8.

Trade.

“Ah, s**t!” I hear as I jerk awake, my bruised forehead bumping against the cool glass of the window.

I look groggily over to my left to see Gus, hands white-knuckled around the wheels, his eyes bugging out of his sockets as he strains to stay awake. I yawn and stretch as he hits another bump. We are finally reaching the mountains.

The little rises and falls in the land that we had passed through earlier that day had just been mere foothills. This is the serious stuff.

“What time is it?” I ask Gus as he drives on, slowly weaving his way up the steep grade. He looks terrified

“Only eight forty-eight. I don’t know why I’m so beat,” he replies, determined to make it to the top of the mount, whether it kills us or not.

I glance at the clock. 8:49, like Gus said. But that isn’t right. It was 8:53 when I had fallen asleep. I shake my head, my wits coming to me.

“Gus, stop the car,” I order. He slows to a halt on the side of the road nearest to the side of the mountain, leaving hardly a foot between the driver’s door and the wall of rock next to the car.

“The reason you’re so tired,” I explain, adjusting the air conditioning so the car will stay warm as we drive through the mountains, “is that we’ve just passed through the third time zone on this trip. You body hasn’t had enough time to catch up with the time change. You’re feeling like it’s almost midnight, not almost nine.”

He stares at me blankly. “Really?” is all he can utter.

I roll my eyes. “Move into this seat, I’m driving.”

“But the mountains…they’re trickier than the plains,” he mumbles as he slides across the seats to the passenger side. I hop out, jogging around the front of the car and squeezing through the small space as the driver’s door hits the rocks next to the car.

“I learned to drive on these hills,” I say, revving the engine. My grandfather used to take Alec and me out on Sunday afternoons to practice driving up the steep inclines, making sure we knew how to handle the car at the sudden switchbacks and downturns. “You’ll be safe.”

“But…the…”

“Just get buckled,” I tell him.

Within the next minute, he is fast asleep.

Author's Note

be honest.