Yes, stuff went down between me and Mum. But it was nothing new. I just actually told her how I feel about it for once. I’m okay though. I cried a LOT yesterday, but I’m feeling better. I think I need to do this…
No, not slept with him…yet…
…I’m just leaving room here for Lottie to combust with excitement…
We’re in a small motel in California now, but we leave in a moment for Las Vegas. I promise you I won’t get married. We’re just stopping there for the night at Caesar’s Palace and then heading towards Brown uni, where Kyle goes. We’ve planned out a route, and places to stop and everything. It’s all very thought through and legit. And I can’t wait, guys.
I’m so…happy. Please be happy for me.
I love you both LOADS. I’ll be home at the end of summer, safe and sound, I promise I promise I promise.
Keep me updated on what you’re all up to. I’ll email again when I can.
Lots of love
Amber
x x x
SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:
Sweat
+
No air con
+
More sweat
Thirty-three
The drive through Death Valley was deathly.
We left Lone Pine behind, with The Very Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber blasting from the stereo, and drove off into the wilderness with careless abandon. The first stretch of road was so straight Kyle basically steered with his knees as we shot through California – arguing whether or not the phantom from The Phantom of the Opera was fanciable or not.
“I saw it once,” I said. “Dad took us all for Christmas because it’s my stepmum’s favourite. I have to say, I was…taken with him. I was only, like, fourteen, and SO angry because Dad had only just left my mum… But the phantom distracted me and I had all these dreams about him, and wished I was Christine.”
Kyle shook his head, laughing. “HOW can you fancy the phantom? He’s a) disfigured, b) a psychopathic killer, and c) he lives in this creepy little dungeon with a dummy version of the girl he fancies dressed up as a bride.”
I shrugged. “I swear, sometimes, there’s something about what you find sexually attractive as a girl that is very confusing, especially if you’re supposed to be a feminist,” I said. “Technically, I am against abusive stalkerish behaviour. Murder, of course, is a big no-no. And yet…when he does all that almost-touching stuff with Christine…and the way he’s so, like, obsessed with her. Well, I kind of got off on it.”
“You should be very ashamed of yourself. You know that, right?”
“Oh, I am, believe me.” I laughed and looked out the window. There were loads of weird billboards alongside the main roads of America and I’d started trying to take photos of them to show the girls. Most of them were pretty tame stuff – giant posters of Jesus and the American flag emblazoned with “God Bless America”. But we’d passed at least one sinister abortion one.
As the deserty nothingness of Death Valley approached, the billboards calmed down until it was just road, and nothingness, and more road.
“But I do think there’s this weird double standard in what you’re not supposed to find sexy being what you secretly really do find sexy,” I continued. “Like, in all those romantic movies and books or whatever, the male characters we’re supposed to fancy are all controlling and possessive, and us girls are all like PHWHOAR.”
Kyle turned the CD down so we could talk better. He looked incredibly sexy driving in the heat: the sleeves of his T-shirt rolled right up, the fact I couldn’t see his face behind his mirrored sunglasses.
“You know what?” Kyle said. “I’ve always thought there’s a reverse sexism thing going on with films like that. Essentially, you can only get away with doing ‘romantic’ but totally-freaky-stalkery gestures for a girl if you’re considered conventionally good-looking. It’s like girls only let you be abusive and strange if you have a six-pack and really good bone structure. I mean, like, I can obviously be as creepy as I like, because I’m so darn good-looking.”
I pulled a face at him. “You are? Oh. Sorry. I totally hadn’t noticed.”
Kyle laughed. “You know what I mean! But, say Bella Swan moved to wherever the hell it is she moved to, and there’s this dude with long greasy hair, acne, glasses and a penchant for wearing those shitty T-shirts with logos on them, you know? Well, imagine he rocked up in her bedroom and started watching her sleep, or staring at her insanely like a maniac during the science lessons. She would call the cops! He’d be considered a scary freak. But, oh no, as long as you’re R-Patz, it’s okay. As long as you have green eyes and a ‘crooked grin’ you can be as creepy as you like. Girls are totally double-standardy. You get all het up if we dare to judge you on appearances. But then you do exactly the same to us.”
“How do you know about Bella Swan?”
He laughed. “I have two sisters!”
I reached out and put my hand on his knee, just because it felt wrong if I wasn’t touching him.
“Other girls may be like that, but you’re talking to the girl who had a crush on the Phantom of the Opera, remember? He’s only got half a face, and I still liked him.”
Kyle brought my hand up to his lips to kiss it.
“And that is why I’m driving you to Las Vegas.”
We passed a sign that said “Welcome to Death Valley” and the landscape changed almost instantly. We really were in total and utter nothingness. The road spun and curved along twisted pathways through rock and nothing, and more nothing, and the occasional extra rock.
“Are we on a different planet?” I craned my neck out the window, just in case I was missing something.
“Eerie, isn’t it? We’re going to get, like, really below sea level soon. Jeez, look at the thermometer.”
The little digits on Kyle’s dashboard told us it was well into the hundreds outside.
“We’re not going to break down, are we?” I asked nervously.
“Let’s hope not.”
As we got into the heart of the park, it got even hotter. Kyle’s car made all these weird noises, just around the time signs everywhere told us to turn off the air con.
“This is what I warned you about,” Kyle said. “You ready to strip to your bra?”
“I am not stripping to my bra.”
But, as we turned the air con off to preserve the engine, I really did feel like it.
We turned the radio off too, to give the jeep its best chance at making it. We rode in silence, both of us too hot to chat. Sweat dripped from every part of me. I was sweating in places I didn’t even know I had sweat glands, like my knee pits, and behind my ears. And, still, we drove through nothingness. It seemed utterly unimaginable that something as exciting and alive as Las Vegas was at the end of the road. The road seemed like it could spread out for ever – that your car would run out of gas and you’d just perish there, with no one passing to find you.
Eventually though, Kyle’s car became more spritely and we put on the air con and the stereo again. He insisted I gave The Mars Volta a go, and I sat there, in bewilderment, as all this weird stuff blared out of his speakers.
According to the signs, we were out of Death Valley now and Vegas was coming up, which was a reassurance as we drove in a single line into the empty desert.
“What the heck is this music?” I demanded.
“Do you not like it?”
“I am not one of those girls who pretends to like music that the boy she likes likes.”
“This is incredible stuff. Each song is like a story!”
“A really naff story.”
The bickering continued as we drove into the horizon. I was just starting to think Vegas was a figment of everyone’s imagination when there – shimmering in the distance – I saw it. Skyscrapers and towers and signs of life.