Songs for Shiloh

Your character is traveling a road that has no end.

Shiloh awoke in that startled way that car passengers so often do - suddenly and disoriented. She made a slight gasp as she tried to place the scene before her, her head whipping back and forth between her window and the windshield in bewilderment. Everywhere she looked, red sand dunes baked in a hot orange sun that rested just above an open horizon. Squat green cacti and scraggly desert trees raced in and out of view. She furrowed her brow and shook her head, trying to dispel the hazy dredges of sleep.

“It’s okay, love, you just fell asleep.” Ari’s voice, gentle and lilting, floated to her from the driver’s seat. Shiloh turned to see Ari smiling in profile, her eyes still trained on the road, and she felt herself settle back into the seat. Her disorienting panic dissipated as quickly as it came, soothed by Ari’s steady presence.

“Sorry about that,” she laughed. “I forgot where I was for a second. I can take over driving if you’d like?”

Ari, still smiling softly, shook her head and placed her hand on Shiloh’s leg. “That’s alright, love. Why don’t you pick some music for us?”

Shiloh pulled her feet beneath her and reached down to the floorboard. Shuffling aside blankets, road trip snacks, and her discarded sandals, she grabbed the heavy binder full of CDs and heaved it onto her lap. Ari’s car was too old for an aux chord, though Shiloh suspected Ari would prefer the CDs even if it weren’t.

Flicking through the colorful disks in their glossy sleeves, Shiloh stopped on a page near the middle of the binder, empty save a single plain disc labeled “For Shiloh” in Ari’s careful script. “What’s this?” Shiloh asked, holding up the burned disc. Ari hummed and inclined her head to the CD player, never taking her eyes off the road.

A thrum of happy anticipation buzzed through Shiloh as she slipped the disc into the car’s ancient stereo system. She nestled further into her seat and waited for the music to start. When the first percussive notes hit her ears, she turned to Ari and grinned, “Oh my god, what a throwback! Do you remember the first time we saw these guys live?”

Ari looked at Shiloh and smiled warmly, “Of course.” She stared at her just a beat longer, her bright green eyes glittering in the golden light of the setting sun, before turning back to face the road. “That was the night I fell in love with you.”

Shiloh rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right! That was our fourth date, and I still couldn’t tell if you even liked me at that point!”

Ari smirked, “I never said you were particularly perceptive.”

Shiloh swatted playfully at her arm and Ari continued, more soberly now, “Of course I liked you. I liked you so much I was sick with nerves. You made me so nervous I thought I might throw up if I opened my mouth to talk to you.”

Shiloh placed her hand over Ari’s, their fingers interlocking and resting against the soft fabric of Shiloh’s jeans. Ari kept talking, eyes locked on the road before them. “It started to rain just before they played this song, and I was so stressed I could barely hear the music. I wanted that night to be perfect. All I could think was that the rain was ruining everything, that you would want to go home and the whole date would be a bust.”

It wasn’t how Shiloh remembered it at all. Ari had been so quiet that night, staring ahead without singing along, and she wondered if Ari thought she was silly. She was self-conscious and awkward, right up until the rain.

“But then the sky really opened up, just absolutely pouring. I heard you start to laugh, and it felt like the first thing I heard all night - your laugh and this song and the rain hitting the stage. You had your head tilted back to catch more of the rain on your face, rivulets running down your cheeks and nose and hair, and you were laughing. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, Shiloh.”

Shiloh’s face flushed scarlet at the intensity of Ari’s words, and she fumbled for something to say. “We have to go see this band again. I think they’re coming to New York this fall, actually. We could make a trip out of it!”

Ari smiled and squeezed her hand, eyes still on the road ahead. The song trailed into its soft ending, leaving the two women in a moment of comfortable silence. Shiloh looked out the window at the blurred shapes of the landscape. She had never seen anything like it before. The reds and golds and vastness of it were totally foreign to her, and she wondered how long she had been asleep.

Before she could ask, the next song began, filling the car with a jazzy rhythm and techno beats. She pulled her hand from Ari’s and covered her face, groaning into her palms. “I can’t believe you included this one!”

She glanced sideways, peeking through her fingers to see Ari chuckle softly. This song had been playing over the diner speakers the first time Shiloh met Ari’s parents, nearly six years ago now, and things had not gone smoothly.

Ari had warned Shiloh about her dad. He was a gruff man, difficult to please and perpetually disappointed in all his children, Ari most of all. He wasn’t openly homophobic, but he’d made it clear that he would have preferred not to acknowledge his daughter’s queerness. It was Ari’s mother that had convinced him to have dinner with the young couple, and Shiloh wanted to make a good impression.

She wore a floral dress and carefully combed her dark hair so you couldn’t see her undercut. She removed her septum piercing and most of her rings. She wore light, natural makeup. She had practiced her handshake, her smile, her polite laugh. She was everything she imagined a grumpy, traditional father would approve of, save, of course, for the fact she was his daughter’s lesbian lover.

As it turns out, she could have come to dinner in sky-high stilettos and a miniskirt for all Mr. Jacobs paid her mind. He spent the entire night berating Ari and every decision she had made, right down to the veggie burger she ordered. Halfway through the meal, everyone was silent and sulking.

When the upbeat song started playing in the dining room, Ari had ventured a comment. “This is a fun song,” she said timidly. Ari, her beautiful, fierce girlfriend, cowed to the point that even this comment felt like dangerous ground.

Without looking up from his plate, Mr. Jacobs mumbled, “Song’s shit.”

It was like he had flipped a switch in Shiloh’s brain, and every pretense of civility fell away. “You’re a fucking idiot,” she said, louder than she intended.

Everyone at the table froze, horrified glances swinging from Shiloh to Ari and back again. But she didn’t back down. “This song is an award-winning piece of art, one of the best songs of this year. It’s an objectively fantastic song, everyone else can see that plain as day, and if you can’t recognize how amazing it is, it’s because you’re an idiot.” Shiloh had never heard the song before. She wasn’t even sure it had a name, much less critical acclaim.

Mr. Jacobs looked equal parts startled and confused by her outburst, and Mrs. Jacobs looked like she wanted to disappear into the ether. She was breathing hard and glaring across the table, her fists clenched on the faux wood surface. The silence stretched between them all, filled with the inappropriately happy notes of the offending song.

Then, as quickly as it came on, her anger left her and was replaced with an immediate dread. Cautiously, she turned to Ari, expecting admonition or horror or perhaps dismissal. But Ari was looking at her with wonder, smiling like she hadn’t all night. She’d stared at Shiloh until Mr. Jacobs cleared his throat. She turned back to her father and shrugged her shoulders before sliding out of the booth and offering her hand to Shiloh. Without looking back, Shiloh took it and followed her out of the restaurant, the peppy song still playing at their backs.

“You were incredible,” Ari smiled from the driver’s seat, pulling Shiloh from the memory.

“I was so embarrassing!” Shiloh whined. “Your dad still hates me, I’m sure of it.”

“He doesn’t hate you. He respects you, which is rare for him. I think he might even be a little afraid of you, honestly.” Ari reached up to pry Shiloh’s hands away from her face. She pulled Shiloh’s hand across the space between them and toward her mouth, pressing a kiss into the back of her hand. “No one ever stood up to him like that before, Shi. Definitely not to defend me. It was the most incredible thing I had ever seen.”

Shiloh found herself lost for words a second time, but she smiled at the way Ari remembered the night. Gently, she pulled her hand free and rested it on the back of Ari’s neck, running her fingers through the short blonde hair at her nape.

“How did you even find this song?”

Ari smiled but didn’t answer. She continued staring contentedly out the windshield, one hand on the wheel and the other back on Shiloh’s leg. She was about to ask her again how she managed to find the nameless song when her thoughts were interrupted by a low crooning voice and the delicate plinking notes of piano keys.

This song was from a newer memory, just two weeks ago at Shiloh’s brother’s wedding. Ari must have made the CD recently, if this one made the cut.

Shiloh and Ari had both been groomswomen for the event. Ari wore a suit perfectly tailored to her figure, and Shiloh wore a long black dress that glittered when she turned. They’d both spent the morning prepping for the ceremony, cutting flowers and assembling cheese trays and running errands for both bride and groom. Everything had gone according to plan, and Shiloh had finally run out of things to do. Ari found her hidden behind the dessert table, sitting for the first time that night.

She squeezed onto the bench next to Shiloh, who rested her head on Ari’s shoulder and wordlessly handed her half of the cookie she was eating. She wrapped her arm around Shiloh, her cheek falling against the crown of her head. “You did such a good job, Shi. Benji looks so happy.”

They’d watched from their little corner as Benji danced with his new wife. Shiloh had felt so full of happiness in that moment, and the champagne was making her sleepy. She’d looked up at Ari with hooded eyes and smiled. “Thank you for everything today, Ari.”

“Of course, love. It was like our practice run.”

“Practice run?” Shiloh asked, pulling back to look more fully into Ari’s face. Ari just smiled and tilted her chin to the space over Shiloh’s shoulder, to her arm resting across the top of Shiloh’s back, a small black box in her hand.

In the car, Shiloh twisted the sparkling gem around her finger. “I wish we could just get married now,” she sighed happily. “Benji’s wedding was more than enough wedding planning for me.”

Ari smiled but said nothing, her eyes still trained on the road. “Why don’t we just elope?” Shiloh pushed. “Your parents wouldn’t care, and mine got their fill with Benji.”

Ari still didn’t reply, didn’t turn her head to look at Shiloh. “Ari?”

“You just fell asleep, love,” Ari said gently. The sadness in her voice surprised Shiloh.

“What? I’m up, Ari, what are you talking about?”

“You have to wake up, love. Please just wake up.”

“Ari, you’re scaring me.” Shiloh tried to catch her eyes, but Ari wouldn’t look away from the road. “Where are we going, anyway?” She couldn’t remember where they were driving, the landscape strange but unchanging. In all the while they’d been driving, there hadn’t been any turns in the road. No landmarks or buildings or exits. Just the long highway.

“Please, Shi, just wake up.”

* * *

Somewhere in a big city, far away from red sands and desert trees, a young woman lays in a hospital bed. Her partner holds vigil over her frail body, gripping her hand while tears stain the linen sheets. “Please, love,” she whispers. “Please just wake up.”