What Is and What Should Never Be

Tougue-Tied? No, Hog-Tied.

When Harry met Mason, he didn't think he would end up with his wrists tied behind his back, laying flat on his stomach in a truck. Much less- in fucking New Mexico.

He was supposed to be in California two days ago, and although he didn't have his phone anymore (it was at the bottom of a lake in Arizona), he was sure that before it met its fate, it had about two hundred missed calls from his worried parents. That was only twelve hours ago, and Harry was so over being rebellious.

A huff of air sounded from beside him and if his eyes weren't covered with a sweaty bandana, he knew he would've seen Mason blowing a puff of air out from her pouted lips and seen her shake a pink strand of hair out from her face. His head still turned in her direction, blindly.

"You good?" A raspy, hushed voice whispered from his left. A scowl appeared on his lips.

"Oh, yeah, Mason- I'm just bloody wonderful. Hog-tied in the back of a pickup truck on Route 66 is my idea of a 'fun night out'. How are you doing?"

"You two shut up back there!" A voice boomed from the front seat. Harry flinched against the noise of it, sighing softly and shutting his eyes behind the bandana. He was going to die, and he just wanted it to be quick.

"We'll be fine, Harry," Mason replied in an even softer tone. He could hear her lick her lips. "Trust me. Also- we're not technically hog-tied. That would require our feet to be tied to our hands, but ours aren't. Wait-are yours?"

"Trust you?" He whispered quietly in response, completely ignoring her crumb of wisdom regarding bondage, "why on Earth should I continue to trust you?"

"Because," he could hear the sly grin in her voice, "I've got a plan."

Harry didn't even respond- he just violently dropped his head against the floor of the trunk and exhaled in exasperation. He didn't like Mason's plans. That's what got him in this mess in the first place- and goddammit- he did not like her plans. He didn't trust her, and if he got out of this alive- he vowed he would never see Mason again. Her pink hair was cliche, her tattoos were all stupid and meaningless, and her eyes weren't even that blue. They were grey. I mean, when the sun was setting and she would look at the horizon, they would almost look green- but they weren't blue. And he most definitely never wanted to see them again.

Harry began to think about the blue waters that lay behind his house in sunny Calabasas. He thought about the way the light of the sun caught the crests of the waves in midday, and he sighed again. He thought about his parent's stiff smiles and his sister's boyfriend's dumb boat shoes and valley-accent. He thought about spending his summer laying in his bed, alone.  He would quietly scroll through his phone until dinner time came around, where he'd eat silently before retreating to the beach to watch the sunset. He thought about how, if he hadn't gotten off that train in Colorado and followed the girl with pink hair, he'd be doing that right now. Alone.

And then he thought about how if maybe, he did make it out of this situation alive, it would be a fantastic story to tell one day. Yeah- maybe his parents will be furious, and maybe he'll need a little time to recover- but perhaps, ten years from now, he'll be sitting in a bar in New York City telling a nice, normal girl the story of how he was kidnapped in Arizona with a strange girl named Mason. The girl would laugh as she sipped her wine and her eyes would shine with interest before he'd take her back to his high-rise apartment and fuck her until she fell in love with him. And it would all be okay

And so, maybe one day, he would find himself thanking the girl that laid to his left. Perhaps it would just end up being something he looked back upon with a fond sort of nostalgia and he'd be able to smile. Maybe this girl was simply just playing a cruel trick on him, and one of her many wandering-friends was just fucking with him. Maybe it was all some sort of huge misunderstanding and the driver of the truck would see their faces and realize he snatched up the wrong people. Then, he would give them a ride back to the train station and let him call his family and be on his merry way. He didn't think he could take anymore 'adventures', as Mason so thoughtfully put it.

He flinched when he felt the car roll to a stop and sucked in a shaky breath when he heard nothing when the engine stopped. He knew, in that moment, that he was most definitely in the middle of nowhere. And suddenly all of those high hopes Harry had spent the past twenty minutes thinking up in his head had completely gone out the window. Yeah, he definitely wasn't going to make it out of this alive.

The car door slammed shut as the mystery driver stepped out and Mason immediately nudged Harry's ribs with a sharp elbow.

"Follow my lead," she ordered, and he could hear her shifting to sit up.

"Woah- wait- what? What do I do? What are you doing?"

"Follow my fucking lead, nerd!" She growler in response.

The click of the trunk door sounded and Harry felt a gentle gust of wind graze against his sweaty skin.