The Road You Can Take

They needed two carts at Target for all the shit Evelyn was buying. A 3-person tent, a portable grill, food, and lots and lots of underwear, for both of them.

“You can wear the same pair of jeans for three days in a row, but underwear needs to be changed every day. This is just in case.”

Garrett had just shrugged and continued to push the cart. He let her throw stuff into both of their carts, mostly wondering how exactly they were going to fit all of this into the two feet left in the trunk. Perhaps the back seat, but he was thinking that Evelyn could stretch out there when she got tired.

She even went as far as buying a two hundred and fifty dollar camera, picking it out because it was blue. She didn’t even let the sales guy continue with his speech on its benefits.

“To document.” She had told Garrett, setting the box in the cart.

They were lucky that it was early in the morning and there weren’t that many people in the store, because checking out took forever. Garrett didn’t bother glancing at the total, just put the bags in the cart and let Evelyn swipe her debit card through.

The cashier tried to make polite conversation. “Where are you all going?”

Evelyn had given her a polite smile and shrugged. “Around. We’re going on a road trip.”

“That explains it.” She looked at Evelyn slowly as the receipt printed. She tore it from the machine and asked Evelyn to sign. When Evelyn gave the pen and copy back, the cashier smiled again, a terse, tight smile.

“You and your boyfriend have fun.”

“Thank you.” Evelyn replied. She didn’t deny or accept the boyfriend term.

Maybe it didn’t matter to her, Garrett thought. Maybe she didn’t care what people thought. He cared though, and the word shook him.

When they got to the car, Garrett popped the trunk and inspected the tiny bit of room. They could make it work, maybe. If they tried very, very hard.

He started piling Target bags on one side, camping boxes on the other. Evelyn was digging around for the fancy new digital camera that she bought. The tent, camping supplies, and half of the bags fit in the trunk. The other half were stored underneath the passenger seat and on the backseat floor. It would work, for now.

A lot of the stuff was food, so as they ate that more space would free up.

Evelyn had retrieved her camera box, and she was now sitting in the passenger’s seat, waiting. Garrett let out a sign as he sat down. It was nine o’clock and he was already tired. No dice.

“So I was thinking we could take Route 17 to Flagstaff, stopping at a couple places on the way.”

Evelyn nodded. “Sounds good. We can stop to eat somewhere, too. What’s in Flagstaff, though?”

“I dunno. Just stuff, I guess. We can always explore. Or go somewhere else, if you want.”

Evelyn shook her head. “Nah, Flagstaff is cool. I don’t mind. It has a semi-interesting name anyway. I wonder why it was named Flagstaff.”

“Google it.” Garrett suggested, turning on the car and backing out of the parking space.

“Yes, with my invisible computer,” Evelyn giggled.

Garrett reached down into his pocket and took out his phone. “My phone has internet.”

Evelyn took the device with a small smile and a, “Thank you.”

“Well,” she said. “While the internet loads, let’s play a game.”

“A game?” Garrett spared her a glance as he got out of the parking lot. There was only a salon, a Jamba Juice, and a tiny Little Caesar’s, so it wasn’t too packed. He hated parking lots.

“A game. Let’s start with something simple. How about Would You Rather?” She suggested.

Garrett rolled his eyes. “Okay, what are we, twelve?”

“Maybe. Do you have a better game? And don’t you dare say I Spy.” Evelyn challenged.

Garrett sighed. “Whatever, Would You Rather it is. You go first.”

Evelyn smiled triumphantly. “Would you rather eat rice for the rest of your life, or eat everything completely smothered in ketchup?”

Garrett took the time to stare at her. “Ketchup?” He asked her skeptically.

“Ketchup.” She confirmed.

He thought for a second. “Rice, all day, every day. Barbecue sauce I could handle, but ketchup on ice cream? Shit, no.”

“I’d choose the ketchup.” Evelyn nodded. “Love ketchup.”

Garrett grimaced.

“Okay, now your turn,” she reminded him, her hands fumbling with his phone. He barely had any signal, so it was taking a while for Google to load.

“Um…” he paused. “Oh, okay. Would you rather go to school for the rest of your life, or work at a fast food restaurant until you can retire?”

She didn’t even skip a beat. “School, hands down. I could learn all kinds of stuff – quantum physics, trigonometry, art history… I wouldn’t get bored.”

“Really?” Garrett was skeptical. He couldn’t imagine going to school for the rest of his life, but he would definitely choose it over a McJob. You get more vacation at school, anyway.

“Yes.” Evelyn nodded. “And I mean, for me, the rest of my life isn’t that long anyway, so I think I could manage.” She cracked a smile, and Garrett caught his mistake.

He hadn’t even thought of thinking his Would You Rather questions through. The rest of her life wasn’t that long at all. It was an advantage in hindsight of the game, but also a choking reminder.

“Shit,” he cursed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think…”

Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Don’t trip.” She said. “You don’t have to censor anything around me. I know I’m going to die – big fucking whoop. Tip toeing around it would just make things awkward between us, and considering that we’re going to be about a foot apart for a couple of weeks, awkward really wouldn’t work, okay?”

Garrett nodded. He was baffled on how she could be so calm about all of this. Yeah, she had had time to accept it and prepare herself for what was inevitably coming, but he just assumed that she would be extra sensitive on the subject.

“Okay.” He said. He didn’t know any other way to apologize, and even though Evelyn had just expressed how bad an awkward atmosphere would be for them, one now coated the car, settling over them like a sheet.

A few seconds in, Evelyn cleared her throat. “Would You Rather is kind of a lame game.” She sighed.

Garrett shrugged. “A little bit, but you can’t exactly play Pictionary while you’re driving.”

“Well, you could,” she said. “But it would involve two cars, picture messages, and a lot of trust that the other team wouldn’t cheat. Which, if you ask me, isn’t possible, because everyone tries to cheat at Pictionary.”

“They do?” He asked. He didn’t really care, but he wanted her to keep talking. He wanted the conversation to be effortless between the two of them. He wanted them to be comfortable with each other already. He didn’t want it to take time.

She nodded adamantly. “Like, when you’re grabbing the card out of the box, the person holding it tries to sneak a peek at what the colors say, and they always fucking give you the difficult category, which is impossible to draw. How the hell do you draw condominium? A tiny condom? And ‘on a roof’? You can draw it perfectly, but everyone is going to guess suicide or drunken house party, so the game is impossibly to win!”

There was a moment of silence. Garrett laughed a little. “So…you don’t like Pictionary.”

Evelyn shook her head. “On the contrary, I love Pictionary. I just hate playing with shitty people.”

Garrett couldn’t stop his laughs from getting a little louder. “You’re a little picky about your board game components?”

Evelyn couldn’t help but laugh a bit too. “Yes, yes I am.”

They both laughed for a few seconds, before the moment died out and they were left sitting there, Evelyn messing with his phone in her hands, typing her question in and Garrett trying to concentrate on the road.

He took a quick glance at her as she looked down, reading the owner’s manual.

The second he looked at her, he thought that maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad. Maybe he could do this – he could handle this trip, he could handle her. She wasn’t really all that bad. Most of the time he was wondering why exactly she chose him, but maybe he would stop wondering and just start enjoying the time that they were spending together.

He had the opportunity to get to know her one last time. He was going to embrace that. He knew that in the end, things would be bittersweet. She was going to die, and he was going to accept that.

She was going to die, so he was going to accept her, thoroughly, for every little thing that she was.

She sighed, the internet signal finally diminishing. “It’s not giving me anything. Guess we’ll just have to ask when we get there.”

Garrett nodded.

“Onward, my friend!”