Fly With Me

3- 20 Questions

I had only been driving for a half an hour with Brandon Nickson before I couldn’t take it any longer.

“Either stop whining about my driving skills or throw yourself out of my car,” I growled, my grip tightening on the steering wheel. He had been griping out my slow driving the entire ride and it was driving me nuts.

“But you’re going so slow!” He moaned as his head fell back to hit the support behind it. “I thought you would be one of those people who drive at least twenty miles over the speed limit.”

“Well then, you thought wrong,” I grumbled, keeping my eyes stubbornly on the road.

He didn’t understand why I drove the way I did. No one did.

“Obviously.” His head was still lolled back as he stared up at the ceiling of the car. With another sigh, he reached his hand up and began to trace random patterns along the ceiling fabric. “Could you at least go another five miles faster?”

A sneer crept onto my face as I turned to face Brandon, “My offer still stands, Nickson.”

He ignored me and continued on with his yammering.

Even though I was frustrated beyond belief, I refused to let myself be distracted from my driving. I would not be responsible for more deaths than I already was. The stress of trying to control myself was terrible, and I found myself craving a cigarette. I removed one of my hands from the steering wheel to roll the window on my side down.

When Brandon saw what I was doing, he had to pipe up. “What on earth are you doing?”

With the same hand, I pulled out the pack of cigs that I always kept in the driver’s side door, took one from the package, and stuck it in-between my lips. I dropped the package, and then took out a lighter, lighting the cigarette quickly before dropping it back into the door’s compartment. As I inhaled deeply, I felt my stress slowly ebb away. Tilting my head, I blew the smoke out of the window; it wafted away quickly in the air outside.

One glance out of the corner of my eye let me know that my passenger wasn’t happy with my habit. “What?” I asked around the small roll of paper in my mouth.

Brandon quickly rearranged his face so that he no longer appeared royally disgusted, “Oh, it’s nothing. I just,” he paused for a moment, considering his words carefully, “I just never imagined that you smoked.”

Another puff of smoke flew out of the window, “You also thought that I drove quite fast; you’re terrible at guessing games, Brandon, I hope you don’t gamble on games of 20 Questions.” I chuckled a little bit as I said this, and took another long draw of my cigarette.

“I don’t gamble,” Nickson sniffed and I rolled my eyes. Evidently I had hit another discordant note with him.

“Well, pardon me, sir.” I rolled my eyes again, and turned the radio on.