All She Had to Do Was Ask

The sun beamed down on me as I stood beside Jessica's car. A thin cloud of white smoke comes up from under the hood. She told us that it was a new car and that we needed to take it on this road trip to "break it in." We all agreed at the time, but none of us predicted this. Maybe we should've just taken my car; it may be a bit older, but at least it's reliable.

"Give it a rest, Jess," I say, walking to the front of the car where Jessica and Beth are. "None of us know anything about cars, we should just go wait in that diner for the tow truck to come. I'm sure they'll be able to tell us what's wrong."

"I agree with Jo; let's let the professionals handle it." Beth grabs her book bag from the passenger seat and slams the door shut. "Besides, I'm starving."

Beth crosses the street, heading for the diner while I stand beside Jess. I walk around to the backseat of the car and grab both Jess's and my bags before I walk back to her. Closing the hood of the gray jeep, I grab Jessica's hand and slowly pull her away from the smoking car. She stares at the ground and mutters something softly under her breath. I grip harder on her hand as we walk into the diner, where Beth had already gotten us a booth. 

This trip was falling apart, and we had only been on the road for six hours. We didn't plan this trip over the past two years for it to go so horrible wrong only a few hours in. This was supposed to be our big college graduation trip, before we all head out into the real world and in different directions. We had all wanted to go to different places for this trip, but after a year and a half of arguments and debates, we all finally agreed on California. The last six months had been a plan on what to do on the 35 hour trip there, and what to do once we got to LA. Beth has been more about just going and seeing what happens from day to day, whereas Jessica has wanted to plan every single detail out. Just like compromising on the place, I finally got everyone to compromise on a game plan: we would make a general plan of what we wanted to do, and if we thought anything else seemed interesting, we would put that into the plans for that day or the next day. A week is a decent amount of time to fit in all of the things we want to do.

I look across the table to Beth, who is twisting a strand of her black hair between her fingertips while looking at the menu. She doesn't seem to be too phased by all of this. Then I look to my right at Jessica, who is staring down blankly at the table. I bump her leg and she looks over to me, brown eyes shining with tears.

"I'm sorry I ruined the trip," she said, her voice cracking as she looked back down at the table.

"It isn't ruined. This is just a slight detour, we should be back on the road in no time." I put my hand softly on her wrist, seeing her body relax as i did so.

"Well, it definitely isn't going how you wanted it to," Beth smirked as she lowered her menu. She jumped slightly as I kicked her under the table. "Jo's right, it's just a detour. Who cares."

Silence filled the group as we continued to sit in the booth. The only time we talked was to order our food. We stayed in the diner until the tow truck arrived. Three hours and a few hundred dollars later, we were back on the road. The silence continued as we passed through Missouri and Oklahoma, with Jessica skipping every stop that she had been looking forward to taking. The only stops were for food and gas, the person who controlled the music would rotate every few hours, along with the driver, until we got to LA 40 hours after leaving Ohio.

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I grabbed Jess's hand as we all walked down Santa Monica pier. She seemed much calmer and happier than when we got her four days ago. Since the first night was a bust and we all just wanted to stay in the hotel room, Beth and I had decided that the next day we would do what Jessica wanted in hopes of cheering her up. Shopping, museums, and new restaurants is what our first full day in California consisted of. Bethany had planned most of the activities for the next day, which mostly consisted of laying around on the beach and eating bad food. I had decided that we needed to visit Hollywood for my day, mostly to just see the Walk of Fame. We knew the last few days would be a little more relaxing than the others, mostly just exploring whatever we wanted to with no time constraints that we had felt the day before. 

"Should we follow her?" Jess's voice pierced threw me and broke my train of thought. She had stopped us on the side of the walkway. I followed her finger to where she was pointing to see Bethany running down into the sand. I look back to Jess, her hand slightly over her face to block the sun from her eyes as she tilted her face too look up at mine. Her brown hair caught in her lip gloss as the a gust of wind blew past us.

"I think she'll be fine," I replied, taking the hair away from her lips to place back over her shoulder. 

Her grip on my hand tightened as she nodded. She looked over to the water once more before turning away and pulling me with her. At this point, I'm sure she knows that I'd go anywhere with her. All she has to do is ask.