It was Freya's idea. In retrospect, that was probably more shocking than the idea itself. She had taken more classes than most, and her calendar was choc-a-bloc full of various tests and assignments that she had coming up.
Vicky only knew because she'd taken a look at it one time, when the two of them were sprawled across her bed, staring up at the ceiling and passing a tub of cookie-dough ice cream between them. 'I don't understand how you fit all of this in,' Vicky had said, frowning as she flicked through Freya's notebook of notes, all colour-coordinated with appropriate sticky-notes and highlighted paragraphs, much like her own. 'It's not too awful,' she had responded, sitting herself up slightly so she could push her spoon further into the ice cream. 'I quite like being productive, and most of my classes aren't all that bad.'
But now here she was, sitting on her bed in front of Vicky, and two of their best friends Elijah and Nathan, and Vicky was silently wondering if all of the work was making her go crazy. Vicky and the two boys exchanged concerned glances, before looking back up at her in confusion.
'Freya, we can't just up and take a road trip across the country out of the blue like that,' Nathan had told her gently, but she had just shaken her head at him. 'I don't mean for a crazy amount of time or anything. Just for a few days,' she replied, her eyes already flashing with excitement. She glanced across at her friends with a smile, watching their expressions as they considered it. 'So? What do you think?'
'We don't even have a car.' Elijah pointed out, raising an eyebrow at her. 'Actually, that's not entirely true. I have a car, I just never use it.' Nathan told them, and all three heads turned to face him in surprise. 'You have a car?' Elijah had responded incredulously, eyeing him as if he suspected he wasn't telling the truth. Nathan nodded, and it only made Freya's smile grow wider. 'Perfect. We can use Nate's car, and since Elijah's the oldest, and most experienced driver, he can drive us.'
Vicky watched her as she planned it out in her head. At first, it had seemed ridiculous, but she was slowly warming to the idea. It was early June, and personally, her work-calendar was unusually empty, although she was still unsure that she could say the same for her friend. 'What about school?' She asked, and Freya sighed, her mouth pursing in thought. 'That's exactly it. All i've thought of this year is school school school. I can't even remember the last time I had a break, or a day off. And three days off aren't gonna cost us our diplomas.' She explained, gesturing with her hands to make her point.
Vicky supposed she was was right, and when she looked back over at her friends, she could see that were silently thinking the same thing. 'So are we actually gonna do this? Take a spontaneous road trip around America for a couple of days?' Elijah asked slowly. His bright blue eyes were sparkling in the sunlight that was filtering in through the window, and Vicky could tell that he was excited. Suddenly, all eyes seemed to be on Vicky, and she smiled. 'Yeah. Yeah, I think so.' Freya was at her side in an instant, throwing her arms around her and pulling her into a hug.
'Thank you. This is gonna be great, you'll see.'
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And somehow, suddenly, they were really doing it. The next morning, they found themselves in one of colleges' many carparks, Vicky and Elijah sitting in the front of the car, Eli in the drivers seat, and Vicky next to him. It was a warm day, the sky cloudless and a light blue, but it wasn't boiling, which was ultimately a good thing because as they'd discovered, the cars' air conditioning wasn't the greatest.
Nathan and Freya were around the back of the car, checking that they had everything they would need for the next few days. They'd all decided to pack essentials; toiletries, a change of clothes or two, money and electronics, but all of them had noticed that Vicky and Freya's bags were considerably larger than than Nathan's and Elijah's. 'What? We're girls, of course we've got more stuff.' Freya had stated simply, as if it should've been expected, and they'd all laughed.
