His glancing stream, his crystal girl

His glancing stream, his crystal girl
Her clothes smells like the dust coming off a sixteen-wheeler, making a two-day trip to Lubbock. Her hands are dry and stiff from clenching her bag on the bus all night. She’s going home, like she was supposed too.  She didn’t bother to comb her hair that morning because she knew that she was going to get off the bus, and her father would frown, put his arms around her, and drive her away. The silence on the car ride depended on her disheveled appearance. She clenches the bag tighter.
     
She has two voicemails.
     
“Hola mi’ja, don’t forget to pick up Charlie on your way home. Me entiendes? Llamame.” Abuela. She was supposed to pick up Charlie at three. It’s half past six. Next message.
     
“Lyns, I got your message. What the fuck is wrong with you? Call me.” Kristi.
She smiles, the right side of her lip twitching up into a dimple. Lyndsey dropped bombs on her cousin because she could, but Kristi always found a way to catch them, disable them, and then throw them back. The reason she hadn’t heard this message yet was because the third time Kristi called, Lyndsey answered it.
     
She sits in the window seat, next to a woman in a brown tracksuit. The crows feet curving around the woman’s eyes are just like her mother’s—caused by years of smoking cigarettes and speeding in the back of a pick up, swerving through the blink towns of Texas. The lady spends most of her time reading a paperback and looking towards the front. She had rings on her fingers, cheap, plastic. But she also had “the ring”—one of those big rocks. Lyndsey stares at the glinting silver against the brown suede. It didn’t matter that this woman smelled like soup, or that she wore too much eyeliner: she was looking towards the front of the bus because she was looking for home, a home with someone else. Lyndsey looks at her own fingers against the glass, tracing the edge of the highway barriers. She didn’t even have a tan line—just a little rim of dirt from the base of the gold band. She licks her thumb and starts wiping away the evidence.
     
Lyndsey had always wanted the big rock. She convinced herself that everything would be better with someone by her side, someone to come home to.  He convinced her that everything would be better with her by his side, he promised her. He promised her this sitting in the back of his pickup, slipping his finger under the edge of her bra strap. He promised her this when he ran after her in a parking lot, her hands cupping a swelling bruise above her brow. He promised her this in a motel room two days ago, the lambent light of a casino glaring through the windows. At the time, these moments were thrilling and sensational, but now the memories passed and distorted like the lights from the cars speeding by. The lights faded, the bruise resurfaced, and she pulled her bag closer to her chest.
     
Her phone rings. She doesn’t bother. It rings again and she checks the screen, lighting up with his name. Someone had found his phone. She knew that she could never go back. Their past, present, and future ended in that that motel room, the only evidence of their impulses rested on the bathroom counter, but her fears had settled on the floor in footprints and tangled sheets. When she saw his name again, the fear didn’t sway her. She’s not running away; she’s returning home, where she belongs.
     
She turns off her phone and leans her head against the window.

     
Passengers funnel out of the station, finding loved ones in parked cars. The lady in the brown tracksuit kisses a man with dark hair on the cheek before handing him her bags. Lyns stepped off the bus and every particle of dust finally rests in her lungs: she breathes in home. Looking for her dad’s Mazda, her eyes passes over Kristi, but Charlie’s eyes snags her attention. She smiles and Charlie smiles with her. Kristi was holding him, saddled on her hip. Charlie reaches for Lyndsey and she reads his lips: “Mama.” She smiles, he smiles, and Kristi sighs.
     
“What are you doing here Kris?” Lyndsey asks, as she pulls Charlie from her arms.
     
Kristi looks away and opens the car door. “I figured you would want me here instead of Abuela or your dad.” Lyndsey’s gait tightened as she hugged her son, and then places him gently in his car seat.
     
“What are they saying?”
     
“Just wondering where you are.”
     
She starts to strap Charlie in. “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” Charlie smiles, she smiles, and Kristi closes the car door.
     
“Where is he?” Kristi asks, pushing herself in Lyndsey’s line of vision. But Lyns can only stare at Charlie, tracing the lines of his face on the window. He’s reaching for her again. “Where’s the body Lyns?”
     
Lyndsey takes her hand from the glass, and curled it around her left ring finger. The ring on the bathroom counter was the only evidence of her mistake; the blood seeping through the carpet was just a stain. “He’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.”