“We need gas, I’m gonna pull over here!”
It’s been 3 hours since you started your journey across America and you’ve had nothing but your thoughts to keep you company. You’re not too far to turn back…
“Hey, look around for a gas can, I don’t know if the pumps are gonna work.” Lucien begins the process of filling up the tank, “Nope!”
You head inside to look for a gas can, it’s a stretch that there’d be one that’s filled up but you gotta take your chances, otherwise you’ll be walking from here. If there is a gas can it’s probably not inside so you push past the single customer and head out the back door into a small alley. You start to look around, peeking behind trash cans and digging behind bushes. You pull back a bush and find a small dog curled up underneath; he has no collar and looks pretty scruffy, you guess he’s a stray. “Poor little guy, I should run inside and grab a couple hot dogs or s-s-something so he can have something to eat when he w-wakes up,” you say to yourself. You head back inside and grab 2 hot dogs and fill a soda cup with some water, you make sure to leave a few dollars on the cash register on your way out. After gathering the snacks, you go back outside and pull back the bush from earlier. Funny. There was a dog here. Maybe you pulled back the wrong bush. You pull back another one. Nope. Another. Nope. Weird. You leave the hot dogs and water cup by the first bush and go back to the front of the store to see how Lucien’s search has been going.
“Any luck on the gas can?..Lucien?” Looking around, she’s nowhere in sight, “Lucien? W-w-where, where’d you go?” You keep looking around outside, you don’t think she’s inside because you were just in there and it’s such a small store that you definitely would have seen her when you walked through. Maybe the bathroom? You go around to the bathroom door and give it a little knock, “Lucien? Are you in there?” No answer. Suddenly your heart drops. You can feel sweat starting to build on your forehead. “Lucien? This is-is-isn’t funny.” You try to swallow but your mouth is too dry, “S-s-s-shit” You feel like your chest is being squeezed, making it difficult to breathe. You decide it’s best to go back to the motorcycle and wait, she’s bound to come back eventually and in all honesty, you’re starting to panic.
Getting back to the bike, you sit and wait. Your heart’s still racing so you close your eyes, “one… two...one...two...” You can feel yourself starting to calm down after your breathing exercise (thanks Dr.Francine) but it’s still unclear why you started to freak out in the first place, also what happened to that dog, there’s no way it just got up and left. Well, it could have, after all, Lucien is still moving. Speaking of, where is she? It’s been probably over an hour now since the two of you first pulled over at this little gas station. Gas! You still need to find gas! Now that your head’s not spinning it’d be a good idea to start looking for that again.
You get up off the bike and ignore the fact that Lucien’s missing -or that she possibly ditched you- to go find a gas can because even though she's gone you still need to find gas to leave again. After aimlessly wandering around for another 30 minutes you finally find one! It’s not full but it’s enough to get you to another gas station.
Shit. You just filled the tank but now there’s another problem: if Lucien did ditch you then now you have nobody to drive this thing. “It can’t be that hard,” you say to yourself, eyeing the handlebars. Lucien seemed to do it with ease. You take some time to think back on what Lucien did to start it up, “God, why am I so lame? Can’t even start a motorcycle…”
“Need some help?”
“AH!” You quickly turn around and see none other than Miss Disappear for Two Hours, “Where were you?! I was starting to th-th-think you d-d-d-ditched me!”
Lucien chuckles, “I was looking for a gas can, duh. Here, I can see you already found one but this one’s got maybe half a gallon in it,” she shoulders in between you and the bike and starts to fill more of the tank.
You stand up off the bike and walk behind her. You get another weird feeling in your gut but this time it’s different, it feels more.. genuine, it’s not quite as bad as last time but it’s definitely not pleasant. Lucien turns around and stares at you with a smile, “Done! You ready to go?”
“Uhh, yeah, I, I guess so.”
What’s up with her? She’s acting more cheerful, not like the sassy “cool” girl that she was when you first met. You still haven’t asked what she was doing during the time that she was out looking for gas, that little voice in your head is telling you that looking for gas wasn’t the only thing she was doing.
You lift the face cover on your helmet and lean closer to Lucien, “Hey, so uh, where d-d-d, where did you find the gas?”
“Oh! Haha, funny story,” she yells back to you, “First I started to look around the gas station but I kinda got carried away and wandered off into the alley, you know, the one that connects to the back of the gas station? Anyways, I kept following and then I heard this weird noise, kinda like something was digging around in trash or sum’ and I got a bit freaked out so I ran off and ended up getting lost! Haha! I found that can in a guy’s open garage on my way back.”
“Hmm,” something tells you that she isn’t telling you the full story, “did you find out what the noise came from?”
“No, I took off too fast! Haha!”
You drop the rest of the conversation.
The ride continues in silence for the next couple hours.
“I’m getting a little tired, do you wanna stop for the night?”
“Yea, that sounds alright,” You reply
Lucien directs the bike into a Motel 6 parking lot, “I’ll run inside and grab some keys,”
And before you can say anything, Lucien takes off towards the office and leaves you alone by the bike. You decide to wander off just a little bit, to scope out the place you know? You walk up the stairs to the top half of the rooms and begin to walk up and down the hallways. You pass a couple rooms with their curtains open and see people in the midst of their morning routines; A girl is standing in front of a mirror doing her makeup, you can also see a glimpse of who you assume to be a man in the back bathroom and in another room two small children are in sitting comfortably in bed with their pajamas while a woman is making coffee out of the cheap plastic coffee machines complimentary from the motel. You like to make up scenarios that these people may be in. People-watching was always an enjoyable pastime for you, not in a creepy way though, it was more so that you thought humans were interesting creatures and it was fun to try to figure out what their lives were like. You continue to walk the hallways until you’re cut short,
“Hey Johnathon! Where’d you go?”
You lean over the railing and wave down to the brown haired figure below you, “Over here!”
“Oh! Our rooms are down there, stay upstairs, I’ll meet you there!”
You turn to the direction she pointed towards and begin walking.
Lucien meets you at the top of the stairs you pass by earlier, “Here,” she grabs your hand, opens it, and drops a set of keys with her other hand. A warm feeling runs through your body making it difficult to focus on anything other than the feeling of her soft hands against yours. “My room is next to yours, room 555. Also, they have the breakfast stuff all out so if I wake up before you just head over there”
The heat in your face is definitely showing, “Ok-k-k, Okay. Goodnight th-then.”
Lucien lets out a little giggle, “Goodnight!”
ns 172.70.131.166da2