Page 29 of Hairpin Curves

Embarrassment burned Scarlett’s face, followed immediately by defensiveness. “Well, I’d rather you had just told me that you didn’t like it. I always tried to surprise you because I thought you liked surprises.”

“I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” Megan glanced over, just a quick moment of taking her eyes off the road, but her expression looked set and irritated. “I thought you might have figured it out when I never surprised you back.”

Scarlett had always just assumed Megan didn’t know how to plan a good surprise. “You should have told me.”

Megan snorted. “And you should have told me you didn’t want to go to college with me.”

There it was. The silence fell hard between them, like a heavy weight settling into the car, the unsaid thing finally said. The longer Scarlett let this go on, the more painful it was going to be to reveal it. Megan already was mad at her, but Scarlett didn’t want her pity as well.

But she’d been lying for a long time, and they had a lot of miles ahead of them in this car.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to college with you.” Scarlett forced the words out.

Megan didn’t respond, but she’d gone back to driving with both hands on the wheel, her eyes set straight ahead.

“I flunked my placement tests, okay?” Scarlett stared out her side window at the trees flashing past, anything to keep from having to look at Megan. “My whole first year would have been remedial everything.”

Silence again. This time, Scarlett had to look. She turned slowly, just enough that she could see Megan out of her peripheral vision. Megan was still staring straight ahead, but her frown looked more confused than angry. Scarlett seized onto that. She’d started this, so she might as well go all the way.

“I wasn’t gonna pass, Megan. So I said no and went to PHCC.” Pasco-Hernando Community College had seemed like a better option than failing at the University of Southern Florida. “I figured if I failed, at least it was cheaper.”

Silence. She’d hoped Megan would start looking less angry, but Megan still looked irritated and confused and...hurt? The hurt was unexpected.

“I don’t see why you didn’t just tell me,” Megan said quietly into the empty space. “I thought I was your best friend.”

“And have you know how dumb I was? No thank you.” Scarlett snorted.

“You lied to me. You told me you were going off to a fancy private school and made me think I wasn’t good enough for you.”

“I didn’t want you knowing I was a fuck-up.”

“You get test anxiety. You’ve always gotten test anxiety. Did you even tell them?” Megan looked over. If possible, she seemed even more angry. “Did you tell them at USF? Or at PHCC? Did you even tell them about your 504 plan?”

Scarlett had had a 504 plan in high school, where they’d run a bunch of tests on her and identified her test anxiety as a medical issue that warranted some special accommodations. But she wasn’t going to take that sort of thing to college with her. “Colleges don’t care about that stuff.” She folded her hands in her lap. “And anyway, none of it matters.”

“None of it matters?” Megan practically exploded. She was looking over at Scarlett more than at the road, now, glancing back and forth like a windshield wiper. “Of course it matters! I thought you left me. I thought you didn’t care about me anymore, and you let me think that about you! How could you let me think that? How could you go all that time and never tell me?”

“I was embarrassed, okay? I didn’t want you to pity me.” Scarlett folded her arms. She’d thought Megan would pity her now, and somehow Megan was even more angry. “And then I tried to reach out to you and you wouldn’t return my messages.”

“Because I was mad! And then when I got over it and tried to make amends, you ignored me.” Megan glared at her. “I left messages.”

Scarlett fiddled with the direction of the air vent, wiggling it back and forth, not wanting to look at Megan again. “I was mad you’d ignored me.”

Megan let out a long, exasperated sigh. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you let our friendship end because of your stupid pride.” Megan grabbed a half-eaten granola bar out of the center console and shoved it in her mouth. Something about that struck Scarlett as so funny, she had to struggle to repress a laugh. Maybe it was some kind of hysterical giggle, something from the tension of holding these secrets in for so long and then letting them go. Megan talked through a mouthful of food, the first few words indecipherable, and then swallowed so Scarlett could hear the rest. “—no reason to be ashamed of going to a community college. Lots of kids do that. I would have understood. We could have been friends.”

“I dropped out of that, too.” That part was important, even if she didn’t want to say it. “I didn’t even make it through the last semester.”

“I would have been your friend, Scarlett.” Megan crumpled up the wrapper of the granola bar and tossed it back over her shoulder into the backseat, a complete departure from the way she normally treated the trash in her car, which had its own portable trash can. “I would have stayed your friend. Fuck you.”

There wasn’t much to respond to that. Scarlett laced her fingers together, relieved and upset at the same time, and weirdly overcome by humor. “We’re going to the Blue Ridge Mountains,” Scarlett said. “I wanted you to see snow.”

That made Megan go silent, her mouth falling open in a small O. Taking the advantage, Scarlett pressed on. “I know you’ve never seen snow before. And one of those scrapbook pages had snow on it. So I thought, maybe you could see some.”

“It seems really far out of our way,” Megan said, frowning. “Are you sure we have enough time? I could always see snow once we get up north.”

“The Blue Ridge Mountains are gorgeous, even in the winter, and you should get to see them.” Scarlett folded her arms. “Just let me show you something pretty, okay? I thought it would be nice.”

Megan stared at the GPS, then at the road, silent for an endless few moments. “It...does sound nice. You’re sure we have enough time?”