Rest Stop

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They camped out in a dark corner of a rest stop. Osheen sat on the grass, pulling apart oreo cookies slowly, scraping them clean with his teeth. In between cookies, he wrote in the back of a yellow notebook in small, cramped handwriting. Finn stretched out in the back of the station wagon, the seats pushed down flat. Standing well over six feet, his feet were forced to hang out the open back.

"You still out there?" Finn called quietly.

"Still here," Osheen called, moving around the car to sit on the back of the open car underneath the shelter of the open back door.

"Don't you get sick of those?"

"Can't," Osheen said, moving onto the last row in the package. "They're the one thing that tastes even close to..." he trailed off.

Fionn looked up, eyebrows raised. "Not even doritos?"

Osheen rubbed his nose on his sleeve. "They're good, but no."

"Hm."

Osheen watched the sky, the clouds muddy orange from the dim parking lot lights.

"Would have thought there'd be the same amount of stars here, y'know?"

"Hm?"

"Even if there were no clouds tonight, there's no stars."

"Mm." Finn laid his head down, flattening his back.

"You don't care?"

"I do," Finn said, closing his eyes. "But of all the things that are gone now, is this even the biggest one?"

Osheen looked back up at the sky. "Yes." he said definitively. "The stars were always the same there, even the same as home."

Finn grunted. Osheen chewed his oreo slowly. He closed his eyes, leaning on the side of the car. He waited until Finn's heavy breathing turned to light snoring, which turned heavy enough to rattle windows.

"I know you don't like it when I talk about it," Osheen said aloud. "But I never got a chance to tell you about it." he licked the last of the creme off his cookie half heartedly. "G'night, dad." he said, pushing Finn's feet inside the car and closing the door. 

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