Page 54 of Road Trip

Egg McMuffins. Not exactly the breakfast of champions, but I wanted something I could eat as I drove. The sooner we got the fuck on the road, the better. Even though Matt had said he’d come back with me last night, I was still half-convinced he’d change his mind. So I packed our shit, packed the car, shoved him in the passenger seat, and drove across the road to the drive-thru at McDonalds and breakfast on the go.

Matt wasn’t talking much this morning, just like he hadn’t talked much last night. Okay, so he wasn’t usually very talkative, but he could say a million things with a glare alone. This morning he wasn’t even glaring at his McMuffin. He just looked tired and wrung out.

“Put some music on,” I said, nodding at where my phone was sitting in the cup holder on the center console. “Road trip music. Pick something good.”

He picked up my phone and fiddled with it, and soon the sounds of Twenty One Pilots’s “Stressed Out” filled the car. Matt did glare then, like he expected me to tell him to put something more upbeat on, but honestly, it was fitting. I was stressed out not knowing what was going to happen with Matt’s living situation, so I couldn’t imagine how he felt—although I had some idea, given how his shoulders had sagged when he’d agreed coming home was the best choice.

He perked up some after he ate, just like I’d known he would. He wasn’t back to his usual self—he wouldn’t be for a while probably—but he gave me shit about my lane changes and stole half my hash browns, and I took it as a good sign. When I’d spoken to my mom last night, she’d just said, “Come home, Jacob”—like I was planning to do anything else. I’d only been half-joking about the stolen kidneys. I just had to hope his mom wasn’t as stubborn as Matt and would take him back.

It was weird. When we were driving to California, everything was new and a little intimidating. It was our big road trip. Our first time doing something without our parents—well, my parents—breathing over our shoulders. But somehow going home was scarier because it felt even more unknown than our road trip had.

I read somewhere once that the first time you take a trip, it feels like it takes a long time because your brain has to map it all from scratch. And when you go back, it doesn’t seem to take as long because you’re using less memory this time around. In theory, going home to Cape Charles should have felt quicker because we weren't being bombarded by entirely new sensory information. In practice, it felt like a couple hundred years. We were tired, and Matt was unhappy, and at least twice a day I was tempted to turn around, drive all the way back to San Diego, and run over his asshole father so many times that he was just a smear on the asphalt.

That probably wasn’t in keeping with my dad’s rule of driving safely, though.

We stayed in motels instead of campsites, and my college fund suffered because of it. But it was easier than putting up the tent every night and having to buy food before we got there. We picked motels with fast food places nearby and cuddled at night. It was the only good part of the trip.

By the time we pulled into Goose Run Gas, my stomach was so full of greasy food I could have eaten an apple and shit out fritters, but Matt wanted a Mountain Dew and I could do with stretching my legs.

It was mid-afternoon. We could be in Cape Charles in around three hours, though we’d hit peak rush hour in Norfolk and that wouldn’t be much fun. It would be worth it, though, just to get home tonight.

“Did you talk to your mom yet?” I asked him as we got out of the car at the gas station.

“Nope,” he said and slammed the door. He crossed the sunbaked ground, heading for the store.

I hurried to catch up as the automatic doors rattled open and blasted us with cold air, then headed straight for the fridges to grab a water and Matt’s Mountain Dew. I was standing there when I heard Matt’s laugh—a sound I hadn’t heard in days. My skin prickled with a sense of déjà vu, and I turned around and stared over the shelves toward the counter.

Trucker Cap Danny was working today. The guy who’d given Matt his number the first time we were here. It felt like a whole lifetime had passed for us, but it was only a little over two weeks for him, which clearly wasn’t long enough for him to have forgotten Matt. I hadn’t given the guy a second glance the last time we’d been here, too busy being jealous—even if I hadn’t known that was what it was—but now, looking through my new rainbow-colored glasses, yeah. He was cute. Not as cute as Matt, but I was most probably biased.

I was most definitely bi-assed.

I walked over with my drinks and tried to act casual. “Hey,” I said, “want anything else while we’re here?”

I wouldn’t lie, it was a relief to see Matt’s smile directed at me. “Hey. I was telling Danny about the Grand Canyon.”

“Oh yeah, it was awesome.” I set the drinks on the counter and draped an arm over Matt’s shoulders. Was I staking a claim? Maybe. But Matt leaned into my touch, so I figured he liked it.

Danny’s eyebrows rose and his face split in a grin. “Oh, hey, congratulations!”

“What?”

He shrugged. “Seems like it’s something new?”

I flushed. “Yeah.”

“Turns out I’m irresistible,” Matt deadpanned. “Did you get my Mountain Dew? If you didn’t, it’s a deal-breaker. Danny would bring me Mountain Dew.”

“Whoa,” Danny said, holding his palms up and snorting with laughter. “You’ve already got a hot guy bringing you Mountain Dew. You don’t need me. Besides, it’s Coke or nothing.”

He thought I was hot too?Andhe was a Coke drinker?

Okay, so suddenly he seemed okay. It would be unfair to hate him just because he’d given Matt his number a couple weeks ago. That just showed he had taste. And he’d thought Matt was single. Hehadbeen single. But yeah, a lifetime had passed for us since then.

We lingered a little longer in the gas station than we otherwise might have, and I thought it was because we both knew this was our last stop before home. I was sick of driving, but I knew Matt wasn’t anxious to get back to Cape Charles and face his mom. And not just that, but this was the end of our road trip, the end of our summer, the end of a major part of our lives. From now on it’d be college and jobs and adulthood, and it didn’t matter if we were ready for that or not because there was nothing we could do to stop it. I’d been scared about that before this summer but not so much anymore. I didn’t know what the future held, sure, but I knew I could handle it.

Wecould handle it.

And I saw that same certainty reflected in Matt’s eyes when he unscrewed the lid of his Mountain Dew, took a swig, and then nodded outside where the car was waiting for us. “Ready to hit the road?”

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