The feeling disappears as the day begins. The morning is pretty uneventful. We change out of our wet clothes into our previously-wet-now-dry clothes. We stop at a Burger King and nab some of the food they're throwing out. (I never could understand why restauraunts throw out so much perfectly good food.) We start on a highway heading east.
A few hours before lunch, Silas convinces us to stop at a junk yard so he can look for some new computers to work on. He gets all excited about an old bucket of bolts.
"I can't believe anyone would throw out this old dinosaur," he says, "It was made in the way early 90's."
"It looks like it'd be worth more as scrap metal than as a computer," I say. Silas shoots me daggers.
"I can fix it up. Then it'll be worth its weight in gold." He finds some other computers, and a few computer parts that he thinks will keep him busy for awhile. He sits in the back as we speed along the highway, dismantling the ancient computer. We drive on quietly, except for Aya, who probably doesn't know what it's like to have her mouth still. Alina falls back to sleep, and so does Charlie. I do a few head bobs, but fight to stay awake. The sun is directly above us and sweat is beading on my forehead. The air conditioning is on as high as it can go, but barely a breeze comes out of the vents. There's trees in every direction.
We sputter to a halt. Now that the engine's quiet, I realize how loud it was. I hear Silas swear from the back.
"What?" I ask.
"We're out of gas," Mitch says.
Daaaa...." I start to say, then see Charlie's look, "arn," I finish. He rolls his eyes at me.
Silas comes and stands by the window.
"Do you think we should ditch the truck?" he asks.
"Naw," Mitch says, "we could walk to the nearest gas station and get some gas."
"It's probably a mile away," Silas groans.
"You can stay here with the twins," Mitch says, "watch the truck, and work on your computers. Bilbo can come with me, and Charlie, if he wants to."
"Mmm... no thanks," Charlie says, pretending to think about it. Mitch smirks at Charlie, and we set out on our way.
As we walk on, I begin to wish Charlie had come with us. The silence is almost as opressive as the heat and I know Charlie would've had something interesting to say. It's odd, before I'd met Charlie or any of them, I would go days without talking to anyone, I'd been solitary and most comfortable in the silence. But now that I know what it's liked to fit so well into a group, it makes me uneasy for everything to be so quiet. I'm surprised that Mitch doesn't seem to feel the same way, knowing Aya for as long as she has. As if reading my thoughts, she turns to me.
"It's kind of weird," she says, "I mean, without the rest of them. I keep on almost looking over my shoulder to make sure Aya's alright." She smiles her lop-sided grin and circles around some roadkill. She tucks a strand of her frizzy hair behind her ear. I alternate watching the ground under me feet, looking up at the sky, and stealing quick glances at Mitch. Her arms and shoulders ripple subtly as she walks along the gravel road. There's a quiet strength in her muscles, like a wild cat, or a coyote. She has a long, pale scar on her leg that looks like it was probably from a knife. I notice another sharp scar cutting down her neck. I wonder how she got the scar. I look back to my feet.
I hear the loud engine coming over the hill before I see the semi.
"Bilbo!" Mitch yells. I look towards her.
While I'm realizing that it's too late and I'm about to get squashed by the semi, Mitch reaches out and grabs my arm, pulling me out of the way. The semi goes whizzing by, ruffling my hair. Mitch slips on a loose rock and we go crashing into the ditch like Jack and Jill.
We land side by side, her still holding my arm, my free hand holding her shoulder.
"You okay?" she asks. I can feel her warm breath.
"Yeah," I say, "I'm fine." Her nose is an inch from mine. If I just leaned a little closer...
She's out of the ditch before I sit up. I follow her, embarrassed. The silence is even heavier, more awkward.
"Still waiting for Brett?" I say. Her steps break from their normal stride, her foot hesitating in the air for a moment.
"Yeah," she says. Her voice is like ice, "I'm still 'waiting' for him. What's it to ya?" I sigh.
"I get it," I say. She turns to me.
"Really?" she says, her voice melting slightly.
"Yeah," I say, "If he's out there, and you never really broke up, then it would be... wrong. But... if he wasn't-"
"No." The ice is back, "Even if... no. He's still out there. No." I go back to staring at my feet and try not to think about the fact that I just got turned down. Three times. In a hypothetical situation.
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