Long Rides

The rain drops fell to the window as the wiper attempted to wipe it off the window, but it failed because the drops kept falling down.

“I hate driving in the rain,” I protested. “Verion hasn’t had her turn to drive today!”

“Shut up and drive, Athe,” Verion said.

“This isn’t fair!” I protested as I hit the break when the traffic light turned red. I turned around in my seat to face the boys in the middle seat. “You know I hate driving slow,” I pouted and gave my puppy eyes to Vincent.

“Athe, don’t do that,” he groaned, looking away.

“Just drive!” Arne commanded.

“Beep. Command is unknown since the light is currently red.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does to me.”

Arne and Verion rolled their eyes at me.

“Please, switch with me, Vincent? Pleaaase?” I whined.

Verion smacked my arm and I winced. “Cheater!” she said. “Don’t switch, Vincent!”

Vincent looked at me with the corner of his eyes.

“Please?” I whined.

He sighed. “Pull over at a gas station or something,” he surrendered.

“I love you!” I squealed and started to drive as the light turned yellow, and then green.

I pulled over to a parking lot at the nearest gas station.

“Oh my god, a mini-market!” Verion shrieked when she saw a mini-market in the gas station, and she ran off inside the mini-market.

“I’ll get her,” Arne sighed and followed Verion.

“Maybe we should get inside too,” Vincent suggested me.

“Sure, why not?” I turned off the engine and followed my friends after I locked the van.

We separated when we were inside. Vincent wandered off to the drinks section and I went to the sweets section. I spotted packs of Gummy Bears in the rack, and we ran out of Gummy Bears so I stood on my tip toes to reach it.

The tip of my fingers met someone else’s muscular fingers, so I looked to my right and a very familiar face was staring down at me.

“Atheria?” he said.

“Caleb!” I said; not on my toes anymore.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. A smile appeared in his face.

“I was driving and I hate rain so we pulled over here but Verion ran off inside this store and then we met!”

“I miss you!”

I laughed. “Caleb, it’s only a week since we haven’t seen each other.”

“Feels like a year to me.”

I smiled.

“And you were taking the Gummy Bears?” he reminded.

“Oh, yeah,” I said and stood on my tip toes again to take it.

“Let me get it for you,” he offered. “How many packs do you need?”

“Five… wait, seven.”

“…Seven?”

“We need a lot of sugar. Especially Verion.”

“Ookay,” he said and handed me 7 packs of Gummy Bears.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem.”

“You don’t take the gummies?”

He shook his head. “We actually still have so much of it in the bus.”

“Soo, where are the others?” I asked as we started to walk.

“Some are hiding in the bus, some are here—“

“Kyle, get off from the trolley!” we heard a familiar voice screamed, followed by laughter. The voice sounded like Jonathan’s…

By the time we reached the source of the loud voices, I saw a group of people fooling around.

“Atheria!” Jonathan shouted and ran to me, pulling me into a bone-breaking hug.

“Can’t… breathe…” I choked out.

“Oops, sorry,” he apologized and let me go.

“You’re squishing the gummies!” I said, playfully smacking his arm.

He gasped. “I’m sorry, gummies.”

“OH MY GOD ATHERIA!” I heard Kyle screamed. He ran to me and threw me over his shoulder.

“Put me down!” I shrieked before Arne took the gummies in my hands.

“Why?”

“This is embarrassing!”

“It is not!” he argued.

“It is! Now put me down!”

He sighed and finally put my down. I turned around and faced Alex.

“Why hello,” I said in a sing-song voice.

“Hello too.”

“So nice to see you again,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

I laughed. “Stop that!”

“Stop what?”

“Wiggling your eyebrows. I found it so irresistible! It makes me wanna squish you.”

“Squish me. I dare you.”

We stared for a while.

“Nah.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

After a few more talking with the others, we paid for our foods and drinks and when we were outside, the rain had stopped.

“Looks like you still have to drive, Athe,” Verion grinned before skipping towards the van.

I sighed.

“Let me drive, Athe,” Arne said, holding out his hand.

“Vincent has promised,” I replied.

“It’s okay. Let me drive.”

I sighed in defeat and handed him the key. He went to the van with a plastic bag in his hand. Vincent stared down at me and then turned to the guys.

“Anyone wanna join our van?” he offered.

“I do!” Kyle, Caleb, and Jonathan exclaimed in unison before they ran to the van.

“There’s one seat left.. anyone else wanna join?” I asked.

“We missed being in a van and all, but bus is better,” Austin said grinning.

I shrugged, “Alright then. See you, errh, somewhere.” Vincent and I went in to the van and closed the door.

Arne locked the door and drove away. Verion was sitting on the passenger seat, Vincent was sitting next to me, and Caleb, Jonathan and Kyle sat on the backseat.