No Turning Back

Roller Coaster

"Do you have any other stations except country on this god damn radio," Jayden asked as he fiddled with the stereo in my car. He was sitting in the passenger seat wearing a fitted tee, worn jeans and sneakers. A pair of sunglasses was perched on top of his head in which he had been occasionally pulling them down to cover his eyes. We were taking a road trip down to my parents' old lake house where our family used to vacation at when I was younger. My aunt Tammy didn't really mind me going out there with Jayden by ourselves but it took a whole lot of convincing for his uncle to be okay with it. After Jayden's little suicide attempt, he had tightened the leash a lot on his nephew. He cut down my boyfriend's hours and confiscated anything sharp or deadly in the house. He also gave Jayden somewhat of a curfew even if he was only out with me. He wanted to make sure that he knew where Jayden was and when as well as that he was safe. It was a normal precaution although it annoyed the living hell out of Jayden. However, after a week or so, we got his uncle to agree. The older man did like me and trusted that I wouldn't let anything happen to his nephew. So, now we were driving down the road to spend a week at my lake house.

I was excited about the trip more because I got to spend the week alone with Jayden rather than because I got to go to my old favorite place after all these years. At first, Ashley and her boyfriend were going to go with us but they opted out since her boyfriend had a beach house of his own that he wanted to take her to. I will admit that although my big brother traits felt a bit iffy about letting her stay alone with her boyfriend for a couple weeks, I was happy that I got to have Jayden all to myself. The summer was flying by now that we were hanging out again. This week was actually the last week I had free before I had to pack and be on my way to Stanford. Jayden was going off to boot camp the day after I leave for college so in a way, this was kind of our last week together. I mean, sure hopefully we'd see each other on holidays – if Jayden was home – but it was more than likely that we would tie up all loose ends while we were here. Only God knew if we'd ever get the chance to if we didn't do it during this week.

"If I hear one more god damn Carrie Underwood or Brad Paisley song then I am going to scream," Jayden muttered as he left the radio on. I chuckled, glancing at him as he threw his head back against the seat. "Are we almost there?"

"Yea. Relax; you don't have that much longer of my country music to deal with."

"Why don't you sing something for me? Make it more interesting."

"I can't sing."

"Too damn bad. Entertain me."

I chuckled. "Alright but if I scar you then just remember that you asked for it."

"Yea, yea." I glanced at him again to see that he was staring at me, waiting for me to start singing as a new song began to blast from the radio. It happened to be "Roller Coaster" by Luke Bryan, a song that I knew and loved. This should be fun...

"And we spent that week wide open

Upside down beside the ocean

I didn't know where it was goin'

Just tryin' to keep my heart on the tracks," I started, glancing at Jayden again to see that a small smile was beginning to form on his lips. I continued singing, letting myself get comfortable. By the second verse, I was singing the lyrics loudly and proudly with a smile on my face. I heard Jayden chuckling at me as I sang. My hands beat softly on my steering wheel to the beat as the ending of the bridge came along. "And I should've known that kind of feelin'

Would last longer than that week did

Blown away and barely breathin'

When Sunday came and it was over