College Road Trip (Z-Fic Novella Honorable Mention) [COMPLETE]

CHAPTER 1: DUSTY OLD TOWN

I slid out of the car, grateful for the silence of the town around me. I'm not metrophobic, but, after listening to Peter's slam poetry playlist for six hours, I was about to go straight over the edge of that cliff. After all that, it was a welcome sound to hear nothing at all. 

Don't get me wrong, I liked listening to poetry as much as the next English-major-and-aspiring-author, but Peter took it to an entirely different level. Six hours? That was far too many. 

Lynette clomped out of the car a moment after I did, landing messily on the asphalt in her knock-off Doc Martens. She tugged an orange-and-black flannel shirt out of the car after her and wrapped it around her waist. "Thank god," she groaned. 

"I know, right?" 

Lynette laughed. "Hey, Pete? While you're filling up the car, I'm going into the gas station." 

She said it was if that wasn't the plan all along and as if we didn't do the same thing the last time we stopped (and the time before that, and the time before that, and so on). Every time, Lynette and I went up to the gas station or inside the rest stop while Peter did what he needed to do with the car. Whether or not Lewis, the fourth and final person in the car, came with us depended entirely on whether or not he had enough reception to send a message to the girl he was texting. 

It looked like Lewis was coming with us, leaving Peter by himself. 

There was some sense of anxiety there, as if Peter, who was staring forlornly at the gas pump, was about to break into shards of stained glass. He wouldn't talk about it. It wasn't for lack of trying. He just preferred to hold the rationale behind his emotions close to his chest in the same way that Lewis wore them on his cheeks. 

Of course Peter was going to be acting oddly. The four of us were on our way to see his girlfriend joust at a Renaissance Faire three days' travel away from the college all four of us went to. A display of comity wouldn't have been out of order, but, then, he made us listen to his slam poetry playlist for six hours. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly feeling cordial. 

I wasn't the only one. As the three of us (Lynette, Lewis, and I) walked up to the front of the old, run-down Chevron-Holiday, Lynette shoved her fists into the pockets of her cutoff jeans and muttered, "I haven't been able to finish my homework. Can't we just listen to music like normal people?" 

"You know you didn't have to come on this trip, right?" I pointed out. 

The cracked and dusty asphalt was hot enough that I could feel it through the soles of my water shoes. Normally, I would wear Vans or something-- indeed, I had a pair in my red duffel bag in the trunk-- but I didn't when I was traveling. Who knew when the urge to pull off to the side of the road and stick your feet in a sulfurous stream would hit? 

Lynette retorted, "Pete specifically asked me to." 

"Sure." 

"He did! I don't know why-- maybe to prove to his girlfriend that there's nothing between us? I don't know." 

"Jesus. Doesn't she know you're not interested?" 

"Maybe not." She shrugged. Lynette is aromantic and asexual, so it's not like she's trying to interfere with anyone's relationship. (To be fair, so am I. I'm just not very open about it. People look at you a certain way when they find out, and I'm not a fan of it.)

I put my hand on the door handle to pull it open without looking at the store much. It was pure muscle memory and, anyway, I didn't have much of a reason to suspect that anything might have been wrong. As far as I knew, this town was habitually quiet, like one of those living ghost towns my sister made me go to with her last summer. 

There were cars parked by curbs and in driveways. Sure, the grass was yellowed, parched, and scarce, but this place was practically a desert. Who would waste their water on something like grass? Who would want to be outside? It was springtime and it was unbearably hot. 

I didn't pause to look at the endless flat expanse around me or the few mountains in the distance off to my left. That was the direction we were supposed to be traveling in. I didn't need to look at them to know they were there. As far as I knew, the rest of the world wasn't in shambles. We passed an SUV on the way here, after all. What other sign of pure, unadulterated American life was there? (Aside from a barbeque or a block party, of course.) 

Lewis paused, though, even though I didn't. He wasn't looking at the scenery. Instead, he was checking his phone. "Do either of you have reception?" 

Lynette shook her head. "Nope. Left mine in the car for a reason, y'know?" 

I pulled my phone out to check. I got exactly what I expected: nothing. It made sense to me. We had been traveling for days without any reception-- and, by proxy, notifications and news. The rest of the world could have been on fire and I would have known nothing about it. As quickly as I took it out, I put my phone in my back pocket. 

"Nope," I agreed, then tugged on the door handle. 

It rattled, but it didn't budge. 

"Great," I groaned. "It's locked." 

"Oh, wonderful. Fantastic. This is great. Absolutely stupendous." Lynette pulled her fists out of her pockets to gesticulate wildly. "Fantastic. Wonderful." 

"I'm sure there's somewhere else we can go," Lewis, ever the optimist, offered. 

"That's easy for you to say. All y'all can piss anywhere. I can't!" 

Lewis nodded understandingly and looked around where we were. "What about that car dealership?" 

"What?" 

"Across the street." 

I followed the direction of his pointing with my eyes. Sure enough, there was a dusty old used car lot across the street from us, on an odd-shaped corner. I would have assumed it was abandoned, but there were enough Subarus and Fords in the lot to suggest otherwise. 

"Sounds good to me," I decided. "Plus, I'm sure there's a vending machine in there." 

"Sure, whatever. Let's just go." Without waiting for either of us or telling Peter where she was going, Lynette hopped off the low, disintegrating sidewalk and headed for the car dealership.