Away from Home
Chapter 1.3
I must’ve been tired because I ended up sleeping for about four hours into our drive south. We lived in Cranberry in Pennsylvania, so it would take us at least ten hours before we would reach Waves, North Carolina. Seth wasn’t really thrilled about driving ten hours straight, so we booked a hotel in Rocky Mount.
I sat up from leaning on Natalie, who was now passed out on top of Ashlee. I stretched and tried to comb my fingers through my hair, but it was no use. My hair was a rat’s nest. “Seth?” I mumbled.
“Yeah,” he said glumly. He sounded pretty tired.
“How much farther?” I asked.
He groaned slightly as he drove with one hand and fumbled with MapQuest papers with the other. “Uh, I think just three hours. Maybe. We had all that Washington DC traffic crap.”
“Maybe we should’ve gone around it.”
“Agh, too late now.”I heard Hayden squirm in the front seat. “Huh?”“Go to bed,” Seth ordered him. Hayden obeyed. Thank goodness, I thought.I poked Natalie in the stomach. She didn’t flinch one bit, which surprised me greatly. Natalie was super ticklish, and for her not to budge, that must’ve meant she was out cold.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and flipped through text messages I missed. Almost all of them were from Mom and Dad, but I did get one from my other friend Bethany. She really wanted to come along, but she was way behind on homework and had missed two many soccer practices already. Her text read, ‘How u guys doing? :D' I smiled and let my fingers run wild across the keys. ‘Fine. Been sleeping the whole time :) Wish you were here.’ After I sent the message, I plopped my phone into a small pocket in my backpack and looked up at Seth who seemed ready to fall asleep himself. “Do you want me to drive?”He blinked multiple times to keep his eyes open. “Huh?”“Do you want me to drive?” I repeated.
He shook his head. “No, I’m fine. A little tired, but I can manage.”“Seth,” I warned.
“I’m fine. Go back to bed.”
I looked down at the sleeping Natalie and Ashlee beside me. “Nah. I’m not that tired. Plus I can’t let you suffer alone.”
“I’d tell you to wake up Hayden, but all he’d do is annoy me.”
“I thought he was your best friend.”
“He is, but even best friends get annoying at times.”I
laughed softly. “I can’t argue with that.” I heard my phone vibrate inside my backpack, but I ignored it. “Natalie gets annoying all the time.”
Seth laughed. “Definitely,” he agreed, and then started imitating her with a high, squeaky voice. “Oh my gosh! I have to have that purse! And Meggy! Have you seen my nails? Gorgeous!” We both started laughing.
“Oh, and I guess I should tell you I promised my dad that you and Hayden weren’t going to be five feet near me,” I said as our laughter faded away.
“Oh really?” Seth questioned. “Well both me and Hayden aren’t exactly more than five feet away from you.”
I shrugged. “Well you’re not sitting right next to me, so he'll live."
“Well, knowing your dad, it’s probably not okay,” he replied. “But don’t worry. I promise I won’t do anything to you or make you do anything stupid.”“
Thanks.”
“But I can’t talk for Hayden,” he warned.
“Yeah, I know. I think it’ll be more verbal though.”
“True. He’s…got a way with words.”
We went silent for just a second, and then Seth looked at me through his rear-view mirror and asked, “Mind finding me a Mountain Dew in the cooler back there?”
“Yeah I’ll get it.”I
unbuckled my seatbelt and reached over to pop open the cooler lid. I grabbed a Mountain Dew sitting on top, and as I went to close the lid, I suddenly jerked across the seat and landed on top of Ashlee.
Our car stopped sideways in the middle of the highway. “Son of a…” Seth growled and opened his car door and started screaming down the highway at some speeding black Prius.
“What the h*ll?” Hayden said as he rubbed his eyes.“
Yeah, what the heck just happened?” Natalie asked, and then noticed me laying across her and Ashlee’s laps. “And…?”
“Getting Seth a Mountain Dew,” I said as if that explained everything. Car horns were beeping all over the place. Seth climbed back into the driver’s seat and started driving again.“
If that son of a b*tch ruined my car I’m going to hunt him down and punch his lights out,” Seth said through his teeth.
“What happened?” Hayden asked. It’s what we all wanted to know.
“That idiot just stopped right in front of me,” Seth explained as he drove and looked on the hood of his car. “And when I swerved out of the way, he just drove away.”“
Idiot,” Ashlee agreed, speaking for the first time on this trip.
Seth just continued driving, and his angry mood made us all silent. I was about to lay against the window and stare off into space when he said out of nowhere, “Oh shoot! Meghan! Are you okay?” He glanced back at me like three times. “I’m the idiot! I’m so sorry, I…”
“I’m fine,” I interrupted. I hadn’t even remember to re-buckle myself, so I hurriedly did so and leaned back in my seat. “Absolutely fine…”“
You’re not hurt or anything?” Hayden sneered, and I wanted to smack him as hard as I could.
“No,” I snapped. “I’m not. Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“Okay, everyone, shut up!” Ashlee shouted. Maybe it was Ashlee who had a way with words, because we all went dead silent.
BeyondComprehension