Chasing Snowflakes

10

It took Clay a week and a half to figure out that the third car in the driveway was George's, not his extended family's.

"Yeah, Georgie's car is the blue one behind mine," Rose had said to them over breakfast. Clay and George were arguing about what exactly they wanted to do that day, bouncing between going back out to town or staying in and playing Minecraft again.

"You can drive?" Clay responded bewildered, giving his friend a weird look. He has not once seen his friend behind a driver's wheel and couldn't even begin to imagine it.

"Duh," He said. "Although, I guess it is pointless to have one in the U.K, everything is within walking distance and we have taxis everywhere."

"No, I don't believe you. No way. No, you can't drive. You always ask me for rides back in America?"

"That's because I'm too lazy to learn how to drive in the states," George explained. "Everything is flipped and I can't be bothered. Plus, I can save money on gas."

Clay felt so used and lied to. "I still refuse to believe you can drive."

"Oh he can, he's actually quite good." Rose butts in, taking a long sip of her coffee. "Georgie, why don't you take Clay out on the backroads? It'll get you two sometime away from the rest of us."

Clay watched his friend debate, eyes staring at the air like the answer was going to show itself to him.

"I mean, it's something to do right?" He says.

"I'm not sure I feel comfortable with you at the wheel."

"Clay, I'm a great driver. Don't worry."

But oh, Clay had a lot to worry about with George at the wheel. It felt dirty to be sitting in the driver's seat as the passenger and when they got in the car, George put the car in the wrong goddamn gear.

"George!" Clay shouted as the car rolled forward towards his mother's car, dangerously close to colliding.

"Stop screaming! I got this," George said as they backed out. Clay wheezed at his friend's simple mistake and George hits him blindly, not taking his eyes off the road.

And that's how they got into this little situation. It started normally obviously, Clay working aux (which ended up breaking. Go figure.) and pretending not to be freaking out over George's fast turns and hard breaks- until it wasn't normal. Until things got very, really, not normal.

The two drove by the pond, talking shallowly about when George learned to drive and the horror stories attached to the backroads.

"Okay, let's not talking about this. Please," Clay said as he watched the familiar surroundings turn into dense trees and cracked forgotten roads. Road signs were worn out and it seemed dark despite the sun being high in the sky.

"What? Hearing about kidnappings and dead bodies doesn't set the mood for you?" George joked, rolling to stop at a stop sign. "Look don't worry about it, they only found one body back here."

"ONLY ONE?" Clay yelled, whipping his head to his friend. "George, what the hell? Don't joke about that, say sike right now."

"Okay! Okay, just jokes man. But seriously stop screaming, it's promoting distracted driving and then we'll crash and die." George said, hands flat on top of the wheel. "It was more like two anyways..." his friend adds under his breath.

Clay groans but turns back to the window, not bothering to feed into George's stories. On the plus side, the scenery was pretty even though it was a perfect setting for a horror movie. The trees were a deep emerald green that reached up and over the road, shadows of leaves falling over George's focused face. It's been a few days since he had that talk with Erin and he gets the vibe that George knew something was going on, but he was keeping his mouth shut and leaving it alone. But Clay still felt the crippling guilt of not telling his best friend and instead told someone he didn't know very well.