When I decided to drive twenty-seven hours from Texas to Idaho, I forgot to factor in how fucking long that actually is. I didn't realize that my body, with its need for movement and coffee and dodgy public restrooms, can't handle more than three hours at a time. Pathetic. Before I made it out of Texas I had to stop twice and I've had to wave goodbye to my hopes of reaching Albuquerque tonight because it's taken me ten hours to reach Roswell. I'm shattered as I pull into the parking lot of a budget motel that has gone all out with the alien theme, too tired to process my emotions when my heavy head hits a disappointingly flat pillow after grabbing something to eat at the kitschy UFO-shaped McDonald's.

I send a picture to my group chat with Gaby and Tay, which is still named "Greg's Gals" from the time we stayed in an AirBnB four years ago and the owner, Greg, messaged us each morning to see how everything was, every message starting with hi gals. Maybe it's because we were staying in Galveston. Maybe he thought he was being hip.

Checking out the fine New Mexico cuisine, I text.

Tay's reply is instant: OMG you're in roswell! Say hi to the aliens for me!!

Gaby sends a picture of her own, the view of San Diego Bay from her apartment building in the Gaslamp Quarter that she must have taken a few hours ago in the bright light and says, wish you were here.

I wish I was there too. A knot of regret tightens in my stomach. Why am I doing this?

Tay sends a picture too, an expanse of low level buildings and palm trees and mountains in the far distance, and she says, Your view beats mine!

Shut the fuck up, I text, you're literally right next to one of the most scenic places in LA!

It says Tay is typing... for a few minutes. She's the queen of getting distracted while texting, and I know better than to expect a long message just because she started typing it ten minutes ago. Eventually, her reply pops up: true, who needs a gym membership when i have the culver city stairs on my doorstep??

You're gonna have quads of STEEL, Gaby says.

Tay: it's the glutes i want ;)

And then from Gaby, How's the journey so far Charlie? I still can't believe you're driving to idaho! Planes exist you know

I lie on my back, knees up, and sigh. Journey's fine so far. Long but fine! And where's the fun in flying?? I want to see the country

It's a half truth. I do enjoy driving, and I do like the idea of seeing more of the country, but I've only completed a third of the trip so far and I wish I'd flown instead. Three and a half hours, nonstop; a couple hours on a bus from Boise to Fisher. I could've been there half a day ago. But I'm cutting ties with Austin, and I don't plan for Gaby and Tay to know that until I figure out where I'm going to retie my string. For the time being, I'm going to float around untethered and see what happens.

You're brave as hell, Gaby texts. As though she hasn't moved across the country on her own to live in a new city, a new state, with a grown-up job and real responsibilities. That is bravery. Whatever I'm doing is stupidity. Cowardice. I know I'm running from my problems, I know they will catch me, but I still believe if I get far enough away, I'll figure out how to solve them before they drag me down by my ankles.

*

By nine a.m. I'm in Albuquerque, slightly illegally parked downtown as I speed walk to the nearest coffee shop and pray there are no traffic cops nearby. The coffee from the lobby of my Roswell motel this morning was disgusting. Undrinkable. It tasted like metal and shame and I feel a caffeine withdrawal headache coming on. I curse getting hooked on this shit when I was fifteen because for the rest of my life I'll need three cups a day to stay in the land of the (comfortably) living. You know it's bad when your roommates can tell if you've missed one of your coffees because you're acting like a cranky bitch.

It takes me twenty minutes. When I race back to my car, a sweating iced latte in one hand and a bear claw in the other, there's a warden a few cars away. Shit. He's heading towards me. I fumble my keys and throw the bear claw onto the passenger seat, almost spilling the coffee as I jam my keys into the ignition and pull out of my not-quite-a-space with one arm tangled in my seatbelt. Not today, Satan, I think, my car whining as I force her into action too fast.

It's freeing, being on the road. My summer throwback playlist is blaring, full of the music the adults played every summer in Fisher — mostly seventies and eighties, a bit of country and a bit of classic American rock, the soundtrack to my life. I'm sailing down US 550N with the windows rolled all the way down, wind buffeting my unbrushed hair as I yell along to Edge of Seventeen with Stevie Nicks. I remember the summer I was seventeen, when I felt like I owned this song, speeding down the ten mile length of Pine Lake with my oldest brother Grayson at the helm because he was the only one of the cousins with his boating license. By the first week of August, my cousins Ashley and Connor had turned seventeen too; we stood on the back of the boat with our arms up, yelling the song at the top of our lungs over the roar of the engine and the slap of the water against the boat. The memory spurs me on towards Idaho, until I realize the speedometer is touching eighty and I ease up on the accelerator. The last thing I need this summer is a speeding fine.

I'm making good time. I thought I was going to have to stop in Moab for the night but at this rate, even with a couple pee breaks and a stop or two for coffee and gas, I could be in Salt Lake City for eight p.m. The music helps. I switch to the song radio for Edge of Seventeen and lose myself in the rhythm and beat of songs I have loved and forgotten, songs I have never heard before.

It's somewhere outside of Yellow Jacket, Colorado while I'm jamming with Dolly Parton that I get a text from my brother. Cole, fifteen months older than me, who has his shit together in an admirable but kind of boring way. He got out of Montana when he went to college in New Jersey and never looked back, and now he's doing well for himself as an events coordinator out on the east coast, which means nothing to me except that he gets to travel and he occasionally gets free tickets for niche events.

I move to the right lane and risk a glance at my phone, the text hovering over my directions.

hey little, a bit last minute but i'll be in austin tomorrow for a conference, want to grab a bite somewhere (on me!)

Ugh. Typical. The one time one of my siblings deigns to come to Texas and I'm two states away. I close the windows and call him back, cutting off the music as Dolly's Jolene becomes ABBA's Dancing Queen.

"Cole Miller," he says when he picks up. I set my number to private a couple years ago when Tay and I got bored and drunk and decided to indulge in a bit of prank calling our friends. I forgot to change the setting and haven't bothered since.

"Hey, it's me."

"Little! Hey, I just texted you," he says. He's called me that ever since I was a scrawny kid, when I was being my rambunctious self and our hungover aunt said, "Your name suits you, kid. You can be a Char-lot." Cole, who at that point was almost a foot taller than me despite only a year separating us, patted my head and said, "She's not a lot. She's a little!"

It stuck. All my brothers call me that now, even Nolan, who is six years younger than me and the exact same height.

"Yeah, I saw, I'm driving at the moment," I say.

"So, are you around tomorrow?"

"Um, I'm kind of in Colorado," I say. I glance out of the window as I fly past a sign. "Oh, wait, I just hit Utah."

"Utah? What're you doing in Utah? I thought you were in Austin?"

I have a choice to make. I can tell him the truth, and pretend to lose signal if the conversation gets awkward, or I can keep up the facade of everything's totally fine. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

"I'm taking a spontaneous trip to Fisher," I say. "I've got a bit of free time and some vacation days to use up." It's true ... ish. I mean, when I was made redundant, I did have six vacation days to use up. Now I have an infinite number.

"And you're driving?"

"Why not, right?" I push a grin into my words, hoping he buys my joviality and doesn't question the fact that Austin to Fisher is a six-day round trip. "I haven't been to Fisher in so long."

"Where're you staying?"

"Lake View Hotel," I say. I don't add that it was the only place with any availability at such short notice. That could be a sign, but I don't care. It was affordable. Okay, maybe it was weirdly affordable. Like they had to slash their prices to fill the rooms. Like there's a reason no-one wants to stay there.

"So I guess you're not free for dinner in Austin?" he says with a laugh.

"Sorry, Cole. I would've otherwise. I haven't seen you in forever."

"Way too long," he agrees with a hum. "Well, hey, enjoy Fisher. I miss that place like crazy, man. Maybe one year we can get together, rent a cabin like the old days?"

"That'd be cool, yeah." Neither of us mentions the obvious: we will never be able to recreate the old days. Mom and Dad's separation is still too fresh a wound, too sudden for me to get my head and my heart around. I don't know what went wrong. Thinking about it puts a lump in my throat.

"Drive safe, Little. Let me know when you get there," he says after a moment. I'm grateful to him for bringing the conversation to an end so I don't have to find a way to worm out of it before he picks at a thread that will unravel me.

"Will do. Have fun in Austin!"

He laughs drily. "I'll try."

I turn the music up, roll the windows down again, and hit shuffle. The next song that comes up is Hold the Line by Toto, a song I only know from years of watching my brothers playing Grand Theft Auto. I didn't even realize I'd absorbed the lyrics until I'm belting them out as the 491 turns into 191, three hundred miles from Salt Lake City. The entire K-DST radio station is the perfect vibe for a drive through the desert — I have a main character moment when A Horse with No Name comes on and my hair is flying all over the place and I'm the only car on the road.

*

When I stop in Moab at four thirty, I'm less than four hours from Salt Lake City. It's been a long ass day already, more than ten hours since I left Roswell, but I am determined to make it tonight. My body needs a break, though. I've been cramped in my car for too long and the all-American diner on the side of the road is calling my name. I slot my car between a couple of giant trucks and drag myself to a booth, my legs jelly by the time I drop into a seat and it isn't long before a smiling waitress has a mug of coffee in front of me. It's a weird time to eat but my stomach kicks in with an almighty growl the minute I smell all-day breakfast and sizzling burgers, so I give in and grab a menu.

"What'll it be, hon?" the waitress asks. She's already refilling my coffee. I didn't realize I'd downed it so fast. I scan the menu but there's too much choice so I point to the first thing that catches my eye: Fisher Tower French Toast with sausage and fried eggs. Something big and hearty to keep me going, and I take its name as a sign that I'm doing the right thing.

I send my location to the group chat and devour my giant stack of French toast the moment it arrives. The coffee, with a little creamer, is great and the fried food fills the hole in my middle and the diner's so quiet that I'm getting exclusive service from the smiling waitress, who refills my coffee the second my cup drops below half full and gives me a free fruit cup. We make small talk; she doesn't bother me when I put in my earbuds to scroll through TikTok for a bit of downtime; she gives me a fresh coffee in a takeout cup when it's time for me to go and I leave a thirty percent tip.

I've prepaid for a hotel with self check-in and free parking and if I leave in fifteen minutes, I can make it to Salt Lake City just after sunset, before it gets fully dark. I wander up and down Main Street (wide, flat, pretty empty except for restaurants and motels) until I'm ready to get behind the wheel again. Three and a half hours, thereabouts. Totally doable, and it makes tomorrow a shorter driving day. Fisher is four hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake City. This time tomorrow, I'll be back for the first time in six years; my skin is fizzing with anticipation. Or a caffeine overload.

*

It's twilight when I make it. I had to stop twice to pee thanks to the vat of coffee I consumed in Moab and I feel a bit jittery by the time I'm in my hotel room with a bag of takeout from Wendy's. I promise myself I'll make more of an effort with food once I'm in Fisher as I sit cross-legged on the bed with a giant hamburger and a carton of fries doused in bacon and jalapeno.

Salt lake city babyyyy, I send to Greg's Gals along with a selfie of me and my triple burger, my face already covered in grease. Every part of me is stiff and aching and I didn't realize that driving could be so painful but my ankle is whining from switching between the accelerator and the brake and my shoulders are full of tension, my neck sore and my head beginning to throb.

Congrats! Glad youre ok! Tay writes, sending a string of hearts. I dig the TV remote out from under my butt and find something mindless to watch while I eat and text, landing on an old episode of Criminal Minds on Pop. Not exactly relaxing but I have a thing for Emily Prentiss. I even named my car after her, and so far Emily the Subaru is doing pretty damn great. Thirteen hundred miles in the last two days and there isn't a single light on my dash, though I am on my fourth full tank of gas and there'll be at least one more visit to a gas station before I make it to Fisher.

my butt is so sore can you get pressure sores in 2 days?

Tay sends back, lol i dont think so ALAS i am no doctor

And then, a minute later, Danny says no so you're all good!

Danny, her boyfriend, is even less of a doctor than I am. He never even sat with us when we were binging Grey's Anatomy and House. The thought sends an acute jab of pain through my chest. No more cramming onto the sofa with Tay and Gaby to watch the latest episode of the addictive ridiculousness that goes on in Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Tay will be snuggling up with Danny, and Gaby will be making a whole bunch of cool beachy San Diego friends and god knows where I'll be.

My phone buzzes in my lap, a text from Gaby: Are you seeing any of your family in fisher?

Nope, just an impromptu nostalgia trip.

I could have checked in with my cousins. I'm not sure exactly where all of them are living now but in general we're concentrated on the west coast; I'm pretty sure Ashley is in Portland living out her hipster barista dreams and last I heard, Connor's working in Yellowstone. I know for sure that Mia's finished med school at UCSF and she's just matched into a residency programme somewhere in northern California. She's the golden girl of the whole family. No wonder we were never that close growing up. Her sisters, the twins, Francesca and Sophia, are about to start their junior year of college somewhere either in California or Oregon — yes, they applied to all the same colleges and accepted the same one — and Oliver, the baby of the whole family, still has a couple years left of high school. I have no idea what his brother Hudson is doing now.

I think my brothers are the only ones of us who ended up heading east: Cole's in New Jersey and Nolan's out in New Orleans, about to start his second year at Loyola. I'm still convinced half the reason he chose that school out of the eight acceptances he got was because he wanted to be Nolan in NOLA. My younger brother Emmett is at law school in Washington, much to Mom's delight — I think she silently hoped one of us would follow in her footsteps — and Grayson, like his wife Becky, is a ski instructor in Montana. And then there's me. Doing god knows what, god knows where.

Have an awesome time <3, Tay texts, and if you have the time & money PLEASE come to cali asap bc i miss you both like CRAZY and it's been like 3 days

My heart twinges, its strings reaching out to her. Tay and I have been in each other's pockets for six years. Sometimes I wonder if it has ever bothered Gaby that Tay is my go-to. I text back: I'll figure something out i promise <3

One thing's for sure: I won't be driving there from Fisher. 

*

have you ever taken a road trip?

the furthest i've ever driven myself is only about three hundred miles, but i once spent two weeks on a road trip across california, nevada and arizona and i wish i could do it again!