Caraphernelia

3 - day one

Still Saturday

Five days of driving.

Four nights.

45 hours.

Almost 3,000 miles.

All for somebody who might not even be on the other side.

Yet we go anyway.

➳ ➳ ➳

I haul my third and last bag into the back of Matteo's van at noon.

"Why the hell do you have so many bags?" Matteo asks, heaving his second duffel bag into the trunk beside mine.

"'Cause I don't want to starve or freeze to death on this trip." I snap. I can see his point, though. The trunk of his van is full of our five bags, blankets, pillows, and grocery bags full of junk food and a small cooler stocked with water. I even brought along a stack of CDs in case we reach a no-man's-land where the signal is lost.

"It's not like we're not going to stop anywhere." He retorts back.

"It's not like you don't have the room in your car." Matteo has a ridiculously large van, with the two front seats, and then two more sets of seats after that - both of which fold down to make extra room - and then the whole closed trunk. "I don't see why you need such a big car just for yourself."

He just rolls his eyes and asks me how much money I have.

"Oh! That reminds me!" I exclaim, spinning on my heel to go back into my house. I emerge again with a wad of cash in hand. "This is about. . . eh, 500 dollars?"

Matteo's eyes widen and he takes the stack from me, flipping through it. "Dude, where the actual hell did you get this much money?"

"Cara has a safe in her closet."

His gaze snaps back up to meet mine, incredulous. "What?" I say. "We're going on this crazy trip for her, right? She can pay for it."

Matteo just flashes me a crooked smile, shaking his head, and orders me to start driving.

➳ ➳ ➳

We stay silent for most of the drive, music filling the empty, quiet air between us.

The current song fades to an end and suddenly the beat of drums and electric guitar shakes the air and a high-pitched voice slices through the silence, "Sunshine, there ain't a thing that you can do that's gonna ruin my night."

"Shit!" Matteo scrambles for his phone and pauses the song with trembling fingers. "Sorry, I forgot it's connected to my phone so it's playing my music library. I'll change it."

"No no, wait. It's fine. Leave it." I say. He obliges, clicking the song back on.

After a moment, I speak up again. "Actually, I really like this. What is it?"

"Uh, it's called Caraphernelia by Pierce the Veil."

"Cara-fer-what now?" I choke on the words. "What the fuck kind of name is that?"

The corner of Matteo's lip ever so slightly turns up into a smile, his eyes laughing at me. It's quite different than when he's screaming at you early in the morning and pushing you out of bed, that being with his gray eyes hard and his mouth set into a firm smirk.

"Caraphernelia." He repeats. "It's when someone leaves you but when someone leaves all their stuff behind with you."

I just scoff at the irony.

➳ ➳ ➳

Matteo turns the bag of chips in his hands towards me, a silent offering. I take one and stuff in my mouth.

"It's getting dark. If we want to get a hotel we need to get one now. We'll be lucky if any have vacancies." Matteo informs me, taking the chips back while scrolling through his phone.

I nod. We're somewhere just in Kentucky by now. Driving for hours at a time in silence isn't too bad to me. When I was little and my parents took me somewhere, they would sit up front and keep to themselves, leaving me in the back by myself to gaze out the window and watch as the world blurs by. And whenever Cara and I drive she stays on her phone the entire time, earbuds in, and forgets I'm even there. But it's okay, I'm used to it - it's better than being completely alone so I take what I get.

"There's one!" Matteo points to an old-looking building, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I pull into the small parking lot and bring the van to a halt. The building isn't even really a hotel - it's too small. The words Elk Drive Inn are painted in faded red, the paint curling from age, and an Open sign flickers beside the door.

"Let's go," Matteo flashes me a grin, his lip ring catching the light as he twists and hops out of the vehicle. I roll my eyes and follow him.

The bell on the door chimes as the door itself creaks open. A young woman with black hair, dark skin, and circular glasses looks up from the magazine she's flipping through and her face lights up.

"Hi! Welcome to Elk Drive Inn. How can I help you?" Her voice is loud and high, her smile bright as she sets down the magazine.

Matteo instantly shoves me forward, cueing me to speak so he doesn't have to. I shoot him a glare before turning and plastering a smile on my face as well. "Hi! Uh, we just need a room for tonight, please."

"Do you have a reservation, or?"

"Um, no, we're just walk-ins."

"Well, let me see if we have any vacancies. . ." The lady turns her attention to her desktop, the screen illuminating her features a light blue. She purses her lips as her fingers fly across the keyboard.

"Oh! Here we go. Room 6B." Then her brows furrow, "Oh, it's a couple's suite. Well, I guess you two won't mind that!" She chirps, glancing back at us with some sort of adoration on her face.

I feel my face heat up when it dawns on me what she's thinking. "Oh, oh no, we're not--" I stammer.

"We'll take it." I hear Matteo say from behind me, and he strides up to take the room key from the receptionist, who just smiles. Matteo sees my flustered expression and just smirks at me, my eyes shooting daggers as he gently takes my arm and leads me to our room.

➳ ➳ ➳

"There's only one bed." I gape when I see the room. It's horribly small, with a tiny bathroom and a queen sized bed with red-wine colored covers and wooden nightstands on either side.

"It's a couple's suite, dumbass," Matteo says when he walks in with his bags, dropping them on the floor.

"Still. That means one of us has to sleep on the floor." He scowls at me and I put up my hands in surrender. "Joking!"

Later that night, Matteo's all buried under the covers, already asleep, when I finally climb into bed beside him. Both on our respective sides, we're as far away as possible without one of us falling off.

Nostalgia courses through me and I realize this is just how Cara is at home. It's almost like she's not there, but she is so I'm okay with it.

With my back to Matteo, I suddenly feel the warmth of another body against mine and find his arm snake its way around my waist. I nearly gasp at the contact, but then I hear the soft, steady puffs of breath coming from Matteo and the feel of the heart in his chest beating against me so I settle down and enjoy the company of warmth that Cara never gave me.