ROAD - Rocks, Outdoors, Awe, Disappearence

Five years ago I would have laughed in your face if you told me I'd be trekking through upstate New York with nothing more than a backpack and the clothes on my back.

I used to hate everything that had to do with outdoors. I detested hiking, I hated farming and most of all I hated camping. I couldn't deal with the bugs. The musquitos bothered me, but I hated the creepy-crawlies like spiders and cockroaches more. When I was seven I'd gone camping with my dad and had woken up with a big hairy spider on the left side of my face. That took away the world of the wonderous outdoors. Ever since I'd worked on my uncles farm in the war my attitude had changed. I loved being outside, the bugs didn't bother me, sometimes I even fell asleep in the scratchy hay loft. 

I wasn't alone. 

Abby, one of the girls I'd met at the club last night, had decided to come with me. She was a tall brunette, about the same size as me and I wasn't a short guy. Her features were very feminine, she was skinny, almost too skinny for my taste, but she had a charming smile and was surprisingly strong. I hadn't wanted her to come along but she'd insisted. We'd met after I'd stopped to smoke a cigarette they'd given me after. She'd been outside on the porch, smoking as well. We'd started a conversation and I gave away my plan. 

We walked in silence. I hadn't done it with her last night, I'd had two of the other girls who'd been more my type, a bit bigger features if you know what I mean. I didn't know why Abby would rather leave with me then stay with the girls she knew so well.

"So you were an accountant?" She asked me out of the blue. 

"Yeah. I wasn't bad either. I was pretty fast and I actually quite enjoyed it."

"So you're a numbers guy and not a word guy?" 

"I hate words." I joked. "Nah. I just understand numeric systems better. Give me a row of numbers and I can tell you what they have in commen. I couldn't write a poem for my life." She laughed and took a swig out of her water bottle. I have to give her this; she didn't hold me up. She drank while walking, she didn't need to rest any more than I did and she walked at a pace I almost struggled to keep up with. She was the perfect travelling companion. 

"You must have had a hard time getting laid." She said and laughed. I looked over at her in surprise. 

"Why?"

"Women love words. They love being told how beautiful they are, how much they mean to you. They love romantic notes."

"I guess." I agreed. Then I grinned. "But my salary wasn't bad. Sometimes numbers work better than words." I was joking, and I hoped she knew that. I had never had a hard time getting a girlfriend because I wasn't bad looking and I was easy to be around. 

"I wanted to study, but I didn't have the money. So I decided to just..."

"Work in a sex club."

"Yeah." She flashed me a sheepish smile, then shrugged. "But it's not that bad. You get used to it." Another example that people can get used to everything. "And I wanted to study. I actually had gotten into a pretty good university but then the war broke out and the school turned back the newbies they'd accepted. They needed more funding for the people they already had." She seemed bummed about it, even though it'd happened years ago. 

"Which school was it?" I asked. 

"MIT." 

"Woah." I exclaimed and laughed half-disbelievingly and totally in awe. "You must be a hundred times better with numbers than me."

"Yeah, I'm not bad." 

"I'm guessing you're good enough not just for accounting but for...?"

"Mathematics." 

"Gosh. Not even physics or IT. You literelly wanted to study fucking math." I was laughing even as I spoke. She didn't take it badly, another thing I liked about her. She didn't get easily offended. 

"Nope. I wanted to be a mathematicion. Like work for NASA or something." 

"Girl you're dropping names." I said which made her giggle. 

"I'm serious. I was really, really good. I still am. I used to want to be an astronout until I realized I was too smart for that." This time she made me laugh. I was about to ask her one of my favourite math riddles to put her to the test (don't fucking judge me, I'm a sucker for math so go fuck yourself) when something very loud and big came crashing through the bushes to the left of the road. We both stopped in our tracks. Was is a Nart? That I could handle. Was it a mountain lion or God forbid; a mutated mountain lion?

I held my arm out, signaling for Abby to step back. I peered into the bushes. I couldn't see anything. I took a step forwards. Nothing. I shrugged and turned around.

Abby was gone.