Young Blood

Chapter Eighteen

  Ritchie and I spent a while driving, making small talk about little things as if we hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks. It had only been a day, not even, but it felt like years since he’d been here with me. I don’t know how I thought I was going to manage to be able to be on my own for that long. I missed him already, and it had only been about eighteen hours.

  When the car finally stopped, about forty-five minutes later, we were at a small shop on the side of the road. I didn’t recognize it, having barely traveled out of town. But Ritchie must have known it well because if he didn’t know what it was, no one in their right minds would stop there. It looked like a run-down shack that was in desperate need of a new paint job or remodeling.

  He parked in the parking lot, which was quite small even though there was only one other car in it. It must have been for whoever was working there at the moment. I was nervous so I took Ritchie’s hand, pulling away within seconds when I realized we were in public and couldn’t be affectionate. Ritchie still smiled.

  We walked inside and I discovered this was a lunch and breakfast place. It was so small and unnoticed, I highly doubted anyone ever visited. The man behind the counter practically jumped when the bell on the door rang when we walked in.

  “Hello, welcome to the Glass Onion. What would you like to order?”

  I paused, staring up at the overhead menu. “I’ll have a grilled cheese. Oh, and some fries.”

  “Anything to drink?”

  “Two cherry colas,” Ritchie butt in. How did he know I loved cherry cola? “And a second grilled cheese. We’ll split the fries.”

  As the man behind the counter went back to fulfill our orders, I couldn’t help but smile. Ritchie and I felt like a couple.

  We walked over to a booth and waited for our early lunches to be made. It was only around nine o’ clock, which was ridiculously early for a grilled cheese. But I had no memory of eating dinner last night, and I needed something solid to fill my appetite.

  After we ate our food, bonding over small talk, (The guy behind the counter could hear us, so we couldn’t talk about anything personal) we were off again to another unknown destination. I let Ritchie pick everything today because, well, he had the car. And even if I had the car I wouldn’t know where to go or what to do. I’d spend all my time worrying that my ideas of fun weren’t good enough for Ritchie.

  We drove for another twenty minutes and arrived at a narrow dirt road off of the main street. I got a little worried and clenched the edge of my seat tightly. There were towering trees overshadowing the path-of-a road we were driving on, which made it quite dark. For a few minutes as we drove down the long and winding road we stayed silent, the dark shadows creeping over Ritchie’s car almost doing all the talking for us. Ritchie turned up the radio and it filled in our silence, and I closed my eyes, resting against the seat. Soon the car came to a stop.

  When I opened my eyes, we were still in darkness. But this time we were parked in a still-dirt parking area, once again, the only car there. Ritchie got out of the car and helped me out of my side, taking my hand in his and walking with me without a word.

  Somehow I ended up asking “where are we going?” which seemed like an obvious question. For all I knew, Ritchie could be taking me to kill me and dump my body in a river. But I trusted him far too much to jump to such realistic conclusions. Wherever Ritchie was taking me must be the best, because we drove over an hour in total to it. And Ritchie always had good ideas of new things to try and places to go.

  He squeezed my hand tight and then let me through a narrow path in the woods between the trees. I grew more nervous as each second passed. Where was Ritchie taking me? It certainly wasn’t anywhere I’d been before. I absolutely hated the idea of going to an unknown destination, it freaked me out.