A Million Miles Away

Chapter 2

"No. Put it in neutral, then we push. Got it?" Alyssa said.

Josh eventually complied and allowed her to steer the car as he and Henry pushed from the back. They were still on the dirt road, but they saw signs of life after about two hours of pushing. They came to a four-way intersection with a stop sign on either side. Still, there wasn't much in sight.

"Okay! Stop for a second!" Alyssa commanded. Josh and Henry gladly stopped pushing and leaned against the car as a thin layer of sweat poured down their faces and onto their clothes.

"Which way you wanna go?" She asked.

Josh ripped himself from the back of the car to look in all directions. None of them looked more appealing. They go right, get picked up by some hillbillies and then are murdered. They go left and Josh's dad finds them on a highway somewhere. They go straight and have to push until their bodies give out and are never found. Josh imagines the missing posters for three teenagers. He thinks about his high school and who they would care more about. Probably himself since his dad gives so much money to the school and since Josh is the captain of the football team. "What a bunch of phonies," he thinks.

"Josh?" Alyssa breaks his divided concentration.

"Right? I don't know."

"Why don't we just ask someone?" Henry said. He'd grown frustrated with the whole endeavor. All he wanted to do was find a payphone and call his folks to come pick him up. He wasn't sure if he'd tell them exactly how he got there, but he also lacked the energy to find a plausible excuse.

Alyssa turned around and looked left. Then right. Then back at Henry. Josh found it kinda funny and he smiled. "Who exactly?" She said.

Henry didn't want to argue. He didn't have the strength within him to counter Alyssa this time. But he swore that next time they were in class together he'd shut down every silly anti-societal comment that she blurted out.

"Let's go right," Josh finally said. "It looks like a main road so it might lead us to something. I mean, how else are these people gonna get gas?"

It wasn't the stupidest comment Josh had ever said out loud and he did have a bit of a point. At some point, they'd have to hit something. She nodded and turned back to the front of the car, placing her hand on the steering wheel.

"You ladies ready?" She said.

Normally Henry would take offense to a comment like that but honestly he wondered if he was less manly than Alyssa Shafer in some regard. He imagined her braided armpit hair and felt his gag reflex ready to work. He winced, then placed his arms against the trunk of the car. They continued to push.

They reached the parking lot of a small gas station resting on the "main" road of whatever town they were in. It's charming features reminded them of the picturesque 1950s where there might be a black lab baking in the sun and an old guy in a metal chair with an open glass of Coca-Cola in a painting or something. Those thing were not present, but the building and the pumps were ancient.

Alyssa steered the Mercedes next to a pump and Josh and Henry stopped pushing as the car aligned with it. Josh sang "Hold Me Now" by the Thompson Twins to himself. He thought his volume was low enough that Henry couldn't hear him but...

"Really? That song?" Henry said.

"What?" Josh looked at him like he'd just been confronted about something he did wrong.

"That song. You like that song?"

"What song?"

"The song you were just singing."