Arches

He needed time to process this new reality. While he had remained fairly skeptical that this particular hallucination had any actual bearing on his life, the stakes were getting too high to continue to operate as such. He had to see this through. On the face of things this seemed like a situation he could handle. It was just a long road trip with several disasters pre-baked in. He’d been through some shit in his life, he could do this. At least it seemed that no one else would be affected by his decisions. That in itself was a huge relief. No matter what happened, he wouldn’t hurt anyone except himself. And Tim was ok with hurting himself.

He glanced at Rachel; glad she had given him the time to run this through his mind.

“Oh, I love this song!” Rachel turned up a Linkin Park song on the radio and mouthed along to the words, singing silently.

Tim decided to let his sub-brain churn through their situation while he made small talk with Rachel. Knowing each other a little bit was his first step, it may even be important to do for all he knew.

Rachel was amiable to the conversation. She had decided to flow through Connecticut at a hair over 80 miles an hour, glibly answering any questions he had.

By the time they had reached the end of Connecticut he learned that she had grown up, ironically, in Long Island and was a few years younger than him. She had been into swimming and sports, especially roller blading, growing up. She had married and started a family young. Her demeanor changed when she started talking about her family. While she had been regaling him with stories of late-night pool hopping or gnarly bails from her skateboard her eyes lit up. Rachel was not someone who hid her emotions very well. Although Tim suspected she would bristle at the accusation. The thought brought a smile to his lips, unbidden and unexpected.

When she started to tell him about her family, the change in her made Tim very wary. Her voice wavered as she spoke, love, pain and rage all spun through her words. It was very obvious she loved them more then she was capable of expressing. It was also clear that the very thought of her family brought to the surface her near constant dread of never being able to see them again.

Tim was about to spin the thread of his own life for her to divert her dark thoughts a bit when she started changing lanes to the right. He held his tongue as she pulled into a rest stop. He knew the drill and didn’t even get out of the car when Rachel stopped. Sure enough, Rachel popped out and walked around the car to stand about eight feet from his window. She lit a cigarette, as flame touched to tip, she glanced over the puff of fire at him. Her eyes were red and it wasn’t from the smoke.

Tim briefly considered driving. While she had done pretty well so far, she was also pretty emotional. Not to mention very stoned most of the time. Weighing against those facts were that she had handled that crazy police incident as well as possible. And two, last time Tim was behind the wheel of a car people had died. He would have let a monkey on heroin be his chauffeur before he’d slide into that seat.

It didn’t seem that Rachel was trying to talk to him so he left his window up. Soon enough she had snuffed the butt under her foot and got back in the car.

“Lets go!”

Rachel didn’t seem entirely comfortable driving through New York so Tim mostly kept quiet. He played navigator, guiding her with the Maps app on his phone and checking her blind spots as she merged. She gave him a surprised and appreciative glance when he did this.

“Calm down, New Yorker. You’re not the only one who’s driven in a city.”

They got over the George Washington bridge and into New Jersey. Tim was glad to get out of New York with the of amount of expletives that Rachel had just left there. He looked at her, pretending to be scanning traffic. Her jaw was still set and her hands gripped the wheel like it was going to fly away. She had stopped honking and screaming the worst things he had ever heard at every car that dared to come withing ten feet of her. That was good. He was also secretly impressed with her inventive cursing. “Fuck your titty dicks!” straddled the border of utter non-sense and utter filth quite nicely. And that was easily the tamest and most physically possible of the endless stream of garbage she could spew. VERY impressed.

Tim’s appraisal of Rachel took a bit of a wondering tone. In all of time and space his spiritual Sherpa was a woman around his age who lived within a few hours drive of where he lived? It bugged him. It could all be a huge coincidence. Or it could be because his mind could invent Rachel. He wouldn’t be able to credibly fabricate an angel. Or Heaven, or Hell. He could however imagine someone from a nearly identical background. This started to disquiet him so much he had to ask.

“Why us?” He thought she’d know what he meant. She did.

“We’re the same. And I’m the only one who can save you.” She said this steely eyed, piloting the car through the fragrant part of New Jersey. Then she giggled.

“Just kidding. About the second part anyway. I have no idea. We are the same though. We both have a family we would do anything to see.” Here she met his eyes, the faux hardness from a moment ago dropped. In its place was her naked need. Nothing would stop her.

“So together we can do this.” Here she seemed equally proud and defiant “You should be grateful. You were about to lose it all when I showed up.”

This preceded them pulling over again.

“We’ll never get there like this.” Tim wasn’t really concerned about the progress; more he was feeling a bit chastised.

“This is the last stop on the parkway. After this we’ll power through four to five hours.” She parked near the front of the plaza, directly across from a bank of soda machines that included a red bull branded one. “I’m going to pee and smoke. Grab us some McDonalds. I want a couple McChicken’s with extra mayo and a large coke. Don’t bother paying. Just ask for the food.”

This last bit of advice struck him as odd.

“Just ask for what we want and they’ll give it to me? Why?” He had been hoping to not draw any attention to himself. Asking for twenty bucks of food for free would definitely make him stand out.

“I have a feeling. Just do it. Not a lot of ice in that Coke.” She hopped out of the car as she said this, shutting the door behind her and leaving him alone with her instructions.