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“Me too,” he says quietly, tucking me more firmly against his side.
12
ELORA
40.8021° N, 124.1637° W
With the bag of Cheetos I opened minutes ago on my lap and one of the podcasts I like listening to playing through the speakers, I watch water begin to splash against the windshield. It’s not actually raining; it’s more of a mist at this point, but soon, we won’t be able to see the road. At least not clearly.
“Roman.”
“Yeah?” he mutters, switching lanes to pass a semi-truck.
“Uh… I think we need to stop,” I whisper, and he glances over at me, then down at the extra large iced coffee I ordered from the gas station we stopped at not long ago.
Smiling, he shakes his head. “I told you not to get that much coffee.”
I rub my lips together as the mist becomes tiny beads of water that begin to cover the windshield. “It’s not that. It’s the wipers.”
“The wipers?”
“They don’t work.” He looks over at me again, this time frowning. Focusing back on the road, he flips up the lever for the wipers. They engage… but only enough to clear about five inches from the bottom of the windshield.
“The wipers don’t work,” he informs me.
“That’s what I just said.”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “They were like that when I bought the van.”
“You drove from Wyoming to Oregon without your wipers working?” he asks, sounding angry or annoyed. I can’t tell the difference—that, or he’s both at the same time.
“I didn’t need them.”
“Everyone needs working fucking wipers, Elora.” He moves to the right lane on the highway as the rain picks up.
“It didn’t rain.”
“Fuck me,” he grumbles, taking the exit for a town called Eureka.
“I never needed them.”
“Thank fuck for that.”
“Don’t be mad.”
“Babe.” He looks over at me as he stops at the red light. “I’m not mad. I’m pissed you’d do something so fucking reckless.” The light turns green, and he turns right, then pulls into the first available parking lot.
“The rain is already letting up.” I motion to the windshield, and I know that was the wrong thing to say when he turns to glare at me.
Whatever. The rain will pass, and we will be on our way.
I dig my hand into my bag of Cheetos.
Shaking his head at me, he grabs his cell phone and starts typing. Two minutes later, he drops it into the cupholder and puts the van in reverse.
“Where are we going?”
