14 Days

2

We had been on the road for six hours when Dad said the dreaded words, "We're lost."

I removed my headphones to listen to the catastrophe about to unfold.

Mom gaped at Dad's sheepish grin. "What do you mean we're lost? There's a GPS on your phone."

"Uh, I was using this actually—" He held up an atlas, which was not a good idea.

"You weren't using the GPS?!"

"I thought we agreed to sight see, I was avoiding the toll roads."

"There's an option on your phone to avoid toll roads."

"I know that, but it still didn't take us past anything we wanted to see, like here—" Dad waved to the small town we were currently meandering our way through. The thin streets were surprisingly crowded with cars parked on the edges. The speed limit was pretty damn slow. Being so far from home, Dad was obeying the law to the T.

"We wouldn't have come here if we listened to the GPS," Dad reiterated in hopes to save himself from Mom's growing wrath.

"He's right, Chelsea," said Aunt Zoey with a comforting smile. "Besides, it's lunch time. The boys are probably hungry. Let's stop somewhere to eat and we'll look over the GPS and the map."

Always the one with a plan. I guess I understood where Beau got his smarts from, but only that. The rest of him was shit. Dad's plan wasn't though, shit I mean, seeing as the scenic route from our southern corner of PA to Maine was much better than expected.

Typically PA scenery consisted of two things, depending on whether you were close to the Appalachian mountains or not. There was either an ocean of rolling hills or cow pastures for days. Scratch that, there were cow pastures for days either way. We even had one next to our high school. No one ever really got used to the smell.

In our case though, we were purposefully making detours through small towns that would have been booming back in the day. Stone and brick houses were huddled together. Shops sat side by side with old striped awnings and iron lamp posts stood tall. Trees lined the road, sitting in their own square cut outs from the sidewalks. Said sidewalks were thin, some made of red brick faded with age. Old shops, possibly even passed down from generation to generation, still ran while appearing to have the original moldings and signage. Some shops were discolored while others were likely refurbished. But the towns were actually fascinating, as if we were thrown into the past.

Uncle David spotted a family owned diner (or so the sign claimed) with iron patio furniture and wide glass windows revealing a dark brick interior and delicious looking pork sandwiches. After the van was parked, we found ourselves seated at a place called Marriner's Grill that smelled strongly of barbeque sauce and grilled meat. I was salivating the moment we got out of the van.

There was one seemingly not as starving as the rest of us though. My icy counterpart was MIA. The seat he once occupied was vacant. Aunt Zoey, as if she freakishly read my mind, called out, "Beau, don't go too far! We're going to order in a minute!"

"Ok!"

I took a chance to peek around Aunt Zoey, raising a confused brow at the sight of Beau kneeling down the street with a giant ass camera. I couldn't deny that it was odd to see the soft smile playing on his damn near permanently scowling lips. He normally had two settings; resting bitch face and actual bitch face. Right then though, he was neither.

Slowly, he observed the town through the lens, steady hands snapping pictures of the scenery. That shouldn't have been surprising though. He was in the yearbook club since middle school and was about to attend college to get a Bachelor of Arts with a focus in photography. Really had no idea what that all entailed, like, what the hell kind of classes would he have? Never asked since I was more focused on the "living in the dorms that were about 10 hours away" portion, y'know, the important bit.