Nowhere In Particular // H.S.

Four: Hank to Hendrix

This bus, while new, doesn't look much different than the last. I'm sitting almost in the same exact position as the one before, a window seat toward the middle. The only thing that's different is that Harry has been next to me the entire time since we first walked on. The smell and shakiness of the bus, that almost made me sick the first time, isn't nearly as overbearing. Even if it is to the same level as the bus before I don't seem to notice, too distracted by Harry and the way his hands move as he speaks and the smile that rarely leaves his face.

I wasn't even sure if we would end up on the same bus together. We might be heading in the same direction if I stay true to my thoughts of seeing the Atlantic ocean but I wasn't sure if we would stick together through this or not. I didn't have any plans sitting in that bus station with him eating strawberry pop tarts, I wasn't really sure what my next move was going to be. I'd be lying if I said I didn't follow him toward the next bus, curious to which one he'd be taking.

He didn't seem to mind though, smiling when he turned to see me following his steps.

A piece of plastic is now in his hands, a laminated piece of plastic that cost nearly three days of work and is filled with lies.

I watch him turn it over one way, then the other, then bring it closer to his eyes, examining the plastic thoroughly. I watch him as he tries to find some sort of flaw within that piece of plastic, not succeeding.

"Shit," he mumbles with it close to his scrunched eyes. "This is so much better than mine."

I laugh at his impressed reaction, leaning over the arm rest between us and quickly grabbing my fake ID out his hand. At first I felt slightly ashamed to even admit that I had one. I felt like Harry would scold me like my mom would if she saw it, but when he kindly demanded to see it I didn't hesitate to pull it out of my wallet.

According to this fake ID my name is Jane Sky, I'm twenty three, living in a fancy apartment in Portland by the river and have an extremely awkward smile... the photographer gave me the creeps.

I have no clue how Laurel even found the place to begin with, but she insisted that they made the best fake ID's out there and if we were going to get them that this was place to do it. In reality it is an extremely well made fake. I think it'd be hard to tell the difference between this and the real thing, the picture of me on it is even convincing that I'm older than I truly am especially considering it was taken a few years ago.

Laurel has always been good at convincing me to do things that I would never do on my own. She doesn't even do it in a way that you could classify as peer pressure. She's just good at twisting a situation and making it impossible for me to turn it down. So her well thought out arguments of only being young once and the lip pout that I can't say no to, convinced me and my frugal ways to buy an extremely expensive, high quality, fake ID.

We didn't even get them to buy alcohol like most teenagers do at the time. At least that wasn't the original intention. There was a show for a local band at one of the bars downtown and Laurel had a massive crush on the lead singer, insisting that we couldn't miss one of her only opportunities to make an impression. I liked their music enough and I rarely turn down an opportunity of going to a concert so I ended up standing in a cold shed in the outskirts of the city, handing over way too much money so a mustached man could create a piece of plastic filled with lies.

The concert and Laurel's attempts to seduce the long haired, leather pant wearing pretend rock star turned out to be a bust. It seemed promising when he asked her back stage, me tagging along, being the third wheel in the hopeful evening. But after he convinced her into drinking a few too many beers on the disgusting couch in the dressing room and tried to stick his hand down her pants one too many times while she sighed out uncomfortably pushing it away, I had enough. So I saved my best friend, something I had to do a few too many times over the years and hit the asshole over the head with the plastic vase full of flowers that sat on the coffee table. Then I dragged Laurel out by the hand, her slurring out a thank you to me between hiccups.