Road Trip [#Wattys2015]

Chapter 3

"Let's play twenty questions!" Jackson said from the driver's seat. Way to excited about his cliché suggestion.

"Fine." I said lazily "You go." And he thought about it for a second.

"Okay, I got it! I got it!" Still more excited than the occasion required. I take it was driver's seat adrenaline.

"Is it a person?" Question number one.

"Yes." He said.

"Is it blonde?" Question number two.

"Yeeees." He said, he looked like he was impressed.

"Is it me?" Question number three was kinda off, but Jackson always jokes about my blond-ness so I had to ask.

"No." He said but he still had that sneaky smile on his face.

"Is it my mom?" I was getting suspicious of who it was, but I didn't want to say her name. Not until I had named every other blonde person I knew.

"No..." his smile was getting sneakier and I was running out of blonde people. I definitely knew who it was. Sneaky bastard.

"It's Liz." I spitted out. Like her name didn't twist up my insides.

"That's correct!" He said laughing.

"You're enjoying this aren't you?" I said with colorless voice.

"Come on dude! Lighten up!" He said, but I could only get myself to smile halfway.

Liz Johnson was the "black widow" type of girl. One, because black widows murdered their husbands and two because, you know that fear you get when there's a spider in the room? That is exactly the kind of feeling this girl gave me. You're first girlfriend isn't supposed to be like that, I knew this from what the other guys were telling me not books and movies. Books and movies are the most unreliable source you can never trust them. So the other guys would always ask me: "Dude, are you shaking?" and the answer would always be: "Yes, yes I am."

I was shaking every time we talked n the phone. I was shaking every time I texted her, I was even shaking every time we were in the same room. I didn't feel warm with her, mostly because I had a crush on her before we even started talking. Which meant that every time I talked to her my brain would go "don't screw up, don't screw up, TOM JUST DON'T SCREW THIS UP!". So it's not my fault I couldn't concentrate, nobody can when a person is screaming at them. Even if that person is myself. One day I decided to suck it up and ask her out. And I did. And she said yes. And I was happy. And I went there -there being the movie cinema, feeling confident. For once my brain wasn't screaming at me, he was saying "good job, Tom. You got it! Oh, nice joke Tom. Going great." And I felt warm around her, for the first time.

Little did I know that warmness was just her trapping me in her web just so she could kill me later. So I go and tell her the next day,

"Hey Liz, when do you wanna go out again tomorrow?"

"Oh I can't tomorrow." She said looking uncomfortable.

"Okay how about Sund..."

"Yeah, I can't Sunday either. Sorry Tom, but this isn't gonna work out." And that's when I started shaking again.

"O-Okay..." I tried to sound cool. "Why?"

"Well, I hope you don't take this the wrong way but... I think you're kind of... "

"Well?"

"Boring."

And there you have it. The story that haunts me to this day. Me? Boring? I didn't have much self esteem and I could only count on one thing. I could actually speak. Unlike the other guys in my classroom I actually had opinions on things and I had facts to support them. Interesting facts! I was confident about one thing and that was the fact that I was NOT boring. I could always keep people talking, and thinking back to our date, there was not a moment we were not talking. Not one moment of awkward silence there's no way she was bored.

But then I actually thought back to our date, she wasn't talking I was. I guess I got a little too comfortable.

"We should pull up here, there's a coffee place." Jackson said and parked. We got out of the car to pee and get some liquid in our systems. We were a few steps away from entering the store when we heard a noise from the car and turned around immediately. The back of the car was elevating and in about three seconds we could see a hand lifting it up. And then a body coming out of it.

"Surprise!" Maia said joyfully and walked towards us. "Finally you stopped!" she turned to Jackson, who was staring at her frozen like a rock. "I thought my bones were gonna break back there what was that like an hour?" she took out her phone and tapped the screen open. "Yes exactly an hour since we stared, so are we going in or not I have to pee!"

"Maia..." said Jackson breathing through his nose, I could tell he was trying to calm his temper. "...you get a bus and go back home, immediately!"

"Oh, not this again." She rolled her eyes at him which only made him get angrier.

"Maia..." he kept repeating her name as if he was ashamed to know it. "...you had no right-"

"Oh, give her a break!" I cut him off. I didn't mind Maia; I actually thought she was fun.

"So now you're taking her side?" He said, breaking eye contact with his sister for the first time since she appeared.

"I'm not taking anyone's side, I'm just tired of hearing the same argument over and over! And no Maia had no right to sneak up on us like that but Jackson, you were a dick to her before and you should have let her come anyway. Now are we okay?"

They both looked down at their feet. "Yes" they both said one after the other. "Okay, now let's go in before we pee on ourselves."

I heard Maia giggle while we walked in but Jackson barely even smiled and I knew he was thinking of how to say this to his parents. Which reminded me, I hadn't texted my mom yet. I take my phone out of my pocket "Seventeen Missed Calls From: MOM" the screen read.