Everything is Fine.

Her mother used to warn her to look out for deer around these parts; they could jump into the road and cause a nasty accident, which, aside from the possibility of killing an animal or causing personal injury, could inflict some very expensive damage on the car. For a couple of hours, it was nothing but pine trees, power lines, and overly zealous Christian billboards on this stretch of I-10, so she always kind of hoped she would see a deer just to mix up the scenery a bit. The billboards provided some entertainment at least, for being so comically serious in a medium she doubted anyone took seriously. Did people often see the big black sign emblazoned with Satan’s fiery orange flames and stop to urgently call the number to find out the truth about if they were going to heaven or hell? Who was even manning those hotlines? Florida was a strange place. 

As she came around a bend in the road, she could see one of the classics of uncomfortable Christian propaganda up ahead. Before she was even close enough to read it she already knew the exact bible verse it would have, etched as it was in her mind from driving past so many of them over the years. It featured a pregnant woman in a dress, lovingly cradling her belly, while a shirtless old white man with a flowing beard-God presumably-pointed at her belly with an outstretched arm and a glowing fingertip.

As she drove closer, she saw there was another figure, not on the billboard, but beneath it. She instinctively hit the brakes, a little too jolting, from being startled by the figure. As she slowed, she saw that it was a man standing with an outstretched arm, and a thumb sticking up, thankfully no glowing fingertips in sight. She had never taken on a hitchhiker before, but now she felt a physical twinge in her chest telling her to stop. Even from a distance she could tell he was young and scrawny looking, hardly dangerous, she reasoned. She bit her lip and slowed the car. There wasn’t much time to decide. As she drew level with him, she was able to catch a glimpse of his face and make a snap decision. He looked nice.

She braked harder and pulled to a stop on the shoulder of the highway, about 50 yards past him. In the rear view mirror she could observe him walking up; there was still time to change her mind and go if she decided he looked sketchy after all. Instead of watching him for signs of being a serial killer on the run, she turned her attention to her disastrously messy car. She cleared the clutter quickly as best she could, shoving the cheddar cheese Combos bags atop the sleeve of Oreos that she kept in the cup holder of the center console. The man hunched over to look in through the window just as she was using her hand to brush the crumbs from the seat onto the floor. She looked up and met his eyes. Brown, matching his hair and patchy beard. Despite the beard, he looked young, probably even younger than her own 26 years. 

He gave her a sheepish grin and a wave, making her feel like they were already friends. Feeling reckless, she hit the unlock button and waved him in without even rolling down the window to talk first.

“Where ya headed?” she asked as soon as he opened the door and craned his head in.

“Just west. However far you want to take me,” he responded casually.

“Well I’m going to Houston, but I can take you as far as Niceville. I’m picking up my parents there and my mom won’t be okay with sharing the car with a hitchhiker. She’d probably kill me if she knew I was picking you up at all actually, because, you know, you might kill me, and if you don’t, I should be killed anyway for stupidity.”

He chuckled. “Niceville sounds good. I’ve got some friends around there, in Pensacola, maybe I’ll stay for a bit actually,” he spoke as though he was just making it all up as he went.  

“Uhhh….okay, but like, where are you going? Like, what is your actual plan?” she was interested but also a little disconcerted at the way this young, attractive, and by all appearances ‘normal’ guy seemed to be just floating about like he was already a 60 year old homeless man with a dog sleeping under overpasses.

“Well, we’ll see I guess,” he replied with absolutely no concern, that little grin never leaving his face. 

She stared at him, furrowing her brows together in concentration as she tried to figure him out. Maybe she should reassess his serial killer potential after all. 

“Well . . . get in I guess,” she decided she was bored enough to forgo any concerns about her physical safety in favor of entertaining this random boy for a few hours of driving. 

He took off his backpack-just a standard JanSport style school bag, not even the large backpacker’s pack that she would’ve expected from someone aimlessly wandering on highways. He threw it into the backseat, where it landed lightly just as he settled himself into the passenger seat. He clipped in his seat belt, which surprised her for some reason.

“Alright well . . . here we go,” she suddenly felt a bit awkward in spite of her curiosity about this new stranger. What were the protocols with a hitchhiker anyway?

They got back on the highway and up to speed. She put cruise control on while he surreptitiously examined the insides of her car. She suddenly felt self conscious about her mess, despite the fact that he was basically homeless as far as she could tell. 

“Sorry, I always have a lot of snacks for long drives, so there’s just kind of food everywhere. You want some combos?” she offered him a bag.

“Oh, hell yeah, thanks dude. And thanks for picking me up too. I was going to walk for a bit more, but the heat was just a bit too much today and I’m low on water right now,” he said as though that explained everything.

“Err… walk where though? You never said where you’re going or what brought you to the highway?”  

“Just west. I finished up a seasonal job working on some guy’s boat in Tampa, and I’ve been slowly making my way towards California since then.”

“Okay so, you’re from California,” she said it half statement, half question, still trying to piece the narrative together in a way that made sense in her world. “You have family there you’re getting back to or something?”

“Oh nahh, my folks live in North Carolina. I’ve just always wanted to go to California, so that’s next,” he had a way of saying these things like they just made sense and required no further explanation, even though everything he said invited only more questions. “What about you, what’s in Houston?”

“My brother. He’s just bought a house this year, and him and his fiance have been asking my parents and I to come visit, so . . .” she trailed off, trying not to let the annoyance show in her voice. 

“So you guys don’t get along or something? You don’t sound too happy about that,” he observed.

“No. I mean we do. We don’t fight or anything. But he just has his life so together, and I just . . . don’t,” she was unable to keep her voice neutral now. Frustration trimmed the edges of every word.

“Eh. What’s not together?” he asked as though he didn’t believe her, like it was hard to comprehend that a girl in a banged up ten year old Civic with Burger King wrappers mingling with dirty socks in the backseat didn’t have her shit together.

“I mean, I just don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve got this job in marketing, and it pays alright, but I don’t really like it. I have a boyfriend, and he’s cool, but I don’t really see a future with us. I like my friends but I don’t really have any hobbies. Just go to work, and go to the bar with them and make dinner with my boyfriend, and feel like I should be doing something more, but I don’t know what. I don’t really have any big dreams or crazy passions I want to follow,” she let everything come out like one long run on sentence. It was the verbalization of the constant low level buzz in her head of vague discontentment.

“Ehhh, I don’t think you should worry. Sounds like you do have your shit together, you’re just bored,” he said with an annoying degree of authority for someone who had just met her 10 minutes ago.

“Well I guess that’s easy for you to say if you’re what, 21 I’d guess, and living off of your parents’ money and pretending to be some sort of hippy vagabond?” She scoffed nastily as she hurled out the accusations, and then felt immediately embarrassed for the unnecessary vitriol that she heard in her own voice.

Luckily, he seemed to not notice or care. He still had the same default expression on his face, vaguely smiling for no reason. She was starting to be annoyed by that smile. What was he even happy about? 

“24. I told you, I just came from working on a boat. I don’t use my parents’ money. I’m usually working, but just not traditional jobs, and I don’t buy much so I save up the money and then I go somewhere else,” he was thoroughly unoffended. Lapsing into silence, he considered her words for a moment. Then he laughed a little as he continued, “I guess I am a vagabond though . . . but not a hippy. Just a nomad. There’s a lot to see, you know?”

“Sure,” she said noncommittally. She did not know what there was to ‘see’ at all, but wanted to be more friendly. “Sorry. That was kind of judgy. I’m just a little frustrated. I’ve never had a hitchhiker before and you’re kind of strange. I don’t mean that in a mean way. I just like . . . don’t really get it. But that’s cool. You seem happy,” she realized she was a little jealous of his easy happiness.

“Always something to be happy about,” he stretched his arms overhead and smiled a little wider as he confirmed her latest accusation.

“Okay but, where is all your stuff? What do you even have in that backpack? You don’t have a house somewhere?” she sensed it was safe to interrogate him about his lifestyle now.

“Well like I said, I don’t buy much, so I don’t have much. I have a bike and a few things from college at my folks’ place, but when I’m travelling around it’s just like, a few clothes, a toothbrush, my phone and wallet. Uhhhhh . . . what else do I even have,” he laughed a little as he thought about it. “I just don’t really need much. When I’m staying somewhere I get a few more things, but I sell everything before heading out again. Don’t want to be pulling a lot of luggage around while walking or jumping trains or catching rides. And even if I’m taking a bus, then you have to just keep track of more stuff and worry about it getting stolen so. . .  I just keep it really minimal. Easier.” 

They lapsed into silence, mostly because she didn’t really know what to say to that. She didn’t consider herself particularly materialistic, but she couldn’t imagine having all her belongings in that little bag either. It was strange, how different his life was. He looked like a normal guy, and he had said that he even went to college. He had family that, from what she could infer from his tone, he had an uncomplicated relationship with. And yet he was just out here doing god knows what, unconcerned with anyone’s expectations of him. She tried to imagine what her own family would say if she told them she was just going to hitchhike across the country to some state she’d never been to, just because she wanted to. She laughed inwardly at the very idea of it. She felt jealous of him despite his strangeness and his meager possessions. He just seemed happy, while she always felt that happiness was something just out of reach. She wasn’t sad either though. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was just bored. The thought made her feel like she was rather a boring person perhaps.  

The highway had grown even more empty as the sun had gone down. There was a glare on her windshield from the golden-orange sun melting over the horizon, and she had to squint to see the way in front of her. Even with the visor pulled down she couldn’t quite get past it; she tried sitting up taller to change the angle of her vision to the sun, but it put her in a strained, unnatural posture that she couldn’t maintain. 

The highway curved a bit and she felt her body physically relax for a few moments as the sun was obscured by the trees. When she rounded the bend, the glare was already weaker as the sun had gone down more than halfway now; reduced to just pretty colors in the sky. Gazing into the distance as the colors mellowed to hues of pink in the clouds, she registered movement from the side of the road out of the corner of her eye, just a half second before a large mass bolted onto the highway.

She inhaled sharply and jolted upright as she slammed the breaks and swerved the wheel to the right, just as she heard the boy call out and slam his hand on the window as though to brace himself. For a second she had lost all control in her shock, and the car spun out towards the shoulder with a frightening lurch before she regained her composure and straightened out, continuing on the brakes to bring the car to a halt just before hitting the deer that had come to just as abrupt of a halt after its initial run. 

They sat like that, still slightly crooked, halfway on the road and halfway on the shoulder, in stunned silence that felt like an hour but was probably only a couple of seconds. She could feel her heart beating through her whole body, pounding in the palms of her hands that were sweating on the steering wheel. She was hyper-aware of her breathing, inhales and exhales matching the quickened pace of her pulse. Her fingers were glued to the steering wheel, clutching it desperately as though it could have saved her in the collision they almost had. 

“Woah! Thought we were gonna roll over there for a minute,” the boy broke the silence and laughed. It wasn’t a nervous laugh even. He seemed to actually find the situation funny.

She looked at the deer; it wasn’t that big, but it would have done serious damage regardless. A brown-grey doe with big expressive eyes stared right through them for long enough to make her feel uncomfortable. It didn’t move. She could see the muscles working under its fur, the tension in its body matching her own. She could already imagine her mom gasping with shock and then probably yelling at her when she relayed the incident, as though there was anything she could have done to avoid it. She relaxed her grip on the wheel and took a deep breath in, slowly releasing it out through her mouth to try to disperse the adrenaline coursing through her rigid body. 

She was alive. Everything was fine.