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In the middle of nowhere, as the sun was beating down on that patch of desert, a mud-stained jeep pulled into a lonely gas station. It stopped at the closest pump and the ignition turned off. Stepping out of the driver’s chair was a tall woman with long black hair and a stylish pair of shades on her head, “Hey, Hikari! You want to walk around?” she looked back to the girl riding shotgun.
The door popped open, and a frail-looking girl in a sundress stepped out, “Yes, Yaya. I should stretch my legs.”
Out of the back doors came two more girls, one with red hair in a ponytail and the other with blue hair combed straight down, “Me too. God, Yaya. Did you really have to drive for five hours straight?” the redhead complained.
Yaya laughed her off while she put her card into the pump, “Like I said when I started our trip, I’m gonna get us to Cally in one day, and look where we are!”
The redhead looked around, feeling a wave of desert heat hit her, “Nowhere?”
Yaya frowned, “No. Halfway. Halfyway, god damn it!”
Hikari shook her head, “Please don’t swear, Yaya.”
Yaya frowned and nodded, “Sorry, Hikari. But,” she pulled out her phone and showed them their place on the map, “Look. We are Halfway! Halfway!” she put the pump into her jeep’s fuselage and locked its downpour into place, “Tamao, don’t you agree? If Nagisa would’ve been driving, we would’ve stopped every hour right?”
Tamao put on a supporting smile for her friend but she agreed, “Yeah, I remember. It took us two days to get to Florida.”
“Look! I said I was sorry, ok! I just, don’t like driving for a long time!” Nagisa protested.
“And I don’t like sleeping in cars!” Yaya retorted. She grabbed Hikari’s hand and they walked toward the gas station, “Me and Hikari are gonna walk around, so can you two watch the car for me? Thanks!”
Before Nagisa or Tamao could protest, Yaya was already inside. Hikari offered them an awkward smile before she was dragged further inside.
“Ugh. Why is Yaya like that sometimes?” Nagisa asked, “How long do you think they’ll be in there? Tamao?”
Nagisa saw her friend walking towards the station herself, “Uh, sorry, Nagisa. I don’t mean to leave you here, but I have to use the restroom. You don’t mind watching the jeep on your own?”
She sighed, “I guess not,” she heard her friend walk inside and she resigned herself to her fate. She leaned against the jeep, watching the numbers tick up, “Nine, ten, eleven, twelve,” she said to herself.
While she was counting, she heard a motorcycle coming down the road, a loud one at that. She hated motorcycles so much, they were so loud and smelly, she never understood why anyone would want to ride them. As the motorcycle got closer, she had the image in her mind of a typical bike rider. She never watched the show, but she remembered some of the guys she knew in high school talking about Sons of Anarchy, and she shuddered thinking about all the gruesome things those boys gushed about. She guessed that this rider would probably be pretty thick, wear a leather jacket, and he would have a beard. Not a nice beard like her grandpa had, but a five-o-clock shadow that went bad and stayed that way. He would probably have some teeth missing too. She shuddered thinking about it and wished she could hide in the jeep or join her friends. To her dismay, the motorcycle drove into the lot, and was coming toward her.
The first irrational thought Nagisa had was that the rider could hear her thoughts and was gonna teach her a lesson. This was enough to get her to panic and she urged the pump to pour faster. The rider was coming closer, and was probably gonna park on the other side or behind. She didn’t know which was worse.
Just as the motorcycle rode alongside the pump on the otherside, the dispenser clicked off. Nagisa gasped and she yanked on the pump. She pulled too hard and yanked it out. She fell backwards and hit her head against some iron.
“Ow!” she cried. She felt something cold, and looked down at her shorts, “Dang it!” some gas fell on her shorts.
“Is everything ok?” Nagisa looked up and saw a tall woman in a leather jacket and dark shades looking down at her.
“Uh, yeah! Everything’s ok! I just,” she looked down at herself, “Got some gas on me.”
She pulled off her shades, “You should be careful with this stuff,” she took the pump from Nagisa and put it back, “Gas doesn’t fuck around if you’re careless.”
Nagisa let out a laugh, “Gas doesn’t fuck around? Never heard that before!”
The woman smiled, and she took off her helmet, letting a gallon of silver hair fall before stopping at her mid back, “When you’ve got a few friends who like setting things on fire, you learn to respect firestarters,” and she walked around the pump.
Nagisa followed. To her surprise, this woman was the rider! And what a beast that bike was. Nagisa didn’t know anything about motorcycles, but this machine just oozed power from the look alone, “Did she catch your eye?” the woman asked.
“Eh, I was wondering what kinda motorcycle it was!” Nagisa wasn’t lying. She did want to know what kinda bike could roar as loud as that one did.
“KTM 1290 Super Adventure,” she said, while she pumped her bike full of gas, “You’re into bikes?”
She shook her head, “No, not really. They kinda scare me.”
“Heh, yeah they can be. The first time I rode, I was pretty scared. But you learn to let the fear go and just let your bike take you. You understand?”
Nagisa smiled, “Not really, I don’t even like driving my own car!” this woman looked down at Nagisa and just laughed. She laughed so much that it brought tears to her eyes, “Hey, don’t laugh!”
The woman wiped a tear from her eyes, “You’ve made my dear, ma’am! I like you,” she looked down at Nagisa and offered her hand, “My name is Shizuma.”
She smiled and took Shizuma’s hand, “And I’m Nagisa!”
Shizuma looked at the jeep and asked, “So, what’s a girl like you driving all alone in the desert for?”
Nagisa explained that the jeep belonged to her friend, and that she wasn’t on her own, “Me and my friends are taking a road trip to LA!”
“Oh yeah?” Shizuma said, “Sounds fun. I had some good times in LA. What are you planning?”
“Oh, that’s all up to Yaya and Tamao. They make all the plans and me and Hikari go along with it!”
“I see,”
“And what are you heading to?”
The pump clicked and the woman put it back into place, “Not sure, Nagisa. Not sure,” she looked to the side, “Seems like your friends are coming back for you.”
Nagisa turned and waved to her friends, “Hey, do you wanna meet them?”
She saw Shizuma mounting her bike, stuffing her hair into her helmet and slipping her shades on, “I think it’s time I head on. Here, give me your hand,” Nagisa cautiously put her hand out and Shizuma took it and wrote on her palm, “Don’t know if you’d wanna keep talking to me, but you’re too good to forget,” she ignited her motorcycle, and it roared into life, “FYI, I text back fast.”
She revved her engine and she drove off in a deafening screech. Tamao, Hikari, and Yaya came running to her and asked what that was about. Nagisa shook her head, and looked down at her palm. It was a phone number with five x’s, “Someone cool. That’s all.”