heart over brain

Part 3

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My cheek presses against something smooth. Leather seats, in the back of a car. An old one, by the looks of the beige and black interior, old but nicely taken care of. It even smells clean, the slightest touch of citrus tingles my nose. I munch, heave my head up and wipe the drool away.

I sit up to stare out the window of the car, watch the winter-dead trees and frozen fields and other cars pass on the highway. The new day is a lifeless grey with thick clouds hanging deep in the sky.

Then my gaze shifts to the driver of the car, the black jacket, the blond hair.

"Oh my God!" It all comes back to me in a heartbeat. I startle, glimpse around me, looking for an escape, but the car is driving, there is no way to go. Nausea and dizziness wash over me and I am damn close to passing out again.

"Good morning, sunshine," the guy, Max or whatever, says. He glimpses at me through the rear-view mirror with a look that is too close to amusement for my taste. The corners of his mouth twitch like he can barely hold back a grin.

He abducted me, and is amused about my fear of him? Is he on some kind of power trip?

"I am not going to hurt you," he says, looking back ahead at the street.

I shift my position in the backseat to bring as much space as possible between us in the limited room in the car. Pulling in my legs, I hug my arms around them.

"Do you need water? Food? There is a gas station coming up. We can stop and get you something," he says like it's a normal road trip and we are the oldest friends. 

I refuse to answer. Pout like a child.

"Does that happen often to you? The fainting?"

I blink tears away, the entire direness of my situation sinking in.

"Are you okay?"

I look out the window on my side of the car. I will not socialize with him, he is horrible, no matter how attractive.

"Your name is Hannah, right?"

When I still don't answer, an uncomfortable silence spreads in the car. There is no music, the radio is running, but he turned the volume down completely. Only the engine growls.

"I am not going to hurt you," Max says again. Softly. It sounds so honest I want to believe him. I want to think that he looks slightly awkward because he cares, not because he can't decide how exactly to hurt me. That the shimmer of concern in his eyes glimpsing at me through the mirror is real. 

It is not. I am a delusional, perverted weirdo that got herself in a terrible situation because she let her ovaries think instead of her brain.

"Why?" I say.

"Why what?"

"Why did you – why –" I can't even say it out loud. The whole thing is too impossible.

"Why did I break out of prison?" he says, the amused smile back on his lips. "Why would anyone not, given the chance?"

True. Maybe. For criminal minds, at least.

"Would you believe I am actually a cursed, magical creature and when I sensed my one true love close by, I just had to go find her?"

"Nice try." He must have seen the DVD collection back at my place.

"You'd love that though, wouldn't you."

"Yes. In movies." I am not crazy. Well, not that crazy. I know what is real and what isn't.

The exit comes up and Max leaves the highway. We are actually stopping at the gas station? That can't be real. If we stop, I can just run.

I wearily sit up straight.

"What is your favourite one?" Max says.

"What?"

"Movie."

"I – I don't –" I can't think. All my attention is on the car slowing down to a speed I could probably survive if I threw myself out. And on the run-down gas station ahead. Two gasoline pumps beneath a rusty shed roof and a container-like shop building with a dirty glass front, where people and trucks and cars are.

"Mine is Departed. Bit old, but still good. Sadly it's the kind you can only watch once." Max says.

As soon as the car rolls to a stop in the parking lot on the right side of the gas station I hang on the door, but it doesn't open. Max throws me an amused look over the shoulder, presses the button, and the locks click open. I practically fall out the car because I can't get away fast enough.

"Try not to hurt yourself," Max says.

I don't answer. I don't turn around again. I just run. 

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