Chapter Text
“Alright, let's do this thing.”
“Uh, not with you driving! Your driving is a hazard to humanity.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, mom.” I rolled my eyes at John’s dumb nickname while he climbed out of his seat. When he got out I moved into the driver’s seat.
“Hm, I can't help but notice you moved anyways?”
He just sank lower into the passenger’s side seat, crossing his arms. “I didn't want you nagging me about it.”
“Mmhm. I totally believe that.”
“Shut up.”
“No thanks.” I started pulling out of the driveway, tapping the button to turn on the radio. That Macklemore song about mopeds- mopeds, of all things!- came on, way too loud for my tastes. I turned it down, glancing at John, who was mumbling along with the song. “John, why on earth would you play music so loud? I swear, you're going to shatter your ears.”
“Yeah, says you. Don’t think I couldn’t hear you blasting Taylor Swift music that one time when Ja-”
“Shut up! John, we do not talk about that. You fricking know that.”
“Hehe, why can’t you just say ‘fucking’ like the normal people do?”
“Because. Now make yourself useful and read me these directions.” Why is my voice so… What’s the word… cold? Jake. That’s why. Just thinking the name still makes me feel so tired, so cold, so, so done with the world. But, y’know, no time to mope over that. There are more important things, like hobbies and distractions. Wonderful, wonderful distractions. Knitting, for one.
“Alright, I guess. Uh, we just go down the street for, like, one mile at first, so I think we have time to talk.”
“What would we talk about?”
“I don’t know? I mean, you always have some story about how the- wait, no, um… Well, we could talk about, um…” He looks helpless. I probably look angry, for Pete’s sake, angry and stupid and- No. We aren’t going down this road again.
“Exactly.” I turn up the music a bit more. “Just tell me whenever it’s time to turn.”
“Right, okay.” He started staring out the window, glancing down at the paper I printed the directions onto every few minutes. I drove. He stared. Downtown faded out and Radioactive faded in. John sang along, grinning, even though his voice is even worse than his driving. He did stop every few minutes to tell me to turn, but that was the only distraction until we pulled up to the little yarn store, tucked between two bigger shops.
“Okay, this is it. Now we just hope today was the right day.”
“This is stupid.” John’s reminder was kind of hurtful, for some reason.
“You’re telling me.” And then I was standing, walking, and, oh, there I was, standing in the door and staring at the blond teenager behind the counter.