Lowen
Celeste fell asleep somewhere between the city limits and the tree line.
I watched it happen out of the corner of my eye. The tension went out of her shoulders first, a slow, almost reluctant loosening, then her hands, then the quiet tilt of her head against the passenger window until her cheek rested on the glass. Her breathing evened out. The shoebox of photographs stayed clutched to her chest the whole time, her arms wrapped around it like someone might try to take it from her. A strand of dark hair had fallen across her face, and I had to curl my fingers hard around the steering wheel to keep from reaching over and tucking it back.
The afternoon had gone long and amber. Light slanted through the windshield in dusty bars, and the highway unspooled ahead of us, gray and endless,
