Me and Emily

Floorboard's filled with baby toys,
An' empty coke bottles an' coffee cups

Steve hates night driving. Honestly, it sucks balls and if he was still in his hometown it would be a lot easier, but he's not and he's got a good reason for that. He's practically vibrating, running off the deep end of several energy drinks he'd collected up and drunken en masse to stay awake a few more hours at the last gas station he'd passed that day.

Drivin' through the rain with no radio,
Tryin' not to wake her up

Usually, the radio would help him stay a little bit more awake, but given there's a storm outside that's been raging and building in size for the last 2 days or so, there isn't much reception and it's not like he'll dare turn it on. He doesn't really want to hear the screeching of the static that would most likely come through, plus his daughter, his sweet baby girl, had just gotten to sleep maybe an hour ago after fuzzing mostly down the highway because she wanted out of her chair and he wasn't pulling over. Not just yet.

Cell 'phone says "low battery",
God, what if I break down?

He glances from his rearview mirror to his pager for 5 seconds and swallows not only at the beeps telling him his missed messages list is getting only longer and more frequently updated, but the sounds indicating that most of its battery is gone from him not turning the damn thing off and he needs to switch them out with a new set pretty fucking soon or otherwise, he'll be stranded with no one able to reach him should he break down.

I'm just lookin' for an exit with a lotta lights,
A safe little interstate town

He almost wants that to happen, but he told Dustin that he'd call (more like promised under threat, the kid's a menace, but he's a good one) when he found somewhere to call from, wherever that ends up being. The kid is the only one who knows he's gone and he'd better keep it that way. Thankfully he's decent at multitasking, so with the thought in hand, he continues down the highway, headlights only giving away that cars and trucks are even around or passing him as the rain batters against the windshield.

Just a cheap hotel, with a single bed,
And cable TV is good enough for me an' Emily

He knows he's getting tired again when he almost careens the car into another truck that passes him by, the sharp sound of its horn jolting him back awake as he corrects himself, breathing rapidly before he groans, rubbing his face. Man, he hopes that there is some motel up ahead or some town that has one, because he's not sure how much longer he can do this for. It's been almost 3 days of non-stop driving and he knows that not only himself, but Emily as well by her performances these last few days, are getting to the both of them. Hard.

Someday, when she's old enough,
She's gonna start askin' questions about him

Speaking of Emily, his eyes flutter to the rearview mirror only to watch her sleep, her curly blonde hair as messy as it's always been and dummy in her mouth. She may only be 16 months old, but she still had a lot of growing up to do and it scared the crap out of him thinking about stuff like that, especially now given they are on a cross country trip to the middle of somewhere unknown, all alone with only themselves to rely on.

Some kid at school brings his Dad for show an' tell,
An' gets her little mind a-wonderin'

He knew that there would be questions asked of him, no matter where he and her went. A single, decent looking 24-year-old from a very small town smack dab in the boonies of Indiana doesn't just show up somewhere with a child in tow and does not expect himself to become a fixture of gossip. That was if he decided to stay in a small town, that is.