Take Me Home | ✔

Chapter Twenty-One

 "I suddenly have a lot of respect for you," Elliot said. 

   In surprise, both Eli and I turned our heads at our designated driver, until he said, "But then again, you hid your love for the King, so it's all gone now." I suppose Elliot was trying to be playful, but since his dislike for Eli had always been there from the start, I was more the skeptical. 

  "Alright, fine, fine!" Eli waves his hands in the air, "Keep the damn iPod, see if I care." 

    I taunted him, waving the silver device in his face, and he just shook his head, pissed off beyond belief. But two minutes later, after repeating Burning Love, I snuck a peek and he was softly bobbing his head. 

    "Lord almighty, I feel my temperature rising!" Elliot belted out, a frightening cacophony of completely wrong notes. 

   Eli scowled as soon as I joined along, hopping in my seat to the beat, "Girl, girl, girl, you're gonna set me on FIRE!" 

   "Idiots," I could hear Eli through the music. "Complete, utter baboons. I knew my dad didn't care about me, but this? This is just cruel." 

    "Shut up and enjoy the music!" Elliot and I yelled gleefully at the same time, and if Eli wanted to admit or not, I could hear him chuckling. Just a little bit. 

    And in this moment, wrapped in the darkness with just the headlights of cars on the highway and Elvis being played on loop with our misfit trio on a road unknown in Texas, was sheer perfection. I didn't realized it at first, but it had been the happiest I'd been in a long, long time. Even if the boy to my left was horrible at keeping his pitch and the boy to my right was terrible at being friendly or showing good music taste, I was content. Not stressed, or worried, or panicked, but actually content.

    If only Kara could see me now, she wouldn't recognize me at all. Or she'd probably squeal over the fact that I, the non-social Austin's-ex Vienna Dawson, was having the adventure of her life across the country with two decent-looking boys. That would be exactly what she would do. Suddenly, I felt a pang of homesickness, and it suddenly occured to me just how far we really were. Not as far from where we were in North Carolina, but it was still far. 

    Just the size of the country made my head spin; thinking about the size of the whole world? Inconcievable. And it only made me want to see it all. 

    Elliot had pulled down a window and the warm breeze carried the scent of gasoline and grass into the air. 

   And that was when it started to rain. 

   The sky gave no indication that it would start urinating with full force. What started out as simple drizzles formed into fat, bulbous raindrops that hammered against the windshield. "Shit," Elliot didn't quite figure out the controls yet, and he fumbled with the levers on the side of the steering wheel. "Which one's the windshield wiper?" 

    After six tries, we finally found the wiper button. Button, as in not a lever. The windows went up and suddenly, the car felt abnormally stuffy. 

   "Here, I'll turn on the AC," I offered, until something other than cool air poured out of the vent. Dust smoked out from the center control, and Eli started coughing hard. 

   "Never mind." I flicked it off quickly. 

  Then came the issue of gas two seconds later. The orange light near the gas meter was blinking, and the line was dangerously close to the 'Empty' side of the gauge. 

   It was Eli's turn to curse now. 

   "I can't even see through this rain," Elliot muttered, squinting in the distance.