For the Road: A Collection

Heights

He let loose a hum of disbelief, but she just narrowed her eyes, daring him to antagonize her beyond the breaking point.

“All I’m saying is,” he began, exhaling deeply for the fourth or fifth time in the space of a few minutes, ignoring her wrinkling of the nose in response, “you never really know how it is until you try it. You might even like it.”

Her brows shot skyward. “Like it? No, what I like is chocolate. And puppies. I don’t, however, particularly enjoy being stuck in some sort of dream,” which was how he’d often tried to describe it to her.

“It’s an escape. You like escaping.” He laid back in the grass and watched the sky with a furrowed squint, gaze growing glassy as it began to hit him. Luckily for her, he never became irritating —at least, no more irritating than usual— when in this state, just mellow and occasionally bemused.

After she didn’t say anything for a while, he sighed, with a puzzled frown. “I just don’t get why you never wanna get high.”

She sighed in return, and laid down beside him, looking up at the immensity that is the sky. “Maybe I’m just afraid of heights.”