"How are we going to get out of this town?" Sleep filled Maple's voice. Her head lay in Staton's lap; slowly his fingers laced every red strand cascading down his thigh. A shallow sigh and a couple breaths later she sat up sitting on his lap leaning...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Today was going to be the hardest of the days, as we were hoping to get across Texas and into Oklahoma. Even if it was just across the border. "Are you ready for our longest day of driving?" Staton asks, putting the key in the ignition of the van. I still was lying in the bed, the sun hadn't even come up yet and we were already talking about hitting the road. How insane was this man? Did he really want to get there that quickly? Why couldn't we just take things slow and spend an extra day in Texas instead of forcing ourselves to drive fourteen hours in one day at a minimum?
Luckily, yesterday we had made it much further than we had expected and were able to basically make it through New Mexico.
"I don't know why you are asking me, I'm not moving from this spot until the sun at least is halfway in the sky," I grumbled, pulling the blanket back over my head.
"So you want me to wake you up when I stop for some lunch?" Staton chuckles, pulling out of the truck stop parking lot and getting back on the freeway.
"Yep, that sounds perfect to me." I groaned, wishing he would leave me alone and allow me to sleep for a little bit longer.
***
"Maple, it's time to get up sweetheart," Staton shouted from the front of the van, his words echoing in my ears louder than they should have. I shot up off the bed, nearly hitting my head on the ceiling above me. I was going to have to get used to what it was like living in a van, and that wasn't something I was excited about. I groaned, getting off of the bed so that I could actually stretch well enough to get rid of the sleepy ache in my muscles. It was insane how you could do so little and yet feel so sore all at the same time.
"What time is it?" I asked, looking around for anything that could tell me the time.
"It's just before noon, exactly when I said I was going to wake you up. How did you sleep for so long? I thought you were just joking, I didn't realize you would need to actually catch up for the rest of your life. You can take the night shift when I just can't keep my eyes open anymore." Staton chuckled at his own comment, and obviously, he thought he was pretty funny.
"Yeah yeah, it's not my fault the back of the van is bumpy enough to rock me back to sleep any time I would possibly wake up."
"Oh so now you are blaming it on my precious van, for you being so lazy?" Staton faked hurt, holding his hand up to his chest as if I had stabbed him.
"Oh grow up," I mumbled. I was not ready to mess around, all I wanted to do was to go back to bed.
I took my seat in the passenger's chair, pulling the seatbelt over myself. The road was smooth, and a steady stream of cars passed us as Staton did his best to keep up with the speed limit.
My stomach growled, pulling me out of my trance. I unbuckled and grabbed a box of Cheeze-its before sitting back down and putting my seatbelt back on.
