Drive

Starts in Pete's POV, and switches to Ryan's.

“Do you have everything?”

            “Did you remember the money?”

            “You packed underwear, right?”

            We were all flustered, standing around Rob’s van, trying to get guitars, amps, cables, suitcases- all that good stuff- to fit inside. The official road trippers were me, Ryan, Madison, Rob, Matt, Ron, Benny, Kalin, and Kalin’s friend Dan. Obviously, we couldn’t fit everyone in the van, so three people (Dan, Benny and Ron) would be following behind the beast in Kalin’s old Mazda.

            “I’m excited,” I faked a smile, pushing Ryan against the side of the van and wrapped my arms around his waist. He cautiously draped his arms over my shoulders and squeezed me slightly. I looked up at him, wrinkling my eyebrows.

            “Everything okay?” I asked.

            “Yeah,” he wasn’t looking at me. I turned my head to see Rob struggling to force a cooler underneath the passengers seat with his foot and watching Ryan and I with fire in his eyes. I looked back at Ryan.

            “He’s tweaking out. I’m a little worried- earlier he said he wanted to hang himself with a noose made from linked sausages,” Ryan explained.

            “Ah,” I said, relaxing. I kissed him on his neck underneath his ear. He smiled and kissed my cheek.

            “Hey! We’re not going to Neverland you know!” Rob shouted in our direction.

            “Wow, he really is fucked up. Maybe I should drive?” I suggested. Ryan continued to make a strange- almost frustrated- expression at Rob.

            “Yeah, I think you should,” he said. Suddenly, some obscure dubstep music came blaring out of the vans stereo. Shortly after, Madison joined Ryan and I standing beside the van.

            “The clouds look wonderful today,” she said, spinning around slowly. She had a floral print black and pink onsie on with cut-off jean shorts over it.

            “I would agree, Mad, but there’s no clouds in the sky today,” Ryan said, chuckling.

            “Oh,” Madison muttered, looking disappointed. “Well, they did look pretty. Like dragons… and cocaine…” she laughed. Ryan tensed up next to me at the mention of the last word. He started biting his fingernails and searching for his cigarettes.

            “You okay?” I asked, lending him one of my own.

            “Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied, lighting up. That was my first warning sign. I should have held some sort of intervention then and there…but I brushed it off like it was nothing. I didn’t want to worry about anything just then.

            “ALL ABOARD!” Rob bellowed. I convinced Rob to let me drive- actually I asked him if I could drive for a while, to which he responded “Yes, Peter. Just follow the North Star all the way there. Tinker Bell might be able to help you out, but then again…” he lowered his amused voice to a whisper, “Tinker Bell has some pixie dust to take care of, if you know what I mean,” we both looked at Ryan who was finishing his cigarette and climbing into the van. Rob laughed hysterically and handed me the keys.

            “Right,” I said, annoyed.

            Matt sat next to me in the passenger’s seat triumphantly. He was just happy that his parents let him come in the first place, but they figured his older brother would look after him. They never would have guessed that it ought to be the other way around.

            “Everyone ready?” I yelled. They all shouted back some form of yes. I pulled out of Ryan’s driveway and started for the highway.  A worried expression suddenly washed over Matt’s face.

            “F**k, okay. Everything’s gonna be okay,” he said to himself.

            “What’s the matter?” I asked.

            “Well, we have so many drugs in this van right now, if we got pulled over… we would all go straight to jail.” Matt explained. My eyes widened with realization.

            “Oh,” was all I managed to choke out. I white-knuckled the steering wheel.

            “Mhm,” Matt muttered. We were the only ones who seemed to be worried though- Madison cranked up her iPod and everyone in the back was just having a party.

            Kalin started talking about how corrupt the government was, and Madison lit up a joint like it was nothing. Ryan took a hit and put the joint between Rob’s lips. He pulled his hand away quickly after his finger brushed Rob’s face, and he ran his hand through his hair. Rob’s eyes remained glued to Ryan’s face for a while before he said, “Sometimes, you look like that fucked up Scissorhands kid from that one movie,”

            “Edward Scissorhands?” Kalin said, “You totally do,”

            “Thanks guys,” Ryan said sarcastically.

            “No, like, in a really good way,” Rob said. His expression was blank. I feared he was turning into a vegetable before my very eyes, his brain rotting and dying from all the abuse it had taken.

            After about an hours worth of driving filled mostly with visits to various gas stations and fast food restaurants, we were about one fourth of the way there.

            “I want to go to the hotel now,” Madison whined. It was only about 4:30, but it was sort of a unanimous decision. I turned onto an exit. I stopped at a Motel 8 and got out, greeting the three guys in the separate car that parked shortly after.

            Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ryan whisper in Rob’s ear. They seemed to proceed to have a silent conversation with their eyes before following the rest of the group into the motel. Ryan walked up behind me and brushed my fingers with his, like he wanted to hold my hand, but changed his mind. I was a bit worried.

 

Ryan’s POV:

            The world was slowly turning into a fuzzy black abyss. I felt like I had dropped my brain on the beach where the waves were washing over it, pulling it further and further into the ocean every time the tide came in.

            “Meet me in the hallway in an hour,” I whispered in Rob’s ear when we crawled out of the van. He looked deeply into my eyes for a few seconds before I turned away and walked up behind Pete. My first instinct was to hold his hand, but then I remember that Rob was standing right behind us. It was getting harder to stay in that mindset.

            As Pete led me to our room through the chlorine-scented halls, my head fell to look at the floor. I was convinced my head was about to fall off, but I couldn’t feel it at all at the same time. I snorted with laughter. Pete slid the room key in the door and opened it. I followed him inside, still looking at my shoes.

            “You gonna be okay?” he asked me quietly. He wouldn’t look at me. Why wouldn’t he look at me?

            “Yes… um… what…” I fell face first onto the bed. It felt good to be lying down. When I turned onto my back, my head felt better. I blinked a few times. Pete’s face came into focus a little better.

            “I’m okay,” I said. He just stood there, looking at my pathetic, worthless body. His eyes held pity. He felt sorry for me.

            “I don’t need anyone to hold me or f*****g tell me that everything will f*****g be alright,” I snapped.

            “Why would you? I didn’t think anything was wrong,” Pete answered, his voice small. He still wouldn’t look at me.

            We were both so wrong in both of our statements. I think a tear slid down my face, but it’s possible that I was just imagining it. The dizziness was wearing off, and the darkness was coming back. The darkness that I could never seem to avoid- the one that only Madison knew about. The one that I tried to fill with drugs, mask it with a happy façade, cover it up by surrounding myself with people, feed it with sex and other people’s love that I was so disgustingly undeserving of. Pete was like some sort of long-term Bandaid or a couple of stitches that kept the darkness from consuming me. His very existence and the role he played in my life was just a perpetual “You’ll get through this, you’ll be okay,” for me… and I was throwing it away. I was destroying it, just like I did before. Just like junior year… Just like him…

            “What happened?” Pete asked quietly. He had sat down on the end of the bed now.

            “Lots of s**t,” I said. After a while, I got up. “I need to go… breathe,” I said, heading towards the door.

            Pete remained silent.

            “Bye,” I said, shutting the door behind me.

            Rob was waiting for me outside my door when I walked into the hallway. He was leaned up against the wall, and looked up at me from the floor. His hair parted as he looked up, like a curtain opening to reveal his shining blue eyes.

            I greeted him with a kiss.