Synesthesia: Chapter Twenty-Four

serial fiction

Image: Melanie Stander, Unsplash

The clouds were wisps of the purest white, set against a sky so blue it almost looked artificial. On either side of us as we sped north on I-10, brown mountains rose like lumpy knives, sending my imagination spiraling into dark places as I pictured Gas Stove hunting us down, armed with sharp instruments.

I gulped reflexively, but my throat felt as dry as the landscape outside.

I glanced into the rearview mirror. Jacob was asleep, his head resting in Amber’s lap. Beside me, Hoka guy had calmed down and was looking out the passenger-side window.

Deciding I’d be safe from any strong noxious smells, I pressed the button to raise my window. Then I took a swig of warm water from the bottle in the cupholder in front of me.

“High and Low” was playing on the car’s stereo system, and all felt right with the world.

Out of nowhere, the smell of fresh-cut watermelon hit me during the chorus. I looked over and realized Hoka guy was sniffling and making strange noises that almost sounded like crying.

Before I could even ask, he turned to me and started unloading his emotions.

“I used to tell her I’d never let her go,” he said, half-choking on the words.

“What?” I asked, not having any idea what he was talking about.

“The song,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘If I had my way, never let you go.’ I used to tell Roberta that.” He suddenly broke down in heavy, wet sobs that smelled like watermelon and spoiled milk.

Maybe raising the window had been a mistake.

I searched for something to say to console him, but I’d never been much good at that sort of thing.

“And the thing is, it all fell apart because of me,” he continued, snot hanging down in a long string from his thin, rather beak-like nose.

“Yeah, because you’re sick,” spat Amber from the back seat.

This sent Hoka guy into an even louder fit of sobbing.

“I am!” he agreed. “But Roberta always said no! I just had to…” He trailed off, as if he’d gotten stuck somewhere inside an unpleasant memory.

I didn’t have the first idea what was going on. I tried to turn my attention back to the endless highway in front of me.

But a thick cloud of cardamom filled the car, originating from the seat directly behind me.

I hadn’t smelled that feeling of hatred in a while. The last time I’d smelled it was during a different confrontation between Amber and Hoka guy.

Amber leaned forward, making the cardamom smell even stronger than before. My finger quickly found the button to lower the window.

“Will you stop lowering that window!” Amber shouted over the roar of air rushing into the car. “It’s giving me a headache!”

I hesitated, then raised it most of the way, leaving it slightly cracked.

“The problem with you,” Amber went on, jabbing a bony finger toward Hoka guy’s face, “is that you only ever think about yourself.”

He stopped sobbing and turned in his seat to face Amber.

“You don’t care about who you hurt or how you make them feel,” she lectured, the finger still jabbing the cardamom-scented air. “You did terrible things to Yaraceli, just because it made you feel good. Because you got off on it.” She spat those final few words in a spray of lavender, utterly disgusted.

Hokas was completely silent. The long string of snot that had been hanging from his nose suddenly dropped from his nostril and into his lap, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

“I paid her,” he said finally, his voice a weak little squeak.

Cardamom and lavender were choking me now. I lowered the window a little more, desperate for fresh air.

“You paid her! You paid her!” Amber shouted, jumping around in her seat so much I thought surely she would wake Jacob. “So what does that mean, then? That you can hurt her as much as you want? That you can do things even when she says no? You piece of shit!”

I felt an urge to intervene. Hokas had been upset about a relationship, it had sounded like, and here Amber was insulting and berating him.

“Give the guy a break,” I said. “He’s just sad about Roberta.”

It was a mistake to speak up. Amber turned her full fury on me.

“Oh, he’s sad? He’s sad! He’s sad, so it’s okay for him to rape a woman?”

Oh, shit.

I turned to Hoka guy.

“You did what?” I asked, incredulous.

The smell of buttered popcorn filled the car, covering even the cardamom and lavender.

Hoka guy looked down at his lap, his face red with shame.

“It wasn’t like that,” he murmured.

We sat in silence, the smell of shame hanging heavy in the air, bringing back unpleasant memories of things that had happened in movie theaters.

“What was it like, then?” I asked after a while.

Hoka guy twisted his hands uncomfortably in his lap, smearing the puddle of snot into the blue fabric of his shorts.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet and smelled like movie popcorn.

“I wanted things Roberta didn’t want to do,” he said. “I loved her,” he assured me, looking up as if to make sure I believed him. “I really did. I mean, I still do.”

He looked down at his lap again.

“But I just… I just wanted certain things. So I looked for a way to get them.”

Amber snorted like an angry bull in the back seat, and a wave of cardamom and lavender hit me again.

“And then Roberta found out,” he continued, his voice cracking. “And then… she left me.”

I smashed the button to roll the window back down. Hoka guy reeked of strawberry, watermelon, and popcorn with artificial butter, while Amber stank of lavender and cardamom. It was a combination that should never have existed.

For a few moments, I considered just moving into a cabin in the woods and staying far away from people and their stinky feelings.

But then I wouldn’t get the orange blossoms, either.

“Roll the fucking window back up, I have more to say to this piece of shit,” Amber growled at me from the back seat.

I took one more deep breath of fresh, clean desert air, then did as I was told.

“See, the thing is,” Amber said, and the finger began its jabs once more, “the thing is that I don’t see you feeling bad about hurting Yaraceli. Or even about hurting Roberta.”

Hoka guy still had his eyes pointed down at his lap.

“All I hear you saying is that you feel sad for yourself,” she said. “‘Boo hoo, she left me!’ But you’re not boo-hooing for what anyone else went through.”

Amber’s lecture was starting to make me feel uncomfortable, almost like I was the one being called out.

“And that’s why I don’t feel sad for you,” she concluded, firing one last wave of cardamom toward the front seat.

Without missing a beat, Amber pointed at a billboard advertising an outlet mall up ahead.

“Hey Zodiac, pull off over at this mall,” she said. “I need to spend some of this money.”