You let him drive because you really don’t like driving that much. You can’t begin to count the number of times you’ve been out and found yourself suddenly at your destination with no memory at all of how you got there. You decided your mind runs on too many levels to be able to drive safely.

Besides, if he drives you get the opportunity to check your hair in the mirror behind the visor.

The end result of Chris’s grooming is a scary sight but after staring at it for ten minutes, you decide you like it. It’s choppy and different and not at all even, though Chris promised he’d try. It has the blunt, sharp edges of hair newly cut and it’s a little frizzy because Chris kept running his hands through it.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he says when you’ve finished looking and closed the visor.

“No, I sorta like it,” you say and you can tell that you’ve surprised him.

“You do?”

“Yeah, it’s different.”

“Yeah, that it is,” he says and laughs, reaching over to ruffle your newly shortened hair.

“It feels sorta new agey.”

“Is that an actual description? Or something you just made up?”

“It’s, yeah. Just something I made up.” You start to feel stupid for saying it.

“New agey, eh?”

“Yeah,” you mumble.

“I like it. New agey.”

You smile and don’t talk anymore for a little bit.

You decided during your planning session that you wouldn’t stop too much until you got past Louisiana into Texas. You’ve seen most of what there is to see between here and New Orleans with your parents when you were little and they’d take you on road trips during MMC breaks. Most kids took trips to Disney World in the summer. You took trips away.

You stop for lunch north of Gainesville, at a little stop off the highway with two gas stations and a Burger King. You feel sort of weird eating at the Backstreet- endorsed establishment, but you haven’t seen a McDonald’s in a while and Chris wouldn’t stop complaining.

You ask for a big mac before you remember and order a whopper.

The restaurant is cold and when you go back outside, you stand for a while in the middle of the parking lot, letting the sun beat down on you, warming you from the outside.

You don’t know if you’ll ever be warm again inside.

You’ve got your notebook out. Instead of writing down notes and lyrics, you’re staring at an empty page, at the indentions previous songs have left in the paper.

You’re thinking. You’re not sure when this became a journey of self discovery but you think that you’ve hidden from the truth, hidden from your band mates, for too long.

Tucson is still your city of choice for the big secret, but you think you’ll tell him that you’re gay somewhere in Louisiana, after New Orleans, where you’ve been, but before Lake Charles, where you’ve never been.

It’s around here that you lose yourself again. In musings, in circumstances, in imagined conversations between yourself and Chris, yourself and the rest of the group. When you come back to yourself, your notebook is covered in scrawled letters. Some form words, like Chris, others are just sections of the alphabet. In the upper left hand corner you drew a heart and you’d pressed so hard with the pen that it went through to the next page. You flip it over and hope that Chris didn’t notice.

You discover that if you lean your head back against the seat and the window, you can see almost half the sky.

Almost half. As you’ve lately felt almost half of yourself. As you and Chris comprise almost half the group. As you realize, eventually, that you need, want, to give half yourself away. Or half of whatever you’ve got left. Maybe find half yourself?

You’re tired of being alone.

You reach Pensacola in the early evening. The sun is a memory and dusk has settled, but it isn’t fully dark yet. You decide to keep going and because there’s less to distract you at night Chris lets you drive.

You’re excited when you realize that you’ll be driving across the state line because you’ve never done it. You’ve ridden across more state lines than you can count, but you’ve never been the one to do the driving. You can’t begin to explain what this means to you.

Chris talks to keep you focused, but you’re not particularly listening, even though you respond every now and then.

“I’ve never driven across a state line before.”

Chris, who’d fallen into silence, snorts. “It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I’m not expecting anything, just. I’ve never done it. I’m 25 and I’ve never driven across a state line.”

“Yeah.”

You’re not sure when Chris became the silent, unresponsive one, but you think it might have been about the time that Dani broke his heart. He hasn’t stopped moving though, and you can hear the tap of his foot against the dashboard.

You reach the border not long after that. The drive across isn’t anything special. You’re not sure what you were expecting. But it does feel like a passage in life. Like one more thing you’ve finally done that you never did before. Chris suggests a celebration; you just want to sleep.

You pull off at the first little exit in Alabama that boasts a Holiday Inn. You’re asleep almost before your head hits the pillow in your small double bed with scratchy sheets. Your last thought before drifting off is “goodbye, Florida.”

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