The Road Trip

• Eight •

A graveyard was a very apt description, but it was the most offbeat and coolest thing I'd ever seen. Behind a working fiberglass shop sat an open field lined by trees and filled with fiberglass molds in ominous rows. You could tell which ones were reused often and which ones hadn't been touched in years. The overgrown grass and weeds gave it an eerie feeling, tickling our lower legs and growing into the sculptures like they were rooting them down to their final resting places. Some of them were broken or split down the middle, some were laying sideways, seemingly dead.

"Come see this one," Luke called down the row to me where I was staring at a huge rubber duck.

"It's the mold of Luke Finn," I said when I approached the devil head laying on its side.

Luke leaned down and pushed his face up against its enormous cheek. "Right! You could clone me."

"The world doesn't need more of you."

"I'm going to choose to take that as a compliment," Luke replied.

I'd meant it as a compliment but decided against confirming that to him. "Which one is me?"

"We already passed you."  Luke twirled around and pointed back to the mouse in the row of animals we'd just walked down.

"I remind you of a rodent?" I said in offense.

"You do, but in a good way."

"Are you backhand complimenting me?" I scowled.

"Hear me out—you're smart and self-reliant, independent, and you're small but will chew the shit out of someone."

"I don't know if I should be offended or not."

Luke's smile drew up on one side subtly. "You shouldn't."

Our eyes connected for too long. I could feel the milliseconds stretching. "Okay, then I won't," I finally said.

It looked like Luke's hand started to raise toward my arm before he seemed to decide against touching me. I would have missed it if I wouldn't have looked back at him. Why had he second guessed himself?

We slowly spread out again as we moved down the row, and Luke ended up on the other side before I did.

Luke stopped and stared at something for a while.

"Neat, huh?" he said when I reached him.

He'd been looking at an open clam shell. Flowers sprouted out from the cracks in yellows and purples. It didn't look intentional, but it was a strangely beautiful work of art.

And it looked exactly like a shell that I'd sat on with my mom in the last photo I ever took with her at the aquarium. I turned away so Luke couldn't see my face.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Luke said, grabbing my hand.

I resisted spinning around and tried to wipe the tears that had started falling.

"Reese?" he said hesitantly and pulled me against his chest.

My wet nose made contact with his shirt. "I'm getting snot on you," I laughed through my tears.

"I hate this shirt."

I looked at the cream henley he was wearing. "Don't lie."

"I'm not lying. Natalie gave it to me."

I rubbed my face into the fabric covering Luke's front. "Now you can throw it away."

He laughed and pushed me back to arm's length. "I needed an excuse, so thank you."

"What happened with you two?" I asked before hurrying behind with, "Sorry, I don't know why I asked you that."

"Uh," Luke stammered, slipping his hands into his pockets. "You know... I studied too much. I didn't have time for her. I let school consume my life."