Texas & Lilly
I left Louisiana behind, crossing into Texas under the lidless, unblinking gaze of a pale full moon that seemed to follow me like a silent witness to my crossing. My hands trembled slightly on the steering wheel—whether from exhaustion or fear of the unknown ahead, I couldn't tell. The air was thick with humidity as I pushed past the state line, leaving the bayous and swampy smell of home behind. My throat tightened as I swallowed back the sob that had been building since I'd packed my last box. All of the basic camping gear I owned was crammed into my car, making the rear-view mirror useless—though maybe that was fitting, since I wasn’t looking back.
My first night of this journey, I pulled into a rest area just outside of Orange, Texas, where the piney woods still clung to the landscape like memories of the state I'd left behind. The hum of fluorescent lights and the relentless chatter of distant voices filled the space as I settled into the front seat of my car, my body aching with a bone-deep weariness that sleep couldn't touch. The parking lot, cramped with weary travelers and the towering presence of eighteen-wheelers, seemed more like a holding pen than a sanctuary. I felt exposed, and vulnerable—a feeling that had become all too familiar lately. The rumble of truck engines and the rhythmic, guttural snoring from the people around me settled into a lullaby of sorts, the soft buzz of exhaustion in the air. Even the highway itself felt restless, alive with the constant flow of vehicles cutting through the Texas night, each one carrying its own stories of escape or return.
My dreams that night were filled with the faces I'd left behind, their excitements, and disappointments, as palpable in sleep as it had been in reality. I woke with a start, my shirt damp with sweat despite the car's lingering air conditioning. By the time the sun broke through the heavy blanket of night, a warm and bracing light filled the sky, stirring something deep in me—hope, maybe, or just the desperate need to believe in new beginnings. As the day spread out across the land, I caught my first glimpse of cactus near Huntsville—their spindly arms reaching toward the heavens as though they too were trying to touch something distant and unattainable. There was a certain joy in seeing them, an elation that rushed through my chest like a gust of wind, momentarily drowning out the doubt that had been my constant companion. I was in a new place now, and I felt it, this shift in the very air around me, the way the horizon seemed to stretch endlessly, promising possibilities I'd never dared to imagine back home.
The vastness of Texas began to reveal itself as I drove through small towns with names that rolled off the tongue like poetry—Madisonville, Centerville, Buffalo. Each one seemed to hold its own unique character, yet they were bound together by an underlying resilience that spoke to something in my soul. I followed the sun westward, the heat growing more welcoming, the hug of an old friend, and found my way to the largest cedar rocking chair in the state in Lipan, a strange monument to Texas pride that made me smile despite myself. It was exactly the sort of quirky thing I'd expected to find in this wild, vast place, and somehow its absurdity made me feel less alone in my own oddness.
Afterward, I stopped at Natty Flats Smokehouse, where the air was thick with the smell of smoked meat and mesquite, a warm welcome from the folks inside who didn't seem to care that my eyes were red-rimmed from crying or that my clothes were wrinkled from sleeping in the car. The conversations around me were easy and familiar, the air buzzing with a low-key comfort that reminded me of Sunday dinners with family—a memory that brought both comfort and an ache so sharp it nearly took my breath away. I ate a pulled pork sandwich, the soft bread tasting like home, even in a place so foreign, and for the first time in days, I felt my shoulders relax slightly.
There were no other patrons, so finding a table was easy. I sat outside and looked over the paraphernalia that were pressed to the walls with dust and age. My pulled pork sandwich was wrapped in a paper bag and ended up being delicious. Every bite was a small comfort on the road. My heart ached as the smells and flavor fired off memories of those I’d left behind. Traveling alone had been my choice, and I needed it, but it didn’t change the fact that I missed my people. After I ate, I sat in the parking lot and collected myself looking out over the flat horizon and knee high cactus. My gut told me I was on the right path.
The drive across Texas stretched out before me like a never-ending line, the miles blending into a single, continuous stretch of road that seemed to mirror my own internal landscape—vast, uncertain, and filled with equal parts terror and possibility. The flatlands rolled by, the earth a dull ochre, the horizon an endless seam of sky and land that made me feel simultaneously insignificant and free. I passed through towns that seemed frozen in time—Dublin with its old-fashioned soda fountains, Stephenville with its cowboy culture so thick you could taste it in the air, Granbury with its historic square that whispered stories of a Texas I'd only read about.
But then, something changed. Slowly, imperceptibly, the land began to rise, hills soft and rounded, like the curves of a body unfolding beneath the touch of a lover. The Texas Hill Country was a surprise, a soft breath in the midst of all that openness, its beauty striking in its simplicity. Live oaks spread their ancient limbs across the landscape, their twisted branches telling stories of survival against drought and storm. Bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush dotted the roadside, their colors a defiant celebration of life in this harsh land. The sun, hanging lower now, guided me along the road, leading me toward a historic marker just as the first blush of twilight kissed the sky, painting it in shades of pink and gold that made my heart ache with their beauty.
It was at this marker that I met Lilly, though neither of us knew then how that chance encounter would haunt me.
I parked my car, the dry warmth of the air wrapping itself around me like an old, familiar coat, though the comfort it offered felt hollow somehow. I snapped a few pictures, the landscape stretching out in every direction—the Edwards Plateau rising to the west, the Balcones Escarpment cutting through the earth like an ancient scar. That's when she appeared—emerging from the restroom with the scent of soap and something sharper lingering in the air. She was a figure of contradictions, her presence quiet yet somehow undeniable, like the heat of the desert that presses in even when you can't see it.
She asked me where we were, and I told her, "About twenty miles from Roswell." My voice cracked slightly—I hadn't spoken aloud in hours, and the sound seemed to startle us both. Her face tightened, a flicker of something—disappointment, maybe—flashed across her features. She sighed, then asked what I was doing out here, her tone suggesting she knew all too well what it meant to be running from something.
I told her about my journey, my search for the West, a place that had always called to me in a way I couldn't explain. The words tumbled out, raw and honest in a way I hadn't allowed myself to be since leaving Louisiana. In return, she told me about hers. She was a sex worker, chasing some kind of adventure, though the word "chasing" felt all wrong when I saw the weariness in her eyes. It wasn't adventure she was after, not really, but escape, maybe—from what, I didn't ask, understanding too well how some questions cut too close to bone.
When I didn't take her up on her offer, she laughed—a dry, raspy sound that seemed to come from a deeper place than just the words, a sound that spoke of countless disappointments and unexpected kindnesses. I told her I was a writer, though even that felt like a half-truth, another identity I was trying on like a borrowed coat. I asked her if she'd share her story with me, and offered to pay her. She laughed again, this time with a bit of mockery that made me flush with shame, though I wasn't sure why.
Lilly was from Mescalero, a Native American woman with long, straight black hair that fell like a curtain around her face, as if she were perpetually trying to hide behind it. Her skin was warm-toned, her features sharp yet soft, her early thirties written in the fine lines around her eyes that deepened when she smiled. She had a smile that came easily, but it was framed by acne and tempered with caution, a look that suggested she had learned to expect the world to be both a gift and a threat. I recognized that wariness—it was the same look I'd seen in my own mirror the night I'd left.
Her story unfolded in fragments, scattered pieces of a life she hadn't pieced together yet, like the shards of pottery I'd seen in museum cases throughout Texas. She'd left the reservation as a teenager, drifting from one odd job to another, never staying in one place long enough to build roots. The way she said it—"build roots"—made me think of the mesquite trees we'd passed, their roots reaching deep into the parched earth, searching for water in places where none should exist. She'd never finished high school, but she spoke about getting her GED one day, as if the words were a promise to herself more than anyone else. Her voice carried the same tremulous hope I'd felt crossing the state line, that desperate belief that somewhere, somehow, things could be different.
She had siblings, she said, still back home, but as the youngest, she was determined to put herself first. The way she said it made me wonder about all the times she'd been put last, all the sacrifices she'd been expected to make. Her life had been transient, always moving, always free, though the freedom felt like a double-edged sword. I could hear it in her voice, in the way she hesitated when she spoke about her future. She wondered aloud where it was all leading, as if the path ahead was as hazy as the land surrounding us, where distance blurred the line between earth and sky until you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
When I asked if she did any art, she looked away, her gaze drifting toward the horizon, the fading light turning her face into a shadow. "No," she said quietly, "the artist was my brother." The words fell between us like stones into still water, creating ripples of unspoken grief. The air seemed to thicken around us, the words hanging between us, heavy and unresolved, like the smell of cigarettes and the decay of things left unsaid. I didn't ask more about her brother. The moment felt fragile, and I didn't want to break it. Sometimes silence is the only appropriate response to another's pain.
When we finally parted ways, I pressed some cash into her hand and gave her my lighter, a small gesture that felt somehow inadequate for the moment we'd shared, for the way she'd allowed me to witness her vulnerability, matching my own. She wrapped her arms around me in a hug that smelled of sweat, denim, and something else—something rougher, more primal, like the Texas earth itself. As I pulled away, I felt the weight of the brief connection, the gravity of a life lived on the edges of the world, where survival often meant learning to embrace loneliness as a companion.
Driving through the first ridge of New Mexico, I couldn't stop the tears that welled in my eyes, for Lilly and the rawness of her story, for my own unspoken griefs, and for that moment—fleeting, fragile, and perfect in its imperfection—as the red sun dipped beneath the desert horizon. The tears felt like a baptism of sorts, washing away the person I'd been when I'd crossed into Texas, leaving behind someone new, someone who understood that sometimes the most profound connections come when we're most lost, most vulnerable, most honest about our own brokenness.
The vast blue sky had witnessed it all—my fears, my hopes, my chance encounter with Lilly—and would keep our secrets, just as it had kept the secrets of countless others who had passed through its territory, seeking something they couldn't name. As the last light faded from the sky, I realized that maybe that's what Texas was all about: a place vast enough to hold all our stories, all our pain, all our dreams of becoming something more than what we'd left behind.
