The Drive Home

18: safe

I like kissing him.

It's soft - in the roughest, most unkempt way. Both of us perpetually dehydrated, chapped lips, oily hair. The acne on my face is having the time of its life. His hands are always dry and cold, mine always feel warm and clammy, but when our bodies are smushed together it's like we don't even exist anymore, not our physical selves, anyway. I could be anywhere when he's kissing me. Usually, it's in the clouds, or the stars, or the moon, and I'm pulsing with neon light and filled with helium. When he touches me it's like pure electricity, bliss.

And other times it feels like I am so solid, so in my bones and so awake, can feel every square centimetre of skin, every sweaty little pore, and I can hear the crickets buzzing and the whistling kites circling us and every rustle of every leaf, can feel his hands like I'm black sand and he's the magnet, like I'm being pulled into him, our bodies melding together. Can hear our breaths, skin rubbing, sliding, clothes skimming against each other.

~

I don't kid around when I say that when the ute's tires glide onto bitumen for the first time in weeks, I want to cry. It's so quiet. It feels illegally quiet. I can't believe people just live like this. Sailing along. The only peace we'd gotten lately was a couple metres at a time, when we went through concrete-laden floodways.

The road leads us to the township - the true heart of the country, smack bang in the middle, the only sign of life for hundreds of kilometres . It's bustling with life, bursting with tourists and caravans carting around. People on the streets - travellers with backpacks and wide brim hats, and locals trotting around barefooted.

We buy some much valued fruit and vegies from the near empty supermarket and opt for a night of luxury, staying at a caravan park with, and I cannot stress enough how monumental this is, hot showers.

Holy fuck, is it fucking good.

There's even grass and shit, a playground, feral kids running around all over the place. It's chaotic as fuck and we were lucky to grab a spot without booking in advance, but it's kinda nice to be surrounded for once, hear people's voices other than our own, the traffic humming outside the grounds. It feels safe, secure, something I'd never thought I'd feel among such a heavy crowd of people but it feels good to be able to put an exact distance, to the nearest kilometre, between here and home. Nobody knows me here, there's no chance. And it's been so long that I'm sure it's long forgotten.

We have tea at the community kitchen, a wide pergola with chairs and ratty couches all around, and kitchen appliances in the corner. We even mingle with some of the people - well, Muphrid mingles with the people and I scowl at kids that keep running into my legs during their game of chasey. Muphrid does his talking bit, that friendly little fuck, and despite it all I still feel foreign around other people, but I manage to strike up conversation and mustn't do too bad because I get us invited to their game of cards, and fuck am I glad to play cards with someone other than Muphrid, holy shit, he is needlessly good at every card game, even the ones he didn't know and I had to teach. Cards isn't nearly as fun when you know you've already lost before the cards are even dealt.

We settle for a couple rounds of p's and a's, and I get absolutely destroyed, but so does Muphrid so I feel okay about it. I had a bad hand, it all came down to chance, I swear. A lumberjack looking fella with little yellow flowers his girlfriend picked from the lawn teaches us another game, and it has us laughing so hard we're gasping, slapping our knees, cackles resonate around as alliances are formed and strategies played. We go well into the night, until we're the only ones there and our laughter becomes hushed in fear of getting a noise complaint.

It's good, and when we split ways for the night there's this buzzing hollowness in my chest, and I can't tell if it's a good or bad feeling. I miss them already, though I've forgotten half their names. It must be nice to have so many friends, to be so surrounded by laughter, and I'm all bittersweet about it, but then I look to Muphrid as we walk lost around the caravan park and I remember that I am saved, there's a future for me now, a future where I laugh all the time and have friends, I am so sure of it when I look at him, I see it all. I can't wait.

"What are you smiling at?"

I smile even harder, and it still doesn't hurt. "Nothing."