take on me, e.williams

eight

—close
to me—

———odessa sat on the hood of an old abandoned vehicle, wrapping her baseball bat in the barbed wire she found at bill and franks. ellie was inside doing god knows what, and joel was collecting gas from the other cars. it was about early september, and the breeze was just right. the sound of the gas station doors opening alerted odessa that ellie would be coming over to her. ellie looked down at joel.

                "we have to do this every hour?" ellie complained lightly, leaning against the hood of the car odessa was sitting on.

                  "gas breaks down over time. this stuff's almost water. back in the day, we'd drive ten to twelve hours all on one tank. you could go anywhere." joel told them, hooking the pump up to a small car.

                   "where did you go?" ellie asked him.

                    "pretty much nowhere." joel scoffed and blew into the pump.

                   "you know what would be a fun place to visit? colorado." odessa said aloud. i've heard the mountains are literally so fucking cool." she added, looking down at her wrapped baseball bat. ellie let out an airy laugh.

                       "you gonna bash some heads in with that?" ellie gestured to the bat, odessa laughed.

                         "i don't know. if you annoy me enough maybe it'll be you." odessa teased, ellie gasping in fake hurt. the yellow liquid began pumping in the tube and into the gas container. "how exactly does that work, joel?" odessa stopped wrapping her bat to look at him.

                      "it's a siphon. it's when liquid... travels against gravity—because pressure—"

                      "you have no idea, do you?" ellie raised an eyebrow down at joel.

                       " i know it works." joel said back, leaving ellie and odessa to laugh. ellie took off her back pack and rested it on the hood of a car, pulling out a book.

"it doesn't matter how much you push the envelope," ellie started to read. by the look on joel's face, odessa could tell he was about to hold back laughter. "it'll still be stationary." ellie finished, giggling. odessa scoffed.

"el, there's gotta be a million other jokes in that book, and you pick the lamest one." odessa teased ellie who turned around to face her now.

"what did the mermaid where to math class?" ellie asked odessa now.

"an algae-bra." odessa deadpanned, watching ellie's jaw drop. "that one is overused." she shrugged.

"jesus." joel muttered at them.

"i stayed up all night—"

"no." joel shook his head and stood up with the gas tank in hand.

"wondering where the sun went... and then it dawned on me." ellie said triumphantly as she watched odessa look down to suppress a smile.