Transversals

V. "Don't Pressure and Drive"

"Oh my god."

"Nice to see you too," Ben responded. He uncrossed his arms and leaned back, casually nodding behind him at the exit. "Turn left out of this place when you get there."

I didn't move a muscle. "What the hell is this."

He rolled his eyes and sprawled out over the backseat, back against the car door and feet kicked up onto the adjacent seats. Taking a pack of gum from his gray hoodie pocket and shaking a stick out like a cigarette, he said, "I'm simply someone trying to help. Harley, if there's one thing you need to know about me, it's that I like helping others."

"D-don't say my name," I nervously spewed out, tensing up and pressing harder against the car door. It felt like my lungs were being flattened into sheets with every shallow breath I took, every familiar detail I observed. Pale-ish skin. Dark, casual attire. Blue converse. Longer hair, harshly rosy cheeks. And some slate, navy wings protruding ever so slightly from his back.

"I really haven't got all day," he said, sticking the gum in his mouth and crushing the wrapper up in a fist. "She can't be kept waiting too long."

"She?" I asked in a high voice. "There's someone  we're—"

"Are you going to drive or not?" he impatiently questioned, narrowing his eyes and flinging the wrapper on my car floor. He sat back up and leaned over the center console, in a too-close proximity to me. "Or do I have to force you?"

"Okay! Okay, I'll, I'll drive," I said, slowly relaxing into the driver's seat as he relaxed into his. I set a hand on the wheel and the other on the shift, checking the rear view mirror and finding no one in the reflection. Immediately I exhaled and closed my eyes. I was just seeing things again.

"I don't show up in mirrors," Ben droned. "Sorry to rain on that parade."

My eyes shot open and I pursed my lips, knowing I couldn't fool myself any longer with him. Just do what he says, do it and figure out whatever's happening, Harley.

Pulling out and getting into the line of cars, Ben hummed from the back. I habitually kept checking my rear view mirror, but he really didn't show up for whatever reason. And then I'd turn around for a split second to check he'd be there, two, three, four times, until he hopped out of his seat and over into the passenger's seat beside me, shoving my bookbag and coat onto the floor. I stared at him and the wings, and turned back to the road with white knuckles around the wheel. "Okay," I told myself. "It's okay."

"My god, you're annoying," he sighed exasperatedly, leaning the chair back and putting his hands behind his head as we pulled left out of the school. "Alternate universes exist. There's millions of other sixteen-year-old guys physically identical to me out there, as are there millions of yous and millions of your bestest little friends. Your dimension is a blade of grass in the field of existence. And turn left here again."

"Back into the school?" I asked, putting on my signal and waiting for the lane to clear nonetheless. He didn't say anything as I turned and crawled to nowhere, not really sure what I was doing in the east parking lot where parents picked up their kids from high school.

"Yep. Just get in the line of people," he said, pointing ahead and then leaning back again. "She'll find us."

I followed the order, heart still pounding. Within seconds after coming to a stop in the line, a doe-eyed girl in a gray peacoat bounced over to my car and knocked on the window. Ben got out and let her in, cold air making the hairs on my arms stand on end. When he closed the door, the goosebumps didn't go away.

"Harley, Lana. Lana, Harley," Ben said for a quick introduction, mumbling the next directions. "You can drive towards your home now."

"Hello Harley," the girl from before, presumably named Lana, breathed out. She took off her peacoat and stretched salt & pepper wings with a sigh as I turned left once more and traveled down the quiet road. "Oh, I miss flying. It's nice we can stretch them out more casually here though."