A Novel I'll (Probbably) Never Write #2

She shoved her glasses up her nose. She was not pleased.
Terra was not a fan of many things. You could call her something of an “unfan”. And it wasn’t her fault that she disliked most things, really it wasn’t. It just seemed that things never seemed to work out for her. If superstition was real, Terra was a black cat that spilled salt while walking under a ladder on Friday the 13th. Her entire life was bad luck. Being an unfan was a much easier choice.
At the moment, Terra was an unfan of maps. Well, maybe not all maps but the one she was poring over seemed to be nothing but a piece of paper with a bunch of scribbles. She checked the name on the street sign she was parked next to for the thousandth time and traced her way from her last location all the way down to where she was supposed to be. The street wasn’t there.
“Alright.” Terra sighed, pushing the map as far away as possible. “That was no help at all.” She slipped onto the hood of her car, letting her flip flops hang off of her feet. It was getting late, the sky starting to pink and the Louisiana heat starting to finally simmer down. Suddenly, Terra was so tired that she almost considered sleeping in her car on the invisible street and thinking of a better solution tomorrow. Fortunately, that was when a car appeared.
It was an old red car, louder than a normal car should sound and from far away she could see the heat flowing off of it in waves. Terra squinted through the sunlight, attempting to see the person driving the car but it was just too bright. She stuck out her thumb jokingly and the car immediately slowed down. You had to be kidding.
At the beginning of Terra’s road trip down the east coast, she had made a list of rules that she was to follow strictly and thoroughly and so far she had done a pretty good job. One of the main rules was no hitchhiking. Terra’s little pine green Honda was reliable enough and she had heard enough horror stories to keep her from catching a ride with any friendly trucker. And even with that rule, Terra made sure to keep a can of pepper spray with her at all times and even had a little switchblade in her glove compartment. But of course, the one time she tries to lighten the mood with a little fake hitchhiking, the person actually stops.
The red car came to a halt before Terra and she slid off the hood hesitantly. She slammed her glasses up her nose like she did when she was nervous. Waiting for the driver to leave their car was like waiting for bad news. Or maybe that was the pessimist talking.
“Hey, did you break down?” A boy that was not a friendly/homicidal trucker asked, examining Terra from behind his car. Examining was the best word because the boy didn’t just look, he took everything in. You could see it in the way his eyes flickered over everything as if he couldn’t bear to forget a detail of the moment.
“No.” Terra said quickly, patting the hood of her Honda. The boy raised an eyebrow at her after a few seconds and she realized that he was probably looking for an explanation.
“Well um…” Terra started, glancing at the discarded map. “I’m on a road trip and I got a little lost. But it’s alright I didn’t mean to stop you I was just...joking, I’m-” She stopped herself. The boy laughed. Things were not going well.
“I think your first mistake is using a paper map.” The boy laughed, “You don’t have a phone?”