"now that we've done all that, we should just lay low and do nothing today, especially since tomorrow is a big day." sam said pulling off the main road into a backroad. jolyne nodded, closing her eyes once again as soon as they crossed the boarder into pennsylvania. sam smiled and tapped his fingers along with the sound of the music playing in the car.
soon, they were upon a long stretch of farmland and jolyne was now just stirring back awake. it had been almost an hour since she had been awake last and she was now confused how they went from total civilization to absolutely nothing, but she guesses that was the glory of rural ohio into pennsylvania.
jolyne examined the acres of farm outside her window. it seemed like the corn could go on forever, until it didn't. they reached a meadow now, the grass had almost been covered with flowers, except the walking paths and the center of the meadow. nobody seemed to be around, they were there at such an odd hour that she had assumed that people were busy with their own lives to take a break and go to a meadow, she knew just under a week ago she was in the same boat as they were.
"i have sandwiches and apple juice packed in the back, lemme grab them and we can start walking out there." the pair climbed out out the car and into the vast meadow. upon reaching the middle sitting area, sam had put down a large blanket for them to sit on. jolyne spread out the snacks they had brought and sat down.
it was a warm day, the sun beating down on the two. the meadow was vast and beautiful, colorful flowers spread across the land. she looked out amongst the flowers, examining the bees landing on flowers. the pollen smell was strong and jolyne could feel her nose start to stuff up. she cursed her allergies, she knew that she would pay for this later.
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"sam! come on, we're late going to the family dinner!" karen yelled up the stairs to sam, who was still in his room getting ready. he combed his hair one last time before running down the stairs and picking up the flowers he had picked out for jolyne and her mother.
"i'm here, i'm here. no need to pop a blood vessel." sam snickered, earning a glare from karen and kelly. they wasted no time walking out to the car and driving over to jolyne's family home, which wasn't too far from the kiszka house. the five soon walked up to the door and rang the doorbell.
"what have i said, karen? my home is your home, no need to ring the doorbell. you can just walk in!" lols exclaimed as the door swung open, the pair laughed before the kiszka's piled into the front door.
"these are for you and jolyne." sam handed off the flowers to lola, soon receiving them back from lola.
"why don't you go give them to jolyne, she's in the kitchen." she smiled and pointed down the hall to where the kitchen was, something sam had already known all too well. at this point, they were ready to graduate high school and sam had been wandering right into their kitchen the whole almost thirteen years he had known jolyne and her family.
walking aimlessly down the hall, he made it to the kitchen where sure enough, jolyne was. her head slightly lifted up to see sam entering the room with a whole bouquet of flowers. she smiled at him, standing up from her seat and walking over to him.
"awe, sam! they're beau- ACHOO." just as she went to grab the flowers from him, her nose filled with the smell of pollen, making her sneeze...multiple times. sam belly laughed, pulling the flowers away from jolyne and turning towards the doorframe, seeing lola, karen, kelly, and the twins smiling at the pair.
"what?" sam questioned, raising his hands in the air.
"nothing, nothing." kelly laughed before the crowd of family moved to into the kitchen to finally eat dinner.
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"should we go pick some flowers?" sam asked in a soft tone. she nodded, getting up from their spot, the meadow still empty of people. they left their little picnic down where it was, forted down by rocks on each corner of the blanket. the wind wasn't strong enough to take the blanket if it had some weight to it and it would've been less annoying in the long run if they had just kept the sides down instead of constantly having to hold it down when seated on the blanket.
the flowers were a wide array of colors, ranging from the lightest of light colors to the darkest of dark. the two walked along the paths making their way to the sunflowers that lined the meadow. jolyne watched as the bees swarmed the center of the flower, pollenating and moving around carelessly with each other. she was snapped out of the moment before her when she hear a shutter behind her, signaling that sam had taken a picture of her.
"sam, you gotta stop taking pictures of me when i'm not ready for it." they laughed together, jolyne reaching out to grab the camera from sam and quickly taking a picture of sam laughing.
"hey!" sam yelled through the laughter, the both of them leaning back, almost falling over at small moment that they had together. it was a moment that would've been something others would think to be so insignificant, but the pair thought it was so funny, probably cause they both knew they looked awful in their pictures.
after their walk around the meadow, they had noticed that the sitting area was now slowly filling and that they weren't the only people occupying the meadow, meaning it was probably heading towards early afternoon when kids are starting to get off school and come to the meadow to relax.
going back to the blanket, they started to clean everything up and go to the car. upon talking to sam a bit more about where they were in pennsylvania, she now knew she was somewhere near erie.
"maybe since we're having a chill day, we should just put our windows down and drive? we could go to pittsburgh and then maybe make our way over to the other side of pennsylvania?" jolyne asked sam, turning in his direction. he nodded, smiling a little before the pair walked back to the car with their belongings.
starting the car, sam plugged in his phone and handed in over to jolyne. she quizzingly looked over to him, reluctantly taking the phone into her hands.
"start the music up." he smiled, putting the car into drive and starting their three hour journey to pittsburgh, city of bridges. she looked down at the phone and started to type in a particular playlist that they would always play in the car and the first song that came on was 'enchanted' by taylor swift, a favorite of jolyne's.
she sang softly along to taylor's voice, slowly getting comfortable singing in front of sam. she had always been that way and sam knew that, so he didn't pay no mind to her...at least from what jolyne noticed, inside sam was mesmerized by her voice, as always. he tapped along to the music until the next song came on.
"jolene? you added jolene to this playlist?" jolyne asked sam, who's cheeks flushed. eyes never leaving the road, he nodded. a smiled crawled onto her lips, her cheeks turning a bright sort of red.
jolyne remembered when they were little and he would always greet her and bid her a farewell with him singing 'jolene, jolene, jolennnneeeeee.' that was something that only sam was allowed to do, when the others did it, it felt different. sam didn't joke like they did when they sang it, so she allowed him to do it.
they sang the melody along together. sam thought about how jolyne was as pretty as dolly talked about in her song, although his jolyne had brown eyes and brown hair, she still radiated the same beauty. soon, the next few songs played and they seemed to be getting closer and closer to pittsburgh by the end of each song.
"what are we gonna do in pittsburgh?" sam asked, looking now over to her. in the background was the soft sounds of the moody blues 'your wildest dreams.' she turned her head and grinned at him, a devious type of grin.
"we should do something spontaneous! let's get tattoos! piercings! something!" jolyne's face lit up, indicating it's been something she's been waiting to do. jolyne had her ears and nose all pierced up. she had about five or six on both ears, while both sides of her nose and septum was pierced. as for tattoos, she had a bit of patchwork style sleeve of tattoos spread throughout her right arm.
"jolyne? really? is that something you really want to do?" sam asked, a little bit surprised at how suddenly she wanted to do this. she nodded, happily. she was always up to a spontaneous piercing or tattoo.
"we gotta live a little! so what we getting, because by the looks of that map, we'll be in pittsburgh in less than an hour." jolyne asked, making sam's shocked face grow even more shocked by the second. sam was more of a thinker while jolyne just did whatever came to mind. that's why she had random stars, insects, and words flooding her right arm. it felt right in the moment, so she did. thinking too much about it caused worry, but she didn't have time to worry about that when she had so many other things to worry about in life.
"oh my god! me too?!" sam shook his head in disbelief. she kept nodding, still having a wide grin on her face. he sighed, giving in to jolyne's wishes. they agreed on a bass guitar tattoo on both of their lower right arms, all in black ink. obviously, the piece had meaning to the both of them. sam played the bass and he was it greta van fleet with his brothers and another friend of theirs named danny. sam was going to go big, they were already signed to a label and getting ready for some sort of tour. jolyne's meaning was a bit different. her father, before he passed, was a big bass player in his free time. it was something that he and sam bonded over. he had even taught sam a thing or two on the bass, which something so little to him, meant so much to jolyne and then sam later on.
upon arriving to pittsburgh, they found a tattoo shop that did walk-ins and had enough time to do both of their tattoos. sitting down first, jolyne started hers. sam has never gotten a tattoo, so he was kind of nervous about it. jolyne could notice that, so she obviously went first.
she had been nervous when she got her first tattoo back in her early college days, but now it wasn't as big of a deal and she could go in and sit down without even thinking about being nervous. sam on the other hand was trembling a little bit, making jolyne laugh.
"scaredy cat?" jolyne looked him in the eyes, he shot her a death glare in return. sam was just worried at the pain, he wasn't great with it and now she was making him get a tattoo. i mean, she wasn't making him do anything, but he felt obligated now to complete it. he knew the meaning behind what it meant to jolyne, it bonded all the important things in her life together in a sort of minimalist way.
after a good half an hour in the chair, jolyne was done and it was time for sam to sit there and get his tattoo. he was tense, but the artist walked him through the beginning of the tattoo until he wasn't nervous and the artist could start.
sam did well, it wasn't as bad as he thought. soon, he was done and they went to take a picture together and go pay for the tattoos. walking into the car, they talked about nothing and everything at the same time.
"thank you for doing this with me." she looked over to him and rested her hand a little above his knee. he looked down at her hand, then back at her face. a smile grew on his face, his eyes going into a squint before nodding and looking back to the road.
changing the topic to avoid the growing awkwardness in the car as her hand still rested on his leg, sam asked, "so should we drive to the other side of pennsylvania and just vibe there until we have to go onto the next state?" she shrugged her shoulders showing that she didn't mind what they did next, taking her hand off sam and resting it on her own lap.
soon, they were listening to that playlist again and 'you're the one i want' by olivia newton john and john travolta came on. excited, jolyne jumped up a little. it was like an unspoken rule amongst the two that they would sing the individual parts, but for the opposite gender.
jolyne started, "i got chills they're multiplying and i'm losing control..." they shimmied in the car like they always did singing this song. laughing out the last of her part, soon sam started to sing out his part.
"you better shape up, cause i need a man! and my heart is set on you!" sam sang out, pointing to jolyne, making her laugh even more. they continued dancing in places, sam keeping the wheel steady as they did so.
"you're the one i want, you are the one want. ooh ooh ooh honey!" continuing the song singing together, not caring how loud they were being or if anyone could hear them through the car doors, they screamed their lungs out to the entire song. huffing out what air she had left after that performance, she smiled as the song faded out.
"god, i love when we sing that!" he laughed. sam knew he wasn't good at singing, especially when he compared himself to jolyne, but he did whatever made her happy because he really did love jolyne and he wasn't sure if it was platonic anymore.