yeah. Sure,” she said. She took the keys from him and felt her skin prickle as his hand brushed against hers.

They piled into the truck and Ava drove through what was always the quiet streets, no matter the hour. When they reached an appropriate place, she drove off the pavement and into the desert. She drove into the wide, dark beyond where it wouldn’t be so bad if she got lost. She had no thoughts of danger or criminal consequences. She only felt thrill.

“I can't wait to tell people I drove through the desert in a bucking bronco!” She thought. “At three in the morning no less! I’m pretty sure no one I know has ever done this before!”

Ava drove through the dirt and brush of the miserable wasteland, bouncing over dips and turning in living-on-the-edge circles. The truck bounded over the earth easily, like a jackrabbit running from a predator. Ava wasn’t sure if she was running to or away from something. It was hard to tell when everything around her was black.

Suddenly, Aaron spoke. “Hey, let’s stop for a sec,” he said. “Stop here.”

Ava pressed her foot against the brake and shifted the truck into park. Aaron reached over her to turn off the headlights. She got a whiff of cigarette smoke and cologne. She guessed this was what a man smelled like. Aaron turned and reached for the door. He opened it and hopped out easily, somehow landing softly on the hard earth.

“Turn it off,” Aaron said over his shoulder.

Ava turned the keys in the ignition and the engine went quiet. The soft rumble beneath her lay still. There wasn’t a sound. She wasn’t sure what to do with the keys. She wasn’t sure what to do with her feet.

“You comin’?” Aaron called to her. She almost jumped at the sound of his voice.

“You go,” said Ryan. “I’m staying here.”

 “Ok, just for a sec,” said Ava. She opened the door and stepped out onto the grit and dead weeds. As she walked to where Aaron stood, the rocks make scratching sounds that seemed loud against the quiet of the open, dark sky. When she stopped, it was the stillest silence she’d ever heard. She looked up, and there were all the stars. They nearly surprised her, but they’d been there all along, after all. She breathed in as she craned her neck, she wanted to see every one.

“Wow,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” agreed Aaron.

Ava looked at him. His face was toward the sky, admiring the stars. She could see his Adam’s apple. Then it moved as he righted his head, and he was looking at her. She felt her heart thump against her chest. He smiled at her without moving his lips.

The air fizzled and snapped around them. Ava wondered how long they could stand in the desert, together like this. The stars would soon be gone. The sun would incinerate them. But maybe, just this once, night would last forever.

“I guess we should get back now, it is pretty late,” Aaron was saying.

Ava didn’t know how long he’d been talking. “Yeah, we probably should,” she agreed. She looked up at the sky one last time. She hoped she’d never forget what thousands of stars looked like.

They got back into the car, with Aaron driving now and Ava in the backseat. Aaron drove to the road and then they were back on smooth pavement, back to civilization. The poetic floating moment, suspended in time, was behind them. It lived in the desert forever now.

As they drove back to Ryan’s place, she asked if she could have a turn driving. Aaron pulled over and they switched seats. Ava watched from the backseat.

The truck was put into gear and then suddenly it lurched forward and swerved. It stopped hard and then lurched forward again. Ava was glad she had put her seatbelt on as her body tilted violently with the movements of the truck. No one said any words. No reactions. The truck moved forward again but continued to swerve and lurch until it moved onto the brown grass and faced a house. Then abruptly, the truck managed to stop just before it went through a living room. Ava looked through the windshield from the backseat at the curtains in the window of the house, illuminated by the headlights.

It was then that someone spoke. For the first time, Aaron’s voice didn’t sound confident and smooth.

“I’ll take over now,” he said. His gravelly voice was as rough as the rocks that had scraped beneath her shoes as they had stood there in the desert, just moments ago. Now it was a lifetime ago. Now she knew that if you spill love in the desert, it dries up.

Aaron and Ryan switched seats again, and Aaron pulled away from the house, the headlights diminishing from the front window curtains. They drove back to Ryan’s place with a silence that made the music on the radio quiet. There was a dim light in the sky, it was almost day.

When they got to her apartment, Ryan jumped out carelessly. “See you later,” she chirped. She nearly skipped to her door.  Ava reached for the door handle, not wanting to leave the car. She couldn’t figure out what to say to Aaron. To make him not drive away.

“See ya,” he said quietly. She could hear the words get tangled in his throat. His beautiful throat. That was it then. The night was over. This moment was over.

“Bye,” she said. She wasn’t sure if she had actually spoken the word, or just thought it. But she was getting out of the truck. As she walked toward the apartment, Ava imagined how his truck looked, driving away, for she didn’t want to watch it go.

It wasn't until much later that Ava learned Ryan didn't know how to drive. She had wrongly and naively assumed that all 18-year-olds had a driver’s license. (That’s because all of them did back home in the valley of the stinking Midwest.) Ryan did not have a license and had only once or twice before tried to drive a car.

“I should’ve known better,” Ava thought. “I should have known she didn’t know how to drive. I’m her best friend.” That last part made her feel hot in her cheeks.

As she lay in bed that early morning, trying to unwind her twisted throat, Ava thought about the way the curtains had looked, lit up by the headlights of the truck. Bright, white yellow. And she thought about all the feelings she hadn’t felt, as they sat there facing someone’s home, with real live people sleeping inside. She hadn’t felt fear, hesitation, or wariness. She didn’t now feel regret. She didn’t feel anything. Ava was a void, and it would take something really terrifically terrible to arouse her. Almost drive into a house? No big deal. Ava wanted adventure, after all. She wanted experiences, stories. She knew the earth was round, but there still had to be an edge. Ava wanted to see the edge so bad, nothing else mattered.

January 09, 2025 03:32

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13 comments

Ari Walker
11:10 Jan 15, 2025

Geez this story is a ton of fun.

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Dana F
18:44 Jan 15, 2025

I don't know if I was going for "fun", haha, but thanks. Ava is meant to be brooding and a bit dark, despite her tendency to romanticize things. I'd like to develop her and this story further in the future, to make this story as heavy as its meant to be. Thanks again for reading!

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Ari Walker
00:31 Jan 17, 2025

I can totally see that! And yet THIS is fun: Almost drive into a house? No big deal. Ava wanted adventure, after all. She wanted experiences, stories. She knew the earth was round, but there still had to be an edge. Ava wanted to see the edge so bad, nothing else mattered.

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Dana F
21:46 Jan 18, 2025

I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks again for reading! :)

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Thomas Wetzel
23:00 Jan 12, 2025

This was exceptional, and not the work of a beginner. You have some real chops. This was really melancholic and held the ring of truth and realism throughout. Very nicely done, Dana. I loved it. This was a great line: "They drank Smirnoff lemonade and smoked in circles until she was no longer square. They hung out with boys who didn’t know she was a shy outcast back home. In this town, Ava was the prettiest girl in the room. She’d never felt so powerful." I don't usually write coming of age (or non-fiction) but I wrote something a bit like...

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Dana F
03:05 Jan 13, 2025

Wow, Thomas, I really appreciate that! While this is my first story shared here, I have been writing for a number of years. So not sure if that makes me a beginner or not? Anyway, I'll check out your story. Thanks again!

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Thomas Wetzel
04:47 Jan 13, 2025

You rock, Dana. Looking forward to more.

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Trudy Jas
21:32 Jan 12, 2025

"when you spill love in the desert it dries up" Lovely insight. This a wonderful story, Dana. Thanks for sharing and welcome to Reedsy. :-)

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Dana F
21:38 Jan 12, 2025

Thank you! I'm excited to be here!

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Pete Liberati
20:19 Jan 12, 2025

“Smoking in circles until she was no longer square” is the best line I have read in a long time. I enjoyed the writing style and left me eager to find out more about where Ava is headed.

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Dana F
20:34 Jan 12, 2025

Thanks Pete! I hope to be able to develop Ava more in the future.

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David Sweet
17:55 Jan 12, 2025

Welcome to Reedsy, Dana! It seems as if Ava really came out of her shell. I really wish we could have had more interaction and dialogue with Ryan in the last third of the story. While Ava is building confidence, I think we lose Ryan in the mix. Perhaps this was your purpose. But I would like to see the consequences of those dynamics. We're glad you're part of this community. Good luck with all of your writing projects.

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Dana F
18:06 Jan 12, 2025

Thank you David for the feedback! I think you're right. Ryan is meant to be a strong force in Ava's life, but also, I wanted her to be elusive and aloof. If I try to develop this story further, I will try to develop Ryan a bit more. Thanks again, I appreciate it!

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