Drive.

                "Have a good one."
         The cashier's robotic, monotone parting words were lost half-way to my back as I pushed through the door and stepped into the dirt parking lot; all I heard were those little jingly bells on the door. I wondered if every gas station convenience store had them. The question was gone as soon as the door creaked shut behind me. I put my change in my back pocket as I shuffled across the small lot to my waiting car. With one hand, I unscrewed my gas cap and clumsily shoved the nozzle into my tank. I set the pump to auto-pilot and leaned against my door.
         I looked down at the cup of coffee I'd just bought for a buck and carefully popped back the lid. I yawned into it as I took the first sip: watery, bitter, darker than I'd ordered. Burned my tongue as I always do on my first sip of anything remotely warm. But the crappy coffee was doing the trick; my hands were tingling now with the new warmth between them. I stretched my neck from side to side, looking up and down the desolate country road. 6 AM.
         Only a few more hours, I thought. No problem.
         There were times during that drive where I would completely forget what the hell I was doing, where I was going. I would feel crazy, impulsive, immature for actually doing what I was doing. But then I'd remember her, at the other end, and keep driving.
         I watched the little counter tick slowly as my gas tank approached full-up. The nozzle chugged, its handle clicking to a stop. I  pulled it from the tank and clanged it back into place on the station.
         Just another fill-up out of God-knows-how-many on this drive, I sighed inwardly.
         But this one was different.
         This was the tank of gas that would take me from this piddly little station to my destination. To her. I wondered if that robot inside knew how important his gas was today. I chucked the coffee, having within me now all the energy I needed to last me.
         I slid behind the wheel, briefly scanning my car's interior. It was obvious someone had been living out of it: wrappers and paper cups everywhere, Mapquest directions on the dash, CDs and a toothbrush on the passenger seat, empty Red Bull cans rolling around on the floor.
         And everything I owned in the backseat.
         You can see why I thought I was crazy, sometimes.
                                                            ***
         "Unnngh, you're sure this is what you want to do? Rrmmm," my younger sister said, pressing her lips together, the strain of the weight beginning to show in her face. That vein in her forehead looked ready to pop, like those times my brother and I used to ignore her when we were all kids.
         "Uhhhhhhhah! Whew. I have to, Liz. You don't--ahhh--you don't understand," I said, repositioning my hands more comfortably. "And if I wasn't sure, we sure as hell wouldn't be lugging this sofa anywhere."
         We both heaved a final battle cry of exhaustion as we threw my couch into the bed of Liz's truck. We shook out our hands, opening and closing them to ease the pain in our fingers from gripping.
         "Christ, we need to work out more," Liz gasped. "I thought running around all day after senile old men in wheelchairs was enough." She wiped the sweat from her forehead and tucked the wet wisps about her face behind her burning red ears. I could tell her mind was churning with protests. I held my breath and waited.
         "I know you don't want to hear it, but this is just... ridiculous!"
         I exhaled and put my hands on my knees, shaking my head with an expectant smile. She pulled me up by my hair, took my face in her clammy hands, and bore into me with her big, brown cow eyes. I realized this was the first time I'd really looked at my sister in years. When had she grown up so much?
         "This isn't a game, Melanie. This is your life. This is her life! You haven't even seen her in years. Who's to say she even remembers you?"
         I pulled away from her. "I know she does. She loved me more than anyone ever has. You wouldn't understand it, even if I tried to explain it. I can't sleep at night, Lizzie, and that means something."
         "Yeah, it means lay off the three iced coffees a day, dopey. And how many times in our lives have I had to say 'toldya so' to you? Trust me, Mel. I want to be wrong this once, I do, but this is crazy. I mean, when you transferred, you left her and never looked back. I wouldn't want you after that."
         "But none of that matters! That's what you're not getting," I cried. "If you felt this, if you knew this feeling..."
         Liz looked at me with pitying embarrassment, as if I were an old lady in her Alzheimer's ward. She kissed my sticky forehead, told me she loved me, and headed to the front of the truck. I slammed the bed of it shut as my mind spun out of control with anticipation.
                                                          ***
         I knew it was over that day, in my dorm room, as I packed.
         I could feel it, right there, in the pit of my stomach. In the back of my throat.
         She sat on the bunk below mine, face patchy and tear-stained, blankly watching me stuff our year into a duffle bag. She didn't know.
         She was silent, save the occasional wet sniffle and ragged sigh. It was sick; I'd made her cry so many times in the past year that I knew exactly what her eyes looked like without ever looking up: a wet, beautiful aquamarine, all the more accented by the bloodshot whites. Her long, full eyelashes saturated and sticking to each other, tears falling from them when she blinked. I avoided them at all costs.
         I kept my cool, sending my mind elsewhere while I packed. All I could think about was landing in Georgia. That day, I wasn't worried about loneliness; I had some old familiars waiting for me back home. I wasn't worried about her, either. She'd find out soon enough that I wasn't coming back for the fall semester. She was better off, I told myself.
         Way better off.
         With a deep breath, I dropped my bag and finally let my wandering gaze catch her staring, intently.
         "What?" I said, that lump in my throat foiling any chance I had of making that one word sound aloof. I jumped up gave her a quick kiss on the lips to break the stare.
         I stepped back and soon realized she wasn't staring; she was studying. Studying my face, my neck, my breasts, my curves, my shins, my toes. My stomach turned. She loved me, didn't want to forget anything about me.
         I don't deserve you.
         "What's going to happen?"
         She asked the question quietly, as if afraid to make this good-bye feel anymore real.
         "With what?" I responded dumbly, becoming insanely interested in the hair products I was shoving into a bag.
         "Don't be a jackass," she said with a weak smile. There it was, that sharp and sexy tongue of the girl I'd kissed and cuddled and slept with for a year. She sniffled and caught my eyes again with hers. God, she was beautiful.
         What am I doing?!
         "Baby, we've been over this," I huffed, as if her love and concern were exasperating. "Three months is a long time; we'll see what happens."
         I went on tiptoe to grab the bedding on the top bunk. As I got my sheet off the far corner, I felt her warm head on my stomach, her hands pressing me close at the small of my back. This simple, sudden gesture made the whole thing real, made my heart pinch. I relaxed my stance and stayed in her urgent grasp. I entwined my fingers in her soft, kinky hair. Somewhere inside, my soul was breaking. I loved her. I loved her, and she loved me, and I was leaving. Not for three months, for good. Freshman year was over, and so were we.
         She didn't know. I couldn't tell her.
         I ripped off the linens and let them cascade to the floor. I turned my back to her and swallowed the wall of tears as it crept up my throat.
                                                            ***
         It was so dark in my room that I couldn't tell when my eyes were opened or closed.
         4 AM.
         "This is fucking ridiculous," I yelled. Someone next door pounded on the wall near my head.
         Two weeks. Two weeks of staring into darkness for hours on end. Two weeks of mental videos all night on loop: Me. Her. My bed. Her bed. Naked. Watching movies. Take-out. Taking pictures. Taking showers. Sidelong glances. Her laugh. Holding hands. Kisses all over. Spring. Fights. Make-up sex. Drunk sex. Drunk dials. Her skin. On my skin. Those eyes. Repeat.
         I sat up. It had been four years. Four years since my freshman year of college ended. Four years since I flew home from that dinky little cow-town college in New England. Four years since I left her: Erin. Erin was the only bright spot of that school and that year, as I remembered it.
         That following summer was full of heartbreak for Erin, and hard conversations for me. Our relationship was distilled down to weekly phone calls, at best. Halfway through June, I met someone. I had to tell Erin that I wasn't coming back, and that I didn't love her anymore. She was devastated. I stopped answering my phone when she called; she was always drunk, or crying, or both. I was worried, but I knew this was for the best.
         Eventually, her calls stopped coming. I didn't even know where Erin was, who she was anymore.
         I thought of our time together every once in a while. But my perception of it warped and shifted and changed as I got older and left it further behind. Times, places and memories blurred and eroded, creating this sea-glass rendition of what was, with tiny shards of us left bold and sharp to haunt me.
         A thought snaked up from my stomach and coiled around my heart. It was bold, honest, and real. And I was scared.
         It had always been her. She'd always been there. My one and only had already come into my life and had loved me back. My temples pulsed, and I was dizzy with the idea. I laughed aloud giddily. The neighbors banged again.
         I had to get her back.
         This was insane, there was no way. What would Lizzie say? How could Erin still love me? Did she have a girlfriend? A wife?!
         But I suddenly didn't care about the unanswered questions. This was a second chance at love; would I get a third? I'd played it cool long enough, and it had landed me alone in my room, staring up into ink night after night.
         There was no way she didn't still love me. She'd been so broken that last day. I could see her delicate frame, watching me drive away, waving until I was gone.
         I just knew it. In the following days, I quit my job and closed my bank account. Located her online; she'd stayed in New England. She was a therapist in a small town in Vermont, it said. I packed what I could, stored what I couldn't. Broke my lease. I said my good-byes, filled up my tank, and headed north, kept company by only the radio and thoughts of us.
                                                                ***
         I'd been parked there for nearly an hour when I heard a car coming down the narrow, residential road. My heart swelled and raced, my stomach kinked up. It came down the road and turned into her driveway. It was finally her.
         The car came to a stop, the driver's door on the far side of the car. I couldn't see her yet. But as she stood up, I recognized that soft, curly hair as the early autumn sun caught it. It was more coppery than I remembered. She turned, and there was her face: prettier than freshman year, with an alluring maturity to it. I got only a glimpse of her before she disappeared behind the car again.
         "Okay, honey," I heard her say, "let's get you out of this car and into the house. Mommy'll make you some lunch and then we'll go for a walk, okay? Oh, you're such a beautiful girl!"
         My heart fell through my rib cage and hit my stomach with a thud.
         She had a kid?! What the hell was I doing here?! Tears came to my eyes as I shakily jammed my keys into the ignition.
         "Rrrrrrrrruff! Rrrruff!"
         I stopped and looked up when I heard it. Four little paws hit the pavement on the far side of the car.
         "That's right, honey. You're mommy's little girl. Let's go get you a treat."
         A little pug came darting around the back fender of her car. A dog. She had a dog. I laughed to myself, and with newfound confidence I stepped from the car and began to walk toward her.
         She was grabbing groceries from the backseat when the pug started barking at me. She shot up, and there were those eyes, intent as ever, staring back at me. I smiled widely as the surrealism of the moment knocked the wind from my lungs. Here we were. Her bags and jaw dropped. She put her hands on the top of her car.
         "M...Melanie?! What are you...?" she cried incredulously.
         "Hey," was all I could manage without bursting from the inside. I wanted to run to her, kiss her, but she was in motion before I could say another word. Deep breath.
         As she came around the front of the car, my heart soared. She was more beautiful than ever. Her cheeks were pink and creamy, her neck exposed and soft. But as my eyes caught more and more of her, the bottom dropped out of my soul.
         Life. Growing inside her. Pressing her soft, smooth stomach outward. Her baby. Their baby. I couldn't look at anything else as she walked toward me. She hugged me, and I felt its warmth against my stomach, warm where her warm head had been that day four years ago. It wasn't surreal anymore. I was waking up.
         "You're--" I breathed, pointing to her stomach as she pulled away from the embrace.
         Erin looked down, as if she'd forgotten, and laughed. "Yeah! Crazy, huh?" she placed her hands on the bump, rubbing it absentmindedly. "Jesus! It's been ages! How are you?" she laughed, holding me by my shoulders. Those eyes. "Let me just go tie the dog up in the backyard, and we'll catch up! I..I can't even believe this!" She spun around and was gone, jogging to the backyard with the pug huffing and puffing at her heels.
         And I was left there, arms limp at my side, jaw slack, watching her leave, for once. For the first time, I saw her life as hers, not as potentially ours. She had a dog, a house, a wife? and the makings of a family inside her. I looked back at my car, filled with my life, and felt sick. Pathetic. What had I expected? From the moment she stepped from the car, reality had begun to leak into my plans.
         As she disappeared behind her house, the dam burst, and I was drowning. Drowning in questions, sadness, and more shame than I've ever felt in my life.
         So I ran. I ran so as not to mar her life any deeper than the footprints I left behind in the warm, moist earth of her lawn. I ran the way I'd run four years ago.
         I caught her coming around the house in my rear view mirror, and I was gone.