Taion

The downfall of being on tour is that they're aren't many cars. They're a tons of buses, tons. Tour buses. Fifteen passenger vans. Small trailers to put instruments in. But no cars. No cars that belong to us, anyways. I mean, the fans had cars. But the last thing I wanted to do was travel with a fan. "Oh! So your Alex's kid? Can you get me back stage?!" Uh, no.

My best bet was to stay away from the fans. Easy. The venue they were playing at was conveniently located in downtown Brunswick, which had a population of about sixteen thousand. It would be easy to get lost there. I smiled and stuck out my thumb.

Hitchhiking, if you didn’t know, was illegal, but so is meth and people still do that. The first person that came by –and '89 Toyota passed. As did the second. The third. The forth. The fifth person to pass pulled over on the curb –a silver Honda. I smiled and started walking towards the car and opened the door.

"Mind if I join you?" A young lady sat in the car, obviously wild. I was sure she'd been drinking. Her hair was knotted, her clothes hanging limply off her body, and her eyes had a dazed look in them, but she was nice.

"Hi! I'm Mia. Where you headed to?"

I smiled softly. The car was a mess. Coffee cups everywhere. "Phoenix. I'm going to New York."

She grinned and kinda squealed. "Cute name! I'm headed to Savannah for a party, but that’s as far as I can take you." She started up the engine again, started talking about her boy friend who lived up in Savannah, and how she was in her third year of college –still not certain of what she wanted to be. She was in the middle of telling me about her "stupid mom" and "overprotective dad" when Kesha's "Tik Tok" came on the radio.

"OMG! I, like, love this song!" She blared the radio and the rest of the conversation was screwed. An hour later she was dropping me off at a gas station right across from the club she was going to and wished me luck with my trip back to NYC. I didn't correct her over the fact that I was actually just going to the state, not the city, and I was going back to visit my sister's grave. She wouldn't have cared anyways –she was too excited about getting wasted. But I waved back to her and thanked her as she pulled out of the lot and across the street.

I turned away, faced the oncoming traffic, and jacked my thumb up again. That was when I saw the police car. A little to late. He'd saw me and started to pull into the gas sation, pulling up beside me. I cursed. I was so screwed.

"Hello, son." His accent was obvious: he was from Georgia. A local.

"Hi, sir. Is there a problem?" Everyone always asked that question. I wasn't an exception.

"Don't you know hitchhiking isn’t allowed?"

"Yes, sir."

He eyed me, placed his hands on his hips. "Where ya from?"

I bit my lip. "New York."

He stared at me. "Got any parents?"

"Dead or in jail."

"How'd you get down here?"

I paused. He was shooting off questions like crazy. Blinking, I sighed. "I'm with a band."

"What band? Where are the other members?"

"In Brunswick." There was no use lying to the law. That was only a one way ticket to prison.

He narrowed his eyes. "Why aren't you with them?"

I shrugged and my teeth started to chatter. "I just wanna go home."

He paused, pursing his lips and looked at the ground. He took a step towards me. I took one back. He noticed it and scratched at his head curiously. "I'm just trying to help, kid." He took another step, and I willed myself to stay put. He held out an old rinky dink cell phone. "Wanna give em a call?"

Great. I even fail at running away for more than a hundred miles. Phoenix Envy=0. I roll my eye, but mumble "Sure," and sit down on the curb while I dialed Rian's phone. I didn't particularly feel like talking to the others. A thousand and one thoughts swirling through my head as I heard the dial tone. The nausea was sweeping over me by now and I rested my head between my knees in case I had the urge, but it never came. Rian answered on the third ring. "Dude, where are you?"

I swallowed. "Savannah."

"Georgia?" I looked up. Rian's voice could be heard even away from the phone. I knew the police officer had heard. He showed no sign of eavesdropping, though.

"Yeah. I'm with a police officer."

"What the hell did you do now?"

Before I could open my mouth, the phone was jerked away and the trooper was exchanging information with Rian. "…caught him by a gas station…downtown…hitchhiking."

Pause. "Yeah, we'll wait for you …Brunswick, right? …Yeah, I'll explain everything when ya'll get down here." He hung up the phone and turned to me. "They're on their way."

I pushed my hair back. I was sweating.