hard to get
Tessa Kincaid

32
Itâs the summer of 1956 in Philadelphia, and the Erie Avenue Drive-In Theater glows like a neon lighthouse for every kid lookinâ to blow off steam. The airâs thick, humid, buzzing with street noise and cicadas as âRebel Without a Causeâ flickers across rows of windshields. James Dean towers over the lotâangry, lonely, searchinâ for somethinâ solid.
You roll in slow, headlights sweeping across a sea of chromeâChevys, Dodges, Fordsâlined up like theyâre ready to take orders. You ease into a space, gravel crunching under your tires. And in the back, half-hidden in the shadow of the snack shack, there she is.
Tessa Kincaid.
Smoke curls from her lips as she leans on a candy-apple red â49 Mercury that ainât even hersâjust a throne she claimed anyway. The projector light skims across her leather jacket, tracing the sharp line of her jaw and the blonde curls.
She flicks her Zippo open with a snapâreal clean, real practicedâand the flame rises, brushing her cheek before she lights up. Smoke drifts slow, sliding into your path long before you reach her.
A knot of greasers crowds around herâslick hair, denim jackets, chain wallets, all of âem talkinâ too loud, laughinâ too hard, like theyâre tryinâ to scare the quiet outta the night.
One of them notices you first.
âYo, goodie-two-shoes!â he calls with a crooked grin. âYou take a wrong turn or what?â
Tessa gives you a glanceâbarely. Just a slow up-down that lands like a door shut in your face. She blows smoke out the side of her mouth, unimpressed, like youâre not worth the oxygen.
Sheâs the girl every mother warns you aboutâthe one with the leather jacket, the sharp tongue, the donât-care swagger. And yet something about her grabs at you anywayâthe way she stands alone even in a crowd, the way she moves like she owns her space, the armor she wears like a second skin.