Young Writers Society

We had our thumbs pointing optimistically to the sky as car after car after truck whizzed passed us. The thing they don't tell you about hitchhiking, is the amount of time you spend standing on the side of the road cursing out vehicles. The sun was shining and it was warm on my face, and it blinded Sawyer so all the better.

"Why aren't they stopping?" Sawyer asked to no one in particular, throwing her arms up.

The other thing no one told us, was just how hard it was to hitchhike from your town. We grew up in a little speck on the map, that wasn't even big enough to accommodate a subway in the one and only gas station.

"There goes Mrs Peterson." I said.

Sawyer gaped at the pink VW beetle. "We're being boy-cotted." She said as Mrs Peterson smiled and waved at us. "Dad must have pitted everyone in town against us!"

"Maybe this was a bad idea." I said, mostly to myself because I knew if Sawyer heard me, she'd count it as blasphemy and we'd all be hanged.

Her head whipped towards me. "I didn't quite my job so we could stand out here for three hours and then give up."

maybe this was a mistake I thought to myself. She was right though- we couldn't give up that easily.

“He couldn’t have pitted the whole town against us.” I said.

Sawyer scrunched her face up, distorting her freckles so it almost looked like she was tanned rather than polka-dotted. “Don’t underestimate him.”

Then to our surprise and great delight/relief, a silver pickup truck puttered to a stop on the side of the road ahead of us. I felt like doing a victory dance but didn’t want to cause any accidents so instead I just jogged towards the truck. Sawyer was behind me, making her way at a much slower pace. The driver’s door opened and a guy around our age hopped out.

“Hi!” I said, waving frantically at him, “Thank you so much for stopping!- it’s been crazy trying to get a ride!” Sawyer arrived at my side, looking skeptically at the guy and also smiling.

There was silence for a long, aggravating moment. “Look,” he said, “I just got a flat so um… you might want to keep looking for another ride.” His voice was on the verge of annoyance, but too polite to be completely annoyed.

Of course this would happen to me. I felt like an idiot. An awkward, fumbly, assuming, idiot.
“I mean once I change this you two are welcome to hitch a ride with me. Just might be a minute.” he said.

A minute? This guy obviously had never hitchhiked before either, if he thought that we could get a ride faster than him changing a tire. Or, perhaps he was really slow at changing tires. “Oh, you don’t have to do that!” I said, feeling self-conscious of my earlier assumptions. Sawyer elbowed me in the gut to make me shut up.

“That would be really nice of you.” she said, “thank you!”

I offered to help but he just ended up getting me to hold and pass him tools. And only about twenty minutes later we were all squishing into his truck. Me in the middle because Sawyer claimed I had slimmer hips than her. I wasn’t sure if that were true or if I liked that but there we were. Knowing Sawyer, this hips thing was going to haunt me for the entirety of the trip- or maybe my life.

Everyone always thought Sawyer and I were best friends- or worse, sisters, twins even. But the truth was, we were nothing more than best-enemies. We simply stuck together because A. we had to survive this world somehow, B. no one else would hang out with either of us, and C. we liked the same sort of things. The truth was, this whole trip thing was a bad idea- but at least I wasn’t doing it with a best friend. These kind of trips ruined relationships- we were going about this the smart way. By going with someone you only semi-tolerated, there wasn’t anything to lose.

“Are you two sisters?” the guy, who we’d learnt was named Mac, asked.

“No.” we said at the same time.

“You sure?” Mac said, laughing. “Switched at birth perhaps?”

If we weren’t squished to our shoulders and thighs I’d glare at him. But that would have brought my face awkwardly close to his and I wouldn’t really be glaring at him at that point, I’d be examining his stubble or his pores. It wouldn’t really have the desired effect. I also didn’t know Mac well, so who’s to say he’d take being glared at well. Which made me think a little more about how we didn’t know Mac at all. For all we knew he was a serial killer taking us to his basement to butcher us and then feed our organs to his cats. For all we knew his real name wasn’t even Mac. Maybe this was a bad idea after all. There had to be some kind of screening process for these kinds of things. I decided to make one up later, and started listing reasons not to take rides from people based on their appearances and things they said.

1. If they compliment you on what you’re wearing, they’re probably a creep.
2. If they offer you food that’s also probably a good sign.
3. No more squishy vehicles.
But then, Mac hadn’t stopped for us he’d stopped because of his tire. So was that a good enough sign that he wasn’t a creep and that he’d just so happened to be there? Would he have even stopped for us had he not gotten a flat tire?

Mac swerved to miss a pothole, lurching me out of my thoughts. This was a bad idea. I thought to myself. Everyone told us this was a bad idea, and did we listen? No. I’m not even sure why we were doing this trip. Sure, Sawyer had her reasons and so did I. We even had lists of all the places we wanted to see and all the things we wanted to do. But I don’t think there was any real reason. It wasn’t like we were avid hikers or backpackers or anything.

We just wanted to DO something. And since neither of us had friends, we decided that this summer was the perfect time to do just that. Maybe the trip was to try to forget about uni or maybe it was to get away from our families. Heaven knows neither of us wanted to move back in with our parents and get a job over the summer (even though that probably would have been the smart move). Nah, we decided that it was high-time for our adventure, be it intelligent or otherwise.

Mac's truck buzzed when it went passed a hundred kilometres an hour, and some sort of empty plastic jug in the bed of it kept thunking against the side. But other than that everything was okay. We were on the road! The wind in our hair! Nothing could stop us now!

I looked over at Sawyer, she seemed to be thinking the same thing because her eyes were wide and there was the faintest hint of a smile in them that she couldn't suppress.

"So where are you headed?" I asked Mac.

"Oh I just like to drive." he said, as if driving for long distances for no reason were a normal hobby. "It's relaxing." he added.

Something in the way he said it seemed false. I wasn't sure what it was, and it was hard to tell because- maybe that's how Mac sounded when he talked, but it seemed like he was reluctant to say something. Like he was holding something back.

We hadn’t been driving long, and I had no idea where Mac was from - it occurred to me to ask, but I wasn’t the nosey type - so maybe it was believable that he simply liked to drive. Maybe he didn't plan on driving us very far anyway. Maybe he'd just drop us off in the next town we hit, which would probably be Peaslie. And appropriate name for such a small town. Peaslie was even smaller than the town Sawyer and I grew up in - Kerslake - which was puny enough as it is with a population of only three-thousand.

I tried not to think about what would happen when Mac decided he’d had enough driving us, and asked us to get out. Pretty soon he’d find the squishy space unbearable and make some excuse that my shampoo that still lingered in my frizzy hair was giving him a headache or something. But half an hour went by, and then an hour, and then two hours, and then pretty soon Mac was asking us what we wanted for lunch.

We were in a little town that I think I’d been to when I was really young, but I didn’t remember much of it at all. We stopped at a little diner because that’s the only restaurant there seemed to be.

“Egg salad sandwich today, Mac?” The waitress asked when she reached our table. I was stunned. Maybe he had been telling the truth when he said he just liked to drive.

Mac made a face. “Nah, I’ve been having mixed feelings about eggs lately. I’ll have the soup special; beef vegetable sounds delightful.”

“And what can I get for you lovely ladies?” she turned to us.

I decided to have the same thing as Mac, and Sawyer hummed and hawed over a hamburger and a chicken wrap for a century, and then decided to have spaghetti instead. The soup was heaven sent. It flowed into my stomach like pure gold. I hadn’t thought I was that hungry until I started spooning it into my mouth. And it tasted delicious- the vegetables weren’t overcooked like they often are in restaurants like these, and the beef was tender.

Mac insisted on paying for our meal and before long we were back on the road again. Less content to sit in silence so rigid, Mac and Sawyer sang along to the radio- Sawyer sung fairly loudly, not caring that we were listening, but Mac mostly hummed along and sang the odd lyric in a humbler tone. I only dared tap my foot to the beat and hum the odd chorus. If it had just been Sawyer, I probably would have ended up embarrassing myself by belting out the lyrics, but with Mac there I was considerably more shy, especially considering his stubble was right there. I was more relaxed though. The few hours we’d spent in the truck with Mac made me loosen up and I didn’t care so much that my leg was pressed up against his. In fact I almost enjoyed it. And I was having so much fun that I lost track of how much time was passing until the sun danced on the horizon, sinking below the mountains.

“You guys brought tents, right?” Mac suddenly looked worried.

Ah, so he was going to ditch us at our final resting place. “Yes.” Sawyer said, and I nodded. We’d even taken the time at home to set them up so that we were out here we’d know what we were doing. *It was a good idea we had, because we discovered a large rip in the tent and were able to exchange it for a new one before we hit the road.

To my surprise, Mac pulled in at a hotel instead of a camp ground. “You can spend your first night in comfort.” Mac said, teasingly. Hotels had never been in the plan, but I didn’t feel like objecting. After being all cramped in his truck, a spacious room sounded one hundred percent better than a tent.

Because I was worried Mac would go pay for our room, I quickly hopped out and made my way inside. Sawyer and Mac were a lot slower. Why was he coming in here? I thought. But then the person behind the counter greeted me and we started talking about costs and such. It was going to be sixty dollars for the one night. I knew this was actually a good price for hotels, but it made me long for the twenty bucks a night campgrounds that we’d originally planned on staying at. I paid up and then faced the others.

“Well,” Sawyer said, looking up at Mac. “It was really nice meeting you.”

This was it? This was goodbye? It felt like the acid in my stomach was eating at me, and I couldn’t tell if that was because I was hungry again or if I was upset about Mac leaving. Was this what it was going to be like the whole trip? Meeting new, really cool people and then saying goodbye shortly after? I felt sick to my stomach. Why hadn’t I thought of this? I wanted to go on the trip to make friends but I never thought, I never thought about it like this! That’s the sad thing about people though- they have lives, unlike me and Sawyer.

“I should give you my number.” Mac said, then he borrowed a pad of paper off the counter and pencil and scribbled down some numbers. “In case something goes wrong or something. Don’t be shy, give me a call.”

Some very shallow, girly part of me was thinking no boy has ever given me their number before in both an excited and depressing way. We should celebrate!

“Oh, thank you.” I said. “You’ve been super helpful to us, and nice, and…” Sawyer was nodding to what I said, “and you’ve made our first day less of a complete disaster. So thank you.”

“It was my pleasure.” Mac said, a faint, sad smile on his lips. I didn’t want to say goodbye to him. I wanted to get to know him. I wanted to hear him sing quietly along to my favourite songs! I wanted to spend tomorrow crunched up in his truck, falling asleep on Sawyer. Maybe he’d even let us take turns driving? But it wasn’t to be.

“Take care, you two.” Mac said, smirking like he knew we were going to get into trouble. Like he knew we’d have to call that number and this wasn’t really goodbye. I wish I could be as sure as him. But the truth was I was terrified that I was losing the only real friend I’d ever made since like second grade.

As we watched Mac leave, like the weirdos that we are, I felt even more sick.

"Do you think this is a good idea?" I asked Sawyer. She whipped her head around to scowl at me.

"Do I think 'what' is a good idea?" she asked.

I shuddered. She'd been acting nice to me all day, but it must have only been because Mac had been there and she didn't want to make a scene or make us look like we hated each other or anything.

"I guess just being out here." I said.

She raised an eyebrow. "We're in a hotel, Clovis."

I nodded. "I know that- I mean out in the world. Away from home. No more Mac to drive us. Who's going to be out 'Mac' tomorrow? Will they be as nice as him? Will they be an axe murder?"

Sawyer's gaze cast down on her shoes. "We'll be fine." she said, and we started walking towards room forty-five.

*

The room wasn't particularly spectacular, and neither had my sleep been wonderful, but it was warm, dry, and far more comfortable than a tent would have been. We got up at 5am, quickly got ready for the day, ate some cereal that was in a breakfast room in the hotel, and then made our way to a gas station on the edge of town.

It wasn't particularly busy at this hour, but we figured there might be someone that was more willing to take us in the morning- someone starting off on a long trip, perhaps.

"We need a sign." I said.

Sawyer nodded. "To let us know if this is a good idea or not? Clovis..." she said, "We already left home. There's no turning back now. We've taken the plunge. Not like my dad would let me back anyway.”

I blinked. “I meant a cardboard sign.” I said, laughing.

Sawyer didn’t say anything after that for awhile, clearly… embarrassed? I wished we had someone, like Mac, there with us to make things less awkward and give us someone else to concentrate on other than simply the two of us and our impending doom. After awhile, I realized that we really DID need a cardboard sign because at the gas station we were simply sitting there, not sticking our thumb out or doing anything to indicate that we were hitchhiking. I was too nervous to go up to people and strike up a convo, and not smooth enough to casually slip in that we needed a ride. So a sign seemed like the best option.

I asked the clerk at the gas station if they had any cardboard I could have, and he gave me a box, a marker, and some scissors to cut off one side of the box. It only took about twenty minutes to make the sign. It simply read “Need a ride” I figured, less specific meant we could reuse it. Just as I was coming back to sit next to Sawyer on the sidewalk, my phone started buzzing in my back pocket. Mom.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hey sweetie!” came my mom’s voice on the other end, “How was the first day? Are you guys okay?”

I could hear from her tone she was excited that I was still alive. Thanks for the vote of confidence, mom.

“Yeah we’re fine! It was good; we got pretty far I think.” I said.

“Oh that’s good to hear.” she said. But I couldn’t help noticing how disappointed she sounded. She and the rest of our families were probably hoping the first day would go so badly that we’d end up phoning them in tears asking to be picked up or something. But no, here we were, surviving. I decided not to tell her that some guy had taken pity on us and drove the whole day, and THEN forced us to sleep in a hotel. And also paid for our lunch.

“Would you like to talk to Sawyer?” I asked. I wasn’t in a talkative mood, and Sawyer and mom got along fairly well so they’d probably have a better time talking together.

“Sure!” mom said.

I passed the phone to Sawyer and straightened my sign. That’s when a silver truck pulled into the gas station, and pulled up right in front of where Sawyer and I were sitting. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What exactly was his excuse for being here? Had he stayed the night? Why was he back? I heard Sawyer saying she had to go, to mom and that we may have just got a ride. I seriously doubted he’d give us another ride but cheers to optimism.

The driver’s door swung open and Mac stepped out.

“Another flat?” I said, jokingly. Mac smirked.

“You could say that.” he said, “or maybe I’m just incredibly lonely.”

“Or maybe he’s an axe murderer.” Sawyer said, hanging up the phone and shoving it at me. I most likely wasn’t going to get a good day with her- the front could only remain up for so long. Pretty soon she’d probably also start trying to ‘win Mac over’ like she seemed to do to all the eligible guys our age who were remotely nice and attractive. Basically, there was no point in me even looking at guys. Sawyer always seemed to be one step ahead of me.

“That would explain it!” I said, “he’s trying to get us used to him. Get us comfortable. And then BAM.”

Mac raised an eyebrow. “Bam?”

It was an hour later at a park bench in a completely different town where we found out that Mac had quit his job and basically his life. When we asked why, he shrugged. And this is why some part of me, some very girly beautiful part of me is hoping he did it so that he could go backpacking with us.

“I just realized… I’m not doing anything.” Mac said, “I’m wasting my life away.”

So maybe my half-hearted with was coming true. Now he just needed to ask us if he could tag along. Though I quickly recalled that he was the one driving, and technically we were the tag-alongs. So as long as he wanted to drive us, who was to stop him from coming with us? Though it kinda spoiled the whole idea of hitchhiking. Though we’d proved to be terrible hitchhikers to begin with o it wouldn’t come as a huge disappointment. We’d get over it pretty fast, knowing we had a permanent ride and a little sense of security. But I was getting ahead of things here, probably.

We all sat in silence for a moment, munching on our sandwiches that we bought at the convenient store (which were surprisingly good considering). *Mac didn't have a life? Or at least, he didn't feel that he did? But he was so interesting and nice- he couldn't not have a life? What did he mean by that, anyway? Neither Sawyer or me seemed eager to comment on his confession. What were we supposed to say?

"So you decided... to hang out with us?" I asked, hopefully.

Sawyer looked from me to Mac. I could tell she too was interested in his response. Was are friend back for good, or not?

"You could say that." Mac said, taking another bite of his sandwich.

Was that a yes? Hope bubbled up inside me, and I wasn't sure what exactly to make of it. Had I really gotten so attached to this person who I'd only met the day before? I was surely lining myself up for disappointment. Like a Domino- a game could sum up my situation so perfectly it was almost sad.

It didn't take long for the day to be over again. I think that's mostly because I was dreading it. Part of me was terrified Mac would leave again, realize he actually did have a life, and that by hanging out with us - or rather, driving us - he was wasting his time more than if he'd been doing whatever it was he usually did. And another part of me was slightly terrified of sleeping in the tent, not because I was scared of sleeping in a tent, but because I'm pretty sure my back was going to be screaming the next morning, and I wasn't all too keen on reaching that point. If Mac wanted us to stay in a hotel again, I'd have to refuse- no way was I going to be paying for that again, as tempting as a real bed sounded.

After a bit of convincing, Mac finally pulled into a camp ground rather than the only motel in town. He didn't seem too excited either, but something told me that it wasn't because he disliked tenting it, rather he thought me and Sawyer couldn't handle it, perhaps?

The cost of staying the night at this campground was like twelve dollars, because it was a forestry campground, so maybe it wasn’t as fancy as others, but it was still a place to set up a tent, and was certainly good enough for us.

“Well, here we are.” Sawyer said, with a sigh.

Mac was already grabbing our packs from the back of his truck. “Which one has your tents?” he asked.

“Tent.” Sawyer corrected. “We only brought one tent to share. And it’s the orange thing attached to Clovis’s pack.”

Mac yanked my pack out of the truck bed nodding. I helped him set up our tent, and was surprised when he didn’t produce another one for himself. This is it. I thought, he’s going to go. But then he mumbled something about putting some blankets in the cab and my heart lurched. Victory! It screamed.

Then there was a real scream. I spun around. Sawyer. Where was Sawyer? Mac was at my side in an instant.

“Where is she?” he asked, panic raking through his words.

But I had no idea where she was, and I just sputtered something like “she was just there”. My heart thudded against my chest hard enough that it felt like it could break my ribs. My chest ached. Another scream. Without warning, or another thought, Mac was running in the direction of the screaming. And without thinking anything other than no one touches my best-enemy I was right on his heels. She couldn’t be far. But that scream sounded too far away.

“Sawyer?” Mac yelled, his voice failing on the last syllable into a squawk. He cursed and I realized that he was much faster than me. The distance between us was getting bigger and bigger until I wondered if there was any point trying to keep up with him. There were no more screams and I wondered if that was a good or bad thing. I decided it was a bad thing, even though I really really wanted it to be a good thing. Adrenaline pushed me on, we were well out of the campground now, trampling through the bush. I couldn’t see Mac anymore, but I could hear him breaking branches and cursing as he stumbled. I started to wonder if she was even out here, if we’d gone in the wrong direction or if she’d even been the one screaming. Maybe Sawyer had gone to the outhouse and was now back at the tent wondering where we were.

“Oh thank heavens.” I heard Mac exclaim in the distance. “She’s here!” he called back to me.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I said to no one in particular. Hearing that she’d been found gave me the extra boost I needed to catch up to where Mac had stopped. I heard a girl’s voice, saying something, but I couldn’t tell what it was, though it seemed verging on hysterical. I heard Mac asking if she was okay, and if they’d hurt her.

When I finally got to where they were, Mac was helping Sawyer stand. “Is she hurt?” I asked, raking my eyes over her, trying to be sure she was okay.

“I think she’s okay,” Mac said, but he seemed visibly shaken himself. I wondered if I looked the same.

I couldn’t help myself, I wrapped my arms around Sawyer so tight, she eventually struggled to get out of my grasp. She’d probably use the excuse that she couldn’t breathe, but I knew she just didn’t like physical contact with me.

There were leaves and twigs in her hair, and mud up the side of her pants and shirt, some on her face and arms too. But she didn’t seem to be hurt in any way. We’d have to get her washed up to be sure, though.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Sawyer said, her voice low. “There was… there was… some kind of animal, or, maybe a person?” her eyes furrowed.

I looked at Mac. A dark shadow had come over his face. Was that… anger? I was confused by his expression but I was even more confused by Sawyer’s account of the events that took place. She went on to tell us that she’d gone to the outhouse and when she’d come out, something or someone had grabbed her and dragged her all the way to where we were now.

“What I don’t understand is why they let you go.” Mac said. I was on one side of her and he was on the other. We were acting as human crutches, though she didn’t really need it, it was more for all our comforts sake. I wasn’t going to let her out of arm's length for a very very long time.

"I have no idea, but I'm glad it did." Sawyer said.

It didn't take us as long to get back as it had to run out there, at least that's what it seemed like, even though we were moving much slower. When we got back, Sawyer begged Mac to stay with us in the tent, it didn't take much to coax him. And admittedly, I was relieved when he said yes. I knew my mom would be appalled at any guy sleeping in the same tent as us, let alone a guy that we'd only met a day before, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I doubted we'd sleep, anyways.

None of us were really hungry, so we just put the sleeping bags in the tent, and the blankets Mac had brought as well. Then we kicked Mac out so we could change into our PJs. I wasn't really in the mood for wearing PJs though, it felt strange given the circumstances and I wasn't about to not wear a bra around Mac. So I just put on a pair of sweatpants and a clean t-shirt that said "free hugs" with a picture of a panda on it. Ah, it was jammy enough.

Sawyer, however, didn't seem to mind going braless in front of our new friend. She had on a great night gown and nothing else. Well. Maybe underwear. Hopefully underwear.

We finally let Mac in again and he seemed to be planning on staying in his jeans and tee that he'd been wearing all day. Maybe he was feeling the same way I was feeling. He zipped up the tent and then sat cross legged on his blankets.

"So," he said, "who wants to hear a scary story?"

We both yelled "no!" and Sawyer threw a shoe at him. I thought that was a bit harsh on her part, but she missed.

"Okay, okay," he said, his laughter fading. After awhile he said "tell me... What made you two want to do this trip?"

I didn't want to tell him it's because we didn't have a life either. I didn't want to say it's because we wanted to escape our families. I wanted him to believe that we had an interesting reason for this all. But Sawyer spoke up before I did.

"Nothing better to do." She said.

Great. Now he thought we were just killing time and had nothing better to do. But the truth was, I wasn't really sure what we were doing or why we were doing it either.

"What about you, Cloves?" He asked, jabbing his chin in my direction. Had he said my name wrong on purpose? Had he forgotten my name? Did he just nick-name me?

"Um, it's complicated, sort of." I said, "but we have lists." I pulled my arms around my knees. It was getting really chilly out.

"Lists?" Mac looked interested. "Lists for what?"

"Like for things we want to do." I said, "here." I started digging around in my pack and after a lot of effort produced a messily folded piece of paper, and handed it to him. Maybe this would redeem the perception of my life being boring.

Mac carefully unfolded it and peered at the contents. "What are these, hieroglyphs? Wow you have pretty handwriting, Cloves." He said. So it was a nickname. "Let's see..." he said, his eyes searching the page for a moment, and then returning to the top.

"1. Beat a corn maze. 2. Try that smelly fruit - your words, not mine." Mac said. "3. Learn to tightrope walk. 4. Learn to waterski. 5. Pet a dolphin. 6. kiss some hotties..."

I froze. Had I written that? A corner of Mac's mouth tweaked in a tiny mischievous smile. No, I hadn't written that in there.

Mac laughed when he saw my expression and it was all I could do to keep from tackling him and starting a tickle war.

"Okay it didn't quite say that." He said, a sloppy grin still plastered across his face like some sort of teletubby.

"7. Ride an elephant." He said, his smile fading to one of thoughtfulness. "I'm not sure I can picture you riding an elephant, Cloves." He said.

"Why not?" I couldn't help feeling slightly defensive and insulted. Though the way he'd said it wasn't demeaning in any way.

"I don't know." he said, "just didn't think it would be something you'd be into." With that he refolded my list - neater than I had - and passed it back to me.

Sawyer didn't looked too impressed by the whole exchange. She'd acted as though the whole thing was boring, and had only laughed a little half-heartedly at a few of Mac's jokes.

After that we went to sleep. I guess I'd been wrong about the not-sleeping part. Mac slept between Sawyer and I. There was plenty of room in there for all of us, despite what I'd originally thought. But even so part of me wanted to close the half-a-foot gap between us. It would be warmer, wouldn't it? I had a hard enough time keeping my teeth from chattering and waking everyone up.

There were no more crazy attacks that night, thankfully. And we all somehow managed to sleep. I woke up with my face nearly an inch away from Mac's arm, but other than that we'd all kept our hands to ourselves, at least on my end of Mac- I couldn't speak for Sawyer whose arm was 'accidentally' drooped over his chest.

The other two weren't awake yet so I tiptoed out of the tent, which was difficult because it made a crinkling sound when I walked on it and the zipper was way louder in the morning when I wasn't trying to wake anyone then it was last night when everyone was awake.

"Cloves?" Grumbled Mac, gentle removing Sawyer's arm from him. "Where are you going?"

"Just for a walk." I said. I wanted to stretch my legs. I felt like I'd been cooped up for days. It wasn't entirely untrue.

"Wait up," he said as he tried to untangle himself from the blankets.

I waited outside the tent. I wasn’t really sure I wanted Mac walking with me, but I think it was just because I’d just woken up and wasn’t in the best mood considering my back was, in fact, screaming at me for sleeping on nothing more than a thin sleeping bag on hard ground and rocks.

“How’d you sleep?” Mac asked when he managed to get out of the tent without waking Sawyer.

“Alright,” I said. I didn’t want to make a big deal about how I slept because that might give him an advantage or something to work with tonight when the discussion of where we were going to sleep for the night would inevitably come up. “How’d you sleep?” I asked him.

Mac glanced back at the tent. “Not bad,” he said, “But you two are restless sleepers, my goodness.”

I was? Or was he mostly referring to Sawyer? I was mortified at the thought of Mac being woken up by me kicking him or something in the middle of the night.

“Oh, sorry.” I said, and we started walking.

“Oh no, it’s fine.” Mac said. Why are we still talking about this? I thought. Somehow this conversation was going on and on and it was just awkward and embarrassing. Finally Mac broke the silence and changed the subject all in one go. “Where are you guys planning on going, exactly?”

As far away as possible. I thought.

“I’m not sure.” I said, “Sawyer planned that part of the trip.” I wasn’t as concerned about where we went as what we did when we got there. So far the trip had been rather boring that way, we’d just been trying to get enough distance between us to get somewhere but pretty soon we’d have to start doing some more entertaining things or we’d start to wonder why we were doing this trip in the first place, and people might start to wonder if it really was a pleasure trip or if we were trying to escape something or someone.

“I still don’t understand why you two are doing this trip.” Mac said as we passed the outhouse and I inwardly cried as I realized I needed to pee.

“Join the club!” I said, and then I got him to stop and ran back to the outhouse before I burst. It was a typical campground outhouse, though dirtier because there didn’t seem to be people around to clean it very often and it was almost out of toilet paper, I noted. I was training myself to notice the TP situation in bathrooms before I went, that way I wouldn’t have so many sticky situations where I didn’t have any- which seemed to happen all too often.

When I came out again, Mac was waiting where I’d left him, looking off into the trees with his hands in his pockets. He was a pretty attractive guy, I might add, even from the bee-hind. His dark hair was pushed in different directions from being slept on no doubt, and his shoulders slumped ever since the thing that happened to Sawyer. We started walking again, and I had a weird impulse to take his hand. I wasn’t going to do it- I was too chicken and that would have been a weird thing to do (imagine his expression) but there was the urge to, non-the-less. Like that urge you get to stab yourself with a knife when you’re putting dishes away- you know you’re not going to do it, but for some random reason your body is telling you you should.

“Everyone at home thinks we’re crazy,” I said, picking up where we left off.

Mac nodded. “I can see why.” he said. I hit him, playfully.

“Just kidding,” he said. “Why do they think you’re crazy?”

We were coming around back to our campsite now, so I slowed. I didn’t want this walk to end. It had been awkward and random, but I liked talking to Mac. He made me feel like a valid human being. He made me feel like a real person.

“Because we’re hitchhiking.” I said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “They all think we’re going to get raped and murdered and that we’re too naive to see it.”

“Yeah.” Mac said, and that was it. We’d reached the tent and he didn’t seem to have anything else to say. Conversation done. Though I wanted more from him- I wanted to know that I wasn’t crazy, and that I wasn’t going to get raped and murdered. I wanted any input by him, really, anything more than a simple ‘yeah’ that didn’t tell me which side he was on, and what his thoughts were in the slightest. It made me very aware of the fact of how little I knew Mac, even though I liked to think that I did.

Sawyer still wasn’t awake, which was kind of nice because that meant I had more time alone with Mac. We didn’t have much for breakfast, we hadn’t planned ahead, but I had some trail mix in my pack that had lots of different dried fruits and some white chocolate chips, so we cracked that opened and munched a little. Mac made a fire with some abandoned firewood we found in the neighbouring campsite, and we enjoyed the morning silence without Sawyer.

“What are you guys taking in school?” Mac asked. The guy seemed to be full of random questions. I hadn’t even remembered telling him that we were in school or university or college, but maybe I had, or maybe Sawyer had talked to him. Had the two of them had time to talk sometime when I wasn’t around?

“Sawyer’s taking Law.” I said. Everyone was always impressed by that.

Mac nodded. “That’s rough.” he said, “and what about you?” I was hoping he’d forget about me. There wasn’t much of a reason to say mine after I said hers, and normally people got so distracted by the fact that she was taking law, that they forgot that I hadn’t said what I was taking altogether.

“Oh just basic courses for lots of stuff.” I said, “English and some psychology right now.” I kicked a pebble with the toe of my shoe, sending it flying over the roof of the tent. I didn’t think it would go that far. Mac didn’t seem to notice.

“Nice.” he said. “Psychology is cool.”

Yeah, it was cool. But it wasn’t something I could see myself pursuing as a future career. I couldn’t imagine myself as a therapist or anything, dealing with my own problems was hard enough as it was.

“How long should we let her sleep?” Mac asked, nodding at the tent. Indefinitely? I thought. I wasn’t interested in waking her up for two reasons: One, she’d most likely murder me in her groggy, cranky state, and two I liked spending time with just Mac. Was that such a crime?

“I say we leave her sleep and run into town for some breakfast,” I said mischievously.

Mac smiled a sad, playful smile, then said “Normally I’d think that was a good idea, but after last night…” he trailed off, “I don’t want to leave anyone alone.”

“Good point,” I said, straightening up. I knew the me from last night would be scolding me for feeling the way that I did this morning, but I honestly thought Sawyer can fend for herself. We can’t baby-sit her forever. But I knew that that was a silly thought. This wasn’t about baby-sitting her, this was about looking out for everyone. A part of me wondered, however, if Mac would have left for breakfast if it had been Sawyer who’d been awake with him, and me that had been asleep.
*

“Lots of places are on the list,” Sawyer was saying, “but Cansville has the best waterfalls.”

“I see.” Mac said.

Waterfalls, admittedly, sounded pretty cool. I hadn’t ever gone hiking to look at them, I’d only ever really seen them from a distance in the hills or at a place where it was incredibly easy access to see the falls. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever been on an official hike. But Sawyer and Mac seemed excited, and Mac was raising moral by just being, well, Mac, so I couldn’t help being a bit excited myself.

We were in some sort of Provincial park. Mac pulled off onto some sort of pull-off area, where there were some touristy kind of map-plaques and a wooden railing separating the cars from the small meadow beyond. Pretty soon we were out of the truck and hiking through the meadow and into the trees, disappearing like I’m sure so many hikers had before- I had to stop myself from turning it into a dark thought about how they didn’t return.

It took us a long time to reach the first waterfall. I was beginning to think that waterfalls were up there with fairies and unicorns, but then we started to hear a grumbling sound. Louder and louder it grew until it was almost deafening. The power of the water was almost more beautiful than the image of the waterfall itself, pounding into the rocks below. It was breathtaking. It was more than breathtaking, it was… breath-giving. The air was full of moisture and it was chilled to the perfect temperature, especially since we were hot and sweaty from all that walking.

Sawyer scowled at the waterfall. “That’s it?” she said. “That’s not that spectacular.”

I frowned at her, but didn’t comment. It’ll only fuel her. I thought. Best to ignore her. Mac seemed to be enjoying the view as much as I was, which was nice. If it had just been me enjoying it, Sawyer would have made more of a fuss, I’m sure. Thankfully I had Mac on my side this time, though.

“Wow.” Mac whispered to me when Sawyer was out of earshot. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

It really was. We managed to pull ourselves away from that waterfall, and ended up finding four others tucked away along the hike. Each was perfect in it’s own way. At one of the particularly magnificent waterfalls, we decided we should document our journey.

“You want to do a group-selfie, or…” I asked, getting the camera ready on my phone.

“Nah,” Mac said, and then he turned to another hiker, “Excuse me, ma’am, would you mind to take a photo of the three of us?”

The lady agreed enthusiastically - that's the effect Mac had on people - and so we all squeezed together for a lovely picture with a backdrop of the waterfall. Mac put an arm around each of us and we pretended to find it amusing when the lady did the typical /say cheese!/ thing.

The lady handed me back my phone, and when I looked at the photos she took I was pleasantly surprised, and honestly shocked that I didn't look half bad in them, everyone's eyes were open, and we all looked genuinely happy, not like we were being forced to take a picture, like most pictures tended to go. Sawyer was muttering something about how her thighs looked like the Hulk's but they didn't look bad to me. She didn't seem to be having a good day, and suddenly I felt bad for thinking such negative thoughts about her lately. Who wished their friend would never wake up? Was that really how I'd phrased it in my mind?

It was a long hike back down to the truck, we were all exhausted, hungry, and a little grouchy, but eventually we made it out of there. And it was nothing a little beef jerky and some tunes couldn't fix. Although what we all really needed was a good night's sleep. Not the kind of sleep that you get in a tent, but I was still determined not to give in to the urge of paying for a motel or hotel. Mac didn't even bring it up, either, so I think he realized the sense in the campgrounds.

We ended up staying in the provincial park- there was a campground that was basically like the forestry one in the sense that it wasn't glamourous, just a simple place to camp. We got the tent set up in record time, and then Mac asked if we were hungry. Surprisingly, none of us were after all that beef jerky. So we went to bed. I slept hard. Harder than I've slept since I was a kid. When I woke up, even Sawyer was awake before me. Mac wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"He's gone." Sawyer said, anticipating my questioning. "He's abandoned us."