American Vacanza

naomi feels positively guilty • madison

Siena might have been weird, but I thought she'd at least have normal friends.

From the way Siena talked about Naomi before she got in this car, you'd assume Naomi was some sort of goddess. Siena would chatter on and on about how they never fought, how Naomi's loyalty was rivaled by no one's - and other cheesy things like that. But here we were, five minutes into our week-long (or more? I wasn't good at estimating) road trip and Siena wasn't even talking to her best friend.

"Baaaabe, I'm hungry," Ethan complained, his voice startling me out of my thoughts. "I need lunch. Can we stop?"

"We'll stop for lunch in a little bit," I told him. A silence had fallen between Naomi and Siena, which was strange for two supposed 'best friends.' "Hey, can you tell me if Siena and Naomi look mad at each other?

"Siena's watching a movie, and Naomi's reading... a book. Why?" he responded, still looking back at them.

If I had just finally seen my friend who I hadn't seen in six months, I'd probably talk to her a little longer instead of going straight to my phone and watching a movie, but hey. It was Siena's sad little life that she was wasting away, not mine. And since the car was quiet.... I'd gotten what I wanted.

The Rustmobile was about twenty miles away from its detour to Palmsville, and it had begun to get hot. We had discovered that only one out of four of the air conditioners was working. Also, I'm pretty sure in all the confusion with the trip this morning I forgot to put on deodorant, which certainly wasn't helping the situation.

Suddenly, a shrill voice rang through the car, destroying our silence -and my eardrums. "I can't take it anymore! I feel positively guilty!"

It took all my might to not look back at what was happening and keep my eyes on the highway. I'd barely heard Naomi talk today, and she was already starting a tantrum. Siena suddenly burst, "Wait, what? What happened? Is this about Gavin?"

Who the fuck was Gavin?

"I hate lying to my parents. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it," she repeated breathily, rubbing her temples. It wasn't very safe, but I had to see what was going on back there, taking my eyes off the road to peer through the mirror.

"Lying to your parents is no big deal. I do it all the time. This isn't something to freak out about, Naomi. It'll all be over in a week or so, when we get to New York," I sighed, pushing my sunglasses onto my forehead. "Siena, calm your friend."

"All right, Naomi. What's making you so mad? I'm here. We're friends. You can tell me anything. Even if it is Gavin." I couldn't tell, but I thought this was Siena's pathetic attempt at a joke.

She gasped at Siena, a look of pure disgust on her face. "This isn't about Gavin, you ditz. You said we were going to Italy, and we're going to New York instead. My parents don't know. What if they find out? What if they get mad at me for keeping this from them? What if they call your parents to check up on us and find out we're not in Italy?"

"Well, we'll be in Italy, uh, eventually," Siena awkwardly squeaked. "Maybe your parents will understand."

"They won't!" she wheezed. "They grounded me when I got a 97 on a test. I wasn't allowed to go bowling until I was thirteen years old and 'knew how to be safe around heavy objects.' The only reasons they even let me go on this trip on the first place were that they wanted me to impress one of the richest guys in the country, and because I promised to leave halfway through the summer to go do some work at summer school. They would NOT approve of a road trip, let alone an unsupervised one, across the whole  United States of America!"