Beyond This Moment

5 Day Two- 3:25 P.M.

"Hello."

"Moi."

"Moi," I repeat after Elias. He nods in approval. "How do you say 'what the fuck'?"

"Mita vittua," He says and I don't know why but I laugh. Finnish sounds so strange to me. Not in a bad way, I think that it's really cool it's just also really hard to pronounce, especially with only two minutes of practice while Gabe and Cassie take their turns in the rest stop bathrooms. There are a lot of empty stalls but the stop is so rundown that only one works in either bathroom so we had to take turns.

"Mita vittua," I repeat after him. "Okay, what about some kind of cuss word or name calling?"

"Kusipää," He informs me.

"Kusipää," I say back to him. I don't sound it out as perfectly as he does so I feel like I sound like an idiot but Elias doesn't start laughing at me or anything. "What does that mean?"

"Asshole," He says just as Gabe exits the guys' bathroom.

"Kusipää," I laugh at him and Gabe, just getting up from a nap before we stopped at the rest stop, just kind of glares at me very impatiently, not willing to deal with me right after waking up.

"Learning Finnish, are we?" Gabe grumbles at me and then he yawns. "That's great."

"Mita vittua," I say to him which doesn't make any sense but he doesn't know that. I would just start rambling in Finnish if I knew any other phrases just to annoy Gabe but alas, I do not so he just continues on his merry way back to the car. It's Cassie's turn to drive so he takes the passenger seat and tosses all of my stuff into the back since I was sitting there before we had stopped.

"Ei kestä," Elias tells me as he starts following Gabe's lead, heading back to the car so that when Cassie is ready, she can just jump in and we're all ready to go.

"What does that mean?" I call to him as I follow him away from the building and back to the car. Gabe is already getting comfortable, probably planning on going back to sleep.

Elias doesn't answer me and I don't even try to get it out of him. He's very stubborn, I've noticed. Considering we've been riding in the car all day, I won't get into the car again until Cassie is back so I just hop onto the trunk and lay back, getting some fresh air.

"Thirsty?" Elias pops back out of the car with a bottle of water from the small cooler we keep between the seats in the back.

"Thanks," I take the water and twist open the lid. "It's getting really hot in that car."

"My bad," He jokes and as I'm taking my first drink of water, I laugh but before I can respond, Elias suddenly frowns. "I now realize that I just made it sound like I just farted a lot."

That makes me laugh even more. "I knew what you meant."

Cassie hurries to the car and quickly apologizes for making everyone wait even though we were only waiting for a few minutes. Gabe is already asleep in the front seat so Elias and I just quietly file into the back and Cassie gets into the front and starts the car as we get back on the route and keep moving west.

I had slept for a while this morning after Niagara Falls so I'm not feeling necessarily tired and neither is Elias, apparently, so we agree to watch a movie on my laptop. We'll have to use headphones since Gabe is asleep but that's fine.

"This one," Elias decides on one of the DVDs from my movie collection. It's a horror movie but the thing is that I hate horror movies, that movie is only in there because it's Gabe's.