"Big news man, big news!" Sam announced, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Wait let me guess, you've finally converted to the dark side and fallen madly in love with me?" I replied.
He frowned for a moment, "Come on man, I'm serious this is important to me."
"Well then tell me what it is already mate, you can't keep a man in suspense like this."
"I have a girlfriend," his smile was so wide you could almost count all the teeth.
That announcement was little over 3 months ago now. I don't know if I've ever seen him so excited over something before, it was adorable. Sam proceeded to tell me all the details about this new woman and I didn't even have to ask, not that I wanted to know in the first place but that's beside the point. This description comes entirely from a second hand account given to me by Sam, but for all intents and purposes Eliza, his new girl who happens to be a friend, was 100% American-made good stuff. Apparently she had soft brown hair in a neatly cropped look that ended just below the ears, eyes that were the color of the stars, whatever the hell that means, and I didn't listen much past the description of the face. I wasn't really listening at all, but humoring Sam.
"Glenn, I'd like you to finally meet Eliza." We both shared a sheepish smile, handshake, and 'nice to meet you' before sitting down to lunch with Sam.
The first few moments were awkward and not necessarily tense, but there was something in the air between everyone. It was nothing sinister, just the natural outcome of three people meeting up and not fully knowing someone in the group. We tried some small talk, I found out she is majoring in Music, she found out I play guitar, we both found out apparently Sam has been learning to mix music. We were well on our way to having a little musical band type thing going and that helped ease some tension.
"Let's address the elephant in the room," I tried to look serious as I stared down Eliza and hide my smirk, "What unfortunate circumstances led to you being involved with this bodgy man?"
They looked at each other to both confirm what had just been asked and how they were to answer, "Well, we are in the same English class," Sam began before being cut off.
"I asked her, not you, you arse." A finger was put against Sam's mouth to shut him up as I looked back at Eliza.
And that much was true. They had met in an English class towards the beginning of our semester. The adorable part was finding out she had been the one to ask him out after weeks of side glances and hurried attempts to look cool and aloof. Meeting Eliza happened around 2 months ago. I hadn't seen much else of her other than that initial meeting, there were occasional lunches or hangouts with Sam but our schedules mostly didn't match up. The talk about her also trailed off as well, but I figured that was mostly due to settling into the relationship. It never really clicked until now, driving under the starts in Ambiguous Location, USA, that this whole trip might be some sort of unplanned retreat.
Sam wasn't an overtly reactionary kind of guy, but he had his streaks of impulsiveness that he was prone too. I might unfortunately be caught up in one such wave. His expression had seemed to soften in the meantime, teeth slowly unclenching. I could almost hear his jaw creaking like old machinery as he loosened up. Feeling bad about putting him in such unnecessary stress, I was almost content to let it pass and revisit the topic later into our trip. We were both exhausted and it was getting to the point where we'd need a hotel soon. It'd be nice to have a little respite too, a proper place to sleep and all that.
An hour or so more of driving and we had pulled off the highway and into a passable motel. The hotel attendant gave us a look while handing us the keys which of course alerted my "be an asshole" sense and put on my best lisp, making sure to get handsy with Sam, as we made our way to the room. A chance to mess with Sam and an innocent bystander was something I couldn't easily pass up. We made our way inside, belongings tossed aside without a care as Sam flopped down onto a bed, falling asleep almost immediately. I shuffled over to the sink and decided to stare myself down in the mirror.
Sunken eyes, a decent amount of facial scruff, and looking as terrible as I felt, I pushed my hair back out of my face and let out a long sigh. Leaning against the sink as I turned around, Sam looked just as exhausted and terrible. The thing they don't tell you about road trips is how incredibly uncomfortable they are and how that really affects the human body. But I think the real thing affecting us was the emotional weight Sam was carrying and my attempts to help him shoulder it.
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