good morning ☀️

"Bro, why you so nervous?"  Violet smacked me on the arm from her spot in the backseat, causing Izaak to give her a hard glare.

"Seatbelt on, Esperanza.  Do not make me tell you again."

"Yeah, yeah," she mumbled, obeying with a hard sigh.  "Should've just taken an uber.  They ain't so bossy."

Izaak ignored her comments, focused on the nearly-deserted road.  He was already dressed for work and super perky for the sun barely being up.  

"There you are, doing it again — you fidget with your ring so much when you're nervous.  Ha... I'm starting to get as good as the doc with this.  Maybe I should be a shrink."

I looked back at her.  "I don't like flying."

"Whaaat for real?  Why not?"

"Umm... I dunno... humans are meant to be on land, not in the air.  We're not birds."

My tummy dropped as Izaak looked at me, eyebrows suspicious.  "No," he said flatly.  "You're nervous about something else."  He was stopped at a redlight and just stared at me for a minute.  

I felt myself getting sweaty.  Ever since I found out our trip was to Washington state, not DC, I'd been super on edge.  The weed wasn't even sufficient to calm my nerves.  And Izaak could read me so well, I knew he'd ask what was up with me.  Which is why I'd convinced Molly to give me one of her pens.  Being nervous about "drugs" would be more believable than flying, but still not be the truth:  We're going to visit my ex-partner-in-crime!

"Spill it, kiddo.  Did Esperanza badly influence you again?"

"Fuck off!" she said with a laugh.  "The only bad influence last night was Molly.  But she never gets in trouble for anything.  She has you all fooled into thinking she's little miss goodie two shoes when really she's corrupting everyone!"

Izaak didn't react to Violet, but he'd picked up on her hints.  "You smoked weed?"  He stared at me until the light turned green, then sighed and shook his head, lecturing as he drove.