The officer's words keep circling in my head. Highway of Tears. That's what this stretch of road is called. Somewhere between twenty and fifty women have gone missing or been murdered along Highway 16. Most of the victims were Indigenous, according to the officer, and many of them were crimes of opportunity. 

You serve yourself up on a platter, she said, you're going to be the meal. Not exactly a compassionate stance toward me or those unfortunate women. What about teaching men that women aren't consumables? How about that, Officer Unsympathetic?

At least the male officer had given me his card and said to call him if I found myself in any trouble.

Even without the female officer's lecture, I've been a bit embarrassed that it never even occurred to me to use my bear spray on Blake when he picked me up. If he'd been a real attacker, would I have defended myself? Had anyone asked me on the side of the road, I'd have said definitely, but now I'm not so sure.

"If it had been anyone but you, I'd have fought harder," I say.

"Hmm." Blake grips the steering wheel, and the flex of his big hands draws my gaze.

"Hit you with a blast of bear spray. Bit you. Called the police from my phone. Jumped out of the moving truck."

"Would that have been before or after you managed to sit up?"

"I'm just saying, I wasn't helpless." I slouch into the seat and consider getting a chocolate bar out of my pack. Blake has a bag of M&Ms in the cupholder, and I really want to steal some. "Are you going to eat those?"

"Yes."

"Where are we going?" He's heading in the direction I want to go, but I did enough research to know the next major place is hours away.

"Prince George. Do you have a place booked? A hotel... Or something?" He glances at me, and it's clear from his expression he's assuming that I do not.

He is correct, but I'm loath to admit my carefree approach. The whole point of the trip is to be young and carefree. It's not embarrassing; it's liberating. He doesn't strike me as the type to have a single carefree bone in his body. Whoever he was pretending to be on the boat is gone. This guy is the real Blake. Stoic. Silent. Judgy.

"I heard you mention on the bus that you don't have a data plan for Canada. If you want to use my phone to book something, go ahead."

And then I feel like an asshole for thinking bad things about him. He stopped for me on the side of the road, and he didn't just give up on me and let me get kidnapped by someone else when I dug in my heels. I'm in a foul mood because I want his chocolate and the police officer made me feel like the world's biggest idiot for hitchhiking on this highway.

"If you don't mind," I say, sliding my hand over the top of his phone.

"Book something decent," he says, and then he takes a handful of M&Ms and tosses them into his mouth.

Affordable. That's what I'll select. Lesson learned on not booking anything, but I still have to keep my bank account in mind. Should have been considering its rapid depletion over the last two weeks. Why do I do this to myself? 

I could have planned my vacation down to the minute if I'd wanted to—with military precision. Given my job, I have a lot of organizational skills I could employ, but that's not the kind of trip I'd wanted to have. No frills. Fly by the seat of my pants. One last ode to my irresponsible youth.

In my head, the trip had seemed like the perfect solution to my stagnant life. Shake things up a bit. Out here on the road, nothing is exactly as I expected, including my own attitude.

The crunch of the peanut M&Ms causes my mouth to water. I should have eaten lunch instead of trying to save money by starving myself. But I refuse to give him the puppy dog eyes again. My pleading expression didn't work last time, and it likely won't work this time either. The guy is a steel box.

I'm scrolling through hostel options and checking availability when the yellow bag of M&Ms appears in my vision.

"I have another bag," he says. "Do you want the rest of these?"

My instinct is to snatch them from his hand and pour the remains of the bag into my mouth. Total heathen. I'm practically rabid with hunger.

In an effort to play it cool, I glance up and pretend to think about it. "If you're sure..."

"Actually," he says, withdrawing the bag, and I immediately regret pretending reluctance. My stomach squeezes at the thought of remaining empty. Why do I play situations with him wrong at every turn?

He reaches back behind the seat and blindly rifles around in a plastic bag before drawing out my favorite chocolate bar.

My gasp is audible, and then I press my lips together to stop myself from saying something he'd probably consider silly.

"Sounds like you might prefer this over the peanut M&Ms." A hint of a smile tugs at the edge of his lips before he passes it to me.

"How did you...Do you like Mr. Big bars?" I set his phone in my lap as I tear into the yellow and red packaging. The first bite of ooey gooey wafers, rice crisps, caramel, peanuts, and chocolate coming together in my mouth is probably the best piece of food I've ever tasted. Skipping lunch was another of my not-so-great decisions.

"It's a Canadian classic," he says.

"Esther got me started on these," I say. "We don't have them in America." I chew in silence, and then I catch sight of a giant billboard on the side of the road. 

There are snapshots of women, and in giant lettering the proclamation that there's a killer hunting on the road. I cannot even imagine how I would have felt seeing that sign if I'd been in a vehicle with anyone else. Terrified. Foolish. Awful. The realization makes me a little lightheaded.

"You didn't know," he says, his tone surprisingly gentle.

"I don't know how I could have known, but I still feel stupid." I stare at the torn wrapper of the chocolate bar. "How'd you know?"

"Women have been disappearing for decades." He squeezes the wheel with his hands. "I don't know how I first found out. Probably something on TV."

"You're not from here, right?"

"Out east," he says, and after a brief hesitation he adds, "Newfoundland."

"Hey," I say, perking up. "I fly home from there."

"I know," he says.

Then it occurs to me that maybe the hesitation was because he didn't want me to know he was headed there. I pick up his phone and select the first place to stay that's within my budget.

"You can totally ditch me when we get to Prince George," I say. "Booked a place." I wave his phone at him before closing the app and setting it back in the cup holder. "Do you want gas money?"

"No," he says, and he scowls.

"I probably already told you, but this trip is my thirtieth birthday present to myself. What are you doing wandering around the Canadian wilderness?"

He sucks in a deep breath and doesn't answer at first, and I'm pretty sure he's not going to answer when he says, "Turns out I needed a break from my life too, I guess." He shrugs. "Sometimes the truth sneaks up on us."

I have no idea what he's talking about, but I'm grateful he's actually talking to me. After the last fourteen days on the bus, I was pretty sure we'd never have a decent conversation. He was so resistant to any interaction, and it's an attitude I can't understand. Set me in front of someone, and I'll find something to talk about. I suspect he'd let the awkward silence stretch out forever.

"Where's your final destination?" I ask.

"My youngest sister is getting married." He glances at me. "I'm supposed to walk her down the aisle."

"Oh," I say, and I turn in my seat to face him more fully. "That's so amazing. You two must be so close."

He shifts, clearly uncomfortable, and I sense I'm going to lose him. Keep the conversation going, Gwen. Something more neutral than his relationship with his sister.

"How many siblings do you have?" I ask.

"Two younger brothers. A younger sister."

"You're the oldest."

"I am." My obvious observation seems to amuse him.

"I'm the youngest," I say. "I just have one sister. Paige. She lives in England now with the son she had via a donor, her live-in nanny who is now her partner, and his daughter, Chloe. It sounds really complicated when I say it like that, but yeah, that's—that's her."

"You're close?" he asks.

"Um." I frown. "Sometimes? Yeah. I mean, yes. I want to be?" I sigh. "We're working on it. We talk all the time. We're just really different people. She didn't think I should come on this trip at all. Thought I should apply for design school. Not "waste" my money."

"You're very talented," he says. "At drawing."

"You noticed?" A flush of pride heats my cheeks. Since he wouldn't talk to me, and there was only so much of Esther's time I could monopolize on the bus, I spent a lot of it drawing. My caricatures were a hit amongst the old folk, but I doodled pictures of scenery, slices of life. 

If he ever got hold of my sketchbook, he'd find a few of him in there too. Maybe more than a few. Note to self to never let him see it. The ones of him I did in my hotel room, otherwise, I sketched anything to keep myself from trying to talk to my seatmate who had zero interest in anything I had to say, but whose bone structure I secretly could not resist immortalizing on my page.

"You didn't take an art degree of some sort already?"

"No." I shake my head. "I'm still not really sure I want to do graphic design. If I get a scholarship and get accepted, I've vowed I'll go. That's my sister's idea because I've been bored with pretty much every supply chain management job I've ever had."

"I doubt the two really have much in common."

"No, they do not," I admit with a laugh. "Pretty much nothing, which was the point when I picked it."

"Why supply chain management? Seems an odd choice for a free spirit." He says the last two words without any hint of mocking.

"Despite what you've seen on this trip, I love solving puzzles and planning things. The best jobs I've had are ones where things went wrong all the time, and I had to figure out how to put them right." He raises his eyebrows at me, but it's the truth. "I get bored easily."

"I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone say that chaos is their default setting."

I laugh at the disbelief in his tone, and I examine his profile, somewhat surprised to realize I'm having a good time talking to him.

"Care to put your planning and puzzling to the test?" He glances at me, and I hope he didn't catch me staring.

"Always," I say with a grin.

"Use my phone to find us a place to stop for dinner?"

"Easy." I pick up his device and navigate to Yelp. Not only will I find him a place to stop, but I'll find the most cost effective and best quality food in the area. "When do you want to stop?"

"Any time in the next two hours. That all right with you?"

Since I haven't had anything but a Mr. Big bar since the continental breakfast at our motel this morning, I'm not going to argue with eating whenever he suggests we stop. "While you drive, I will plot our culinary delight."

Before I get too deep into research, I sneak one more glance in his direction. His dark hair has fallen forward, and is partially concealing his profile, but it's a view I spent two weeks subtly memorizing, committing it to memory to sketch later in my room. 

The silence stretching between us is oddly comfortable, which is strange because I would have never considered the silence between us on the bus comfortable.

"You okay?" Blake catches me staring.

"Yeah, just..." I've got nothing. If I bring up the fact he seems more relaxed in this truck than he did during the two weeks on the bus, I'm afraid he'll close up on me like a clam. "Do you care what kind of food?"

"My only criteria are that it's edible, and I don't get food poisoning."

"Too easy," I say reopening his phone.

"Need me to throw some chaotic must-haves your way instead? A warthog anus or some civet coffee?"

"Warthog anus?" I give him a look of disbelief. "I'm not sure if I should be excited you've potentially eaten that before or horrified."

Blake chuckles. "Anthony Bourdain said it was the worst thing he'd ever eaten."

"So not you then?"

"Not me."

"I think," I say, placing a hand over my chest, "yes, that's relief I'm feeling. There're chaotic options and then there's—"

"A warthog's anus," Blake finishes for me.

"Exactly." I can't help my grin, and my heart unfurls when he flashes me a genuine smile in return. 

His rugged handsomeness is a view I could get used to. It's a good thing we're going our separate ways in Prince George. I didn't come on this trip to fall in and out of love with yet another man. That's one prediction Paige made that I don't intend to fulfill.

With renewed determination, I open his phone, and I get lost in reviews, distances from us, and food types. If I keep focused on what I'm supposed to be doing, everything will be fine. 

I'm away from home starting next Tuesday. I think I'll still have internet access to post a chapter next Friday, but if it doesn't arrive...you'll know why. The same goes for the following Friday. If you want to catch snippets of my adventures, follow me on Instagram (million.wendy). I'll likely post regularly to my story. 

Update: Friday

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