Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,65

his fingers

around hers.

JULIA 217

“An entire list’s worth of activities we would never have thought to

do in a million years, sure, why not? But letting your best friend of over four years drive, and you start having a panic attack?”

“You say that like it’s unreasonable!”

Dave laughed and snatched the keys fully away from her grip. “You

goof. Get in the car. I promise things will be exactly as they’ve always been.”

First, they went to a gas station and loaded up on snacks, lowered

the top on the Miata and headed for the coast. They began the road trip

like all road trips should begin, with music blaring, hearts pumping.

Julia stuck her hand out the window and made those stupid waves in

the air that people were always doing in car commercials, admitting

out loud that it actually felt really great. She removed her hair tie so that her hair flurried in the wind, and she leaned in toward Dave so

that the pink strands would sting his face, too. “You’re going to kill us!”

he cried out over the music as the wind rushed all around.

She immediately switched the song over to The Smiths’ “There Is

a Light That Never Goes Out,” singing along to the chorus directly in

Dave’s face.

To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.

“Are we going to play clichéd music the whole way there?”

“You call The Smiths clichéd one more time and I’m going to put

this song on repeat, then run us off the cliff so that people think we

died in some teenage suicide death pact. Then everyone at school will

be sad and they’ll do a big teary gesture by making you win prom king,

218 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

then you’ll be that guy that gets memorialized by a candlelight vigil

by people who didn’t know him all that well. You’ll get voted into the

cliché hall of fame.”

“I would throw up inside my grave.”

“You have a very poor grasp on the science of death.”

Dave laughed and grabbed her head again, pushing her gently

away from him. She wouldn’t have minded if his hand never left, if

it somehow slipped down to her bare shoulder, to her fingers. It was

an absolutely gorgeous drive up the shore and into Big Sur, where the

slow and winding roads among redwoods and cliffs changed the mood

in the car from blasting music to something mellower. They switched

over to Neko Case to prepare for the concert. There was not a trace

of fog, so the ocean shimmered brightly for much of the ride. Dave

borrowed a pair of old sunglasses Julia kept in her car, and he looked

cute in them, though Julia bit her tongue to keep from saying so.

They kept getting stuck behind RVs going thirty-five miles an hour,

cars slowing down to pull into scenic overlooks to snap pictures. They

weren’t making great time, but if they subsisted off the junk food in

the car and didn’t stop for a meal or too many bathroom breaks, they’d

even arrive in time for the opening act. Of course, they did stop and

take a few pictures on some of the more beautiful curves, because what

life-changing trip was complete without photographic evidence to rub

in people’s faces?

They drove past the Bixby Canyon Bridge and Monterey, the sun

starting to dip lower toward the ocean. The haze by the horizon

JULIA 219

weakened its rays, and it turned into a perfect orange sphere, like some strange cookie being dunked in slow motion. In Half Moon Bay they

stopped to watch it set all the way, Dave reasoning that the rest of

the drive was less curvy and would go by quicker. Since the landscape

got significantly less impressive in the dark, they could speed and still make it to San Francisco in time.

Dave parked at a roadside convenience store and they walked down

to the seaside, taking a seat at a bench that was remarkably like Dave’s bench at Morro Bay.

“Can we play the Before Midnight game?” Julia asked.

“Wow, usually you don’t ask, you just tell me we’re doing it.”

Julia sighed. “See? Letting you drive was a mistake. I don’t even

know who I am anymore.”

“Still there.” Dave held his hand out in front of him, his fingers

parallel to the horizon, a trick they’d learned to know when the sun

would be setting. Each finger equaled about fifteen minutes.

The sun was the color of a perfect orange, and the ocean below it

had turned to something resembling steel, shimmering a line to where

they were sitting, a yellow brick road cutting straight across the water.

“Still there,” Julia said after a moment. The game was a little silly and completely unoriginal, but it never failed