After about two more hours, when the silence gets unbearable, I stop at a diner and decide I really need to get some food.

“Coming with me or not?”, I ask the boy and he just shrugs. “Do whatever you want to, I’m hungry.”

I get out of the car and he’s following behind just a few meters. I choose a table by the window because I’m scared of someone stealing my dad’s car and like this, I can keep it in sight.

We sit there in silence for about five minutes while waiting for a waiter to appear before I lean back in my chair and sigh.

“Okay”, I say, “If you want to stay in my car for another two hours or so, you need to stop ignoring me. Either you act like a socially normal person and talk, or you get over with your business and kill me already, or you just stay here and wait for some other potential murder to pick you up.”

He opens his eyes rather widely as if he wasn’t expecting me to say that and nods “Right, sorry. I didn’t want to bother you. You didn’t really seem as if you enjoyed my company.”

“Usually, when you first meet people, you introduce yourself.”

He nods again. “Yeah, right. Not too good with those formalities.”

He gets up and walks away and I already think he decided on option three when he heads out of the door. Instead of leaving, he opens the door of the diner and walks in, sitting down across from me again.

“Hi”, he says, “Nice to meet you. I’m Harry.”

I can see his lip twitching, nearly forming a smile and it makes me laugh, almost. I didn’t expect him to have a sense of humour, to be honest.
“Louis”, I say, reaching out my hand so he can shake it, “What brought you here?”

He shrugs, the smile leaving his face again. “I’m going on a trip to the south. How about you?”

I try not to think about what a weird situation I got myself into and try to nod interestedly. “Great. I’m headed to the south, too. Doing a little trip around England before visiting my parents. As you probably heard, I need a little break from my roommate.”

He nods. “I definitely did hear, yes.”

I laugh and desperately try to come up with something to say when a blonde waitress arrives at our table and hands us the menus. “There you go, boys. Decided on drinks yet?”

“I’ll have the chocolate milkshake”, Harry says with a polite smile on his lips.

“The homemade lemonade for me.” She nods before leaving again.

“You’re the milkshake guy, then?”, I ask him.

“Didn’t know that was a certain type”, he says without looking up from his menu.

“Yes, it is. It’s the kind who likes to eat a lot but never gets fat, never goes to the gym but likes to go running in parks, has long hair tied into a bun because it’s fancy, keeps a journal and studies art or music.”

Harry looks up from his menu now. “That’s ridiculous. I am not the milkshake type.”

“I got it right, didn’t I?”
He rolls his eyes as a confirmation. “And you’re the lemonade type, then?”

“Suppose so”, I reply, reading over the different meals, “What is the lemonade type like?”

“It’s this boring type”, he starts and I scoff, “Orders lemonade because it somehow tastes healthier than a milkshake but not as boring as water, wears sweatpants the whole day, rather goes on road trips alone than stay home and party with friends, has had the same girlfriend for years and studies something just because he didn’t know what to do.”

I scoff again. Roll my eyes. “I mean, not too bad. You based that off my appearance though and the girlfriend thing you only said to find out whether I’d disagree or not.”

“Why’d I do that?”

“Because I’m hot as fuck and you were hoping you had a chance with me if I told you I was gay.”

He just laughs at me and shakes his head before the waitress appears again and takes our orders.

We eat in silence afterwards but at least I had something similar to a real conversation with him.

After getting back into the car, it becomes quiet again, Harry even drifts of to sleep for about half an hour as we drive along some old country roads.

I look over at him while driving carefully and wonder what could be the reason for the urgency of this road trip. Maybe he just really misses his friend.

Harry wakes up ten minutes before I’m supposed to arrive at my chosen destination and blinks a few times before rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands.

“Where are we?”, he asks and I shrug because I really have no precise idea of where we are exactly and point to a spot on the map.

“You said you were heading south”, Harry says.

“We did head south.”

“Barely”, he says, sounding upset, “You drove west. Maybe half an hour into the south.”

I know what he means. When he asked me, I kind of had the route remembered differently so that we really didn’t exactly get where he wanted to get, probably.

“But you also got south.”

“Not enough”, he insists, “Louis, you said we were going south.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, I fucking got it. What are we gonna do about it? It’s not like anyone else would have taken you with them. Be happy you got further at all, for fucks sake.”

He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths in and out, not answering. “Yeah. Okay.”

I feel a bit guilty again because of the pain in his expression. I really don’t get him, he’s so weird. He seems so emotional and yet like he has no feelings at all.

“I’ll drop you off at the next gas station”, I say, “Maybe there’s someone who can take you further into south.”

He nods a tight nod and hugs himself tightly as we continue to drive in silence. It’s five more minutes before I’m supposed to arrive at the campsite by now and the landscape is getting more and more rural.

Now that I think about it, the last time we passed a gas station was probably forty minutes ago, the last time I saw a house fifteen.

“Oh, for fucks sake”, I say and hit the steering wheel with my hand. Harry doesn’t even flinch but continues to stare at me without an expression on his face.

“There won’t be a fucking gas station anymore, Harry. I missed the last one and now I have to drive back forty minutes to drop you there, fuck. I’ll totally mess up my schedule.”

I pull the car to the side of the road so I can properly think about a solution for this stupid situation.

“It’s fine”, Harry says, “You can just drop me of here.”

He points out of the window where you can see nothing but endless fields and forest. Not even considering the fact that I don’t really care about him, I won’t just leave him standing in the middle of nowhere. Where would he even be supposed to sleep?

“Nah”, I say, “That’s fucking insane.”

There’s this idea forming in my head and I really, really despise it, but at least that would mean not having to drive back and still getting to swim for a bit tonight.

I lean forward in my seat and tap around on my screen, switching to the route for tomorrow. It’s definitely going a bit more southern.

“Okay”, I say and close my eyes with a groan, “You know what, if you want, you can continue driving with me until tomorrow. You’ll get a bit more into south and I won’t have to drive back to that fucking gas station.”

I point to the last stop on the route for tomorrow and he leans forward to look a bit closer as well.

“I mean, if you’re alright with it.”

“At least it’s better than driving back or leaving you here thinking you’ll get killed by a bear.”

“I don’t think there’s bears out here.”

I roll my eyes and turn the engine on with a sigh. “You get the point, don’t you? Just, don’t make me overthink this stupid decision. Then you’ll get killed by a bear after all.”

He nods quickly and stops talking while I drive the last mile until we reach the campsite. I jump out of the car and pay at the reception before the elderly woman shows me where to stay.

It’s a small place in a corner with a few trees and bushes around so there won’t be too many old campers staring at me while I have dinner.

“I’m gonna go for a swim”, I say as soon as we arrive because that’s really all I want after having sat in the hot car for the whole day.

“Okay”, Harry mumbles and grabs his backpack and bag from the backseat.

The water of the lake is cold and clear, you are able to see the ground at all places. There are rather big mountains around it as well as trees and a few flowers. Liam really did a good job of recommending me a spot to stay at.

I won’t stay for too long though because my plan is to get to the coast rather quickly so that I’ll be able to enjoy the sea for at least a week or so before arriving at my family’s.

Since it’s already early evening, there’s barely any annoying children around, just one couple dozing in the sun and an old man walking his dog a bit further away.

I drift around in the water for a bit, closing my eyes and enjoying the last beams of sum before it’ll disappear behind the mountains.

After about half an hour of swimming around a bit more, diving deep down so my head cools down, I start to shiver a bit and swim back to the small stony beach.

When I walk back to the van with a towel wrapped around my waist, I fall into panic for a short moment because, holy shit, I left a stranger unattended with my dad’s car, but Harry is still sitting in the same position, legs crossed in front of him, scrolling around on his phone.

“Want dinner?”, I ask, “I’m making pasta.”

He shrugs without looking at me. “For fucks sake, have you even eaten anything besides lunch today? Probably not, so just say that you want some goddamn pasta, it’s not like it’s truffle or caviar anyways so you can fucking take the offer.”

He doesn’t answer so I continue to rant for a bit because this boy really annoys the shit out of me, ruining my whole trip like that.

“You really are so fucking weird, Harry. Sorry if you think that’s offensive, but who the fuck goes on a road trip without taking food with them? Most stupid idea ever, really. You can’t just hang out at gas stations the whole day and hope some super friendly and social person like me will take you with them.”

Not even my last provocation gets him to speak up so I just sigh and heat up the little camping stove I got from Zayn’s mum.

I climb into the backseat and get sweatpants and a tank top I throw on, hoping Harry won’t look behind him while I’m undressed.

By the time I managed to get changed in the too small space and jump out of the van, it smells like burned pasta.

“Oh fucking hell, shit, fuck”, I shout and hurry to the Camping stove, turning it off completely immediately.

Most of the pasta isn’t even cooked yet, only the ones at the bottom are burned into the floor of the pot.

I put a spoon full of pesto and cheese on top of each plate with pasta and call Harry to come over.

While he unfolds the desk, I unfold the one chair I brought and tell him he’ll have to eat while standing because dad forbid me to eat in the car and he won’t want to sit in the grass, probably.

It tastes absolutely horrible. The part that isn’t burned is rock hard and the pasta actually still cracks between my teeth while trying to chew it. We both end up only eating half of our portions and I only feel full in the end because of eating the two bags of crisps I bought earlier that day.

We don’t talk the whole time. I end up going to bed early while Harry keeps staring at his phone on the front seat where I suppose is still the best place to sleep because I certainly will not give up my bed for him.

I fall asleep quickly, happy I don’t have to keep up with his annoying presence when I’m sleeping.

~~~

hope you liked it <3

length of the chapters will probably always vary a bit