I’ve always found the freedom of the open road to be both terrifying and liberating.
It was the first thing he’d said in hours and it startled her out of her own thoughts.
They had been driving for 2 days straight now and barely spoken a word, each of them intent on leaving their old lives behind and increasingly uncomfortable with the partner whose presence reminded them of it.
“Why’s that?” was the best response she could muster, not really interested but asking mostly for the sake of politeness.
Well it’s like Tolkein said isn’t it? The road goes ever onward and they’re all ultimately connected, really there is only one road with an almost infinate number of beginnings and ends but all of them tied together. And as soon as you step out onto it you’ve gained some degree of freedom and lost some degree of safety because really there’s nothing stopping you from taking off down any of them! If we wanted to we could keep right on driving intil we end up in Peru or Vancouver or just about anywhere else.
“Well, nothing stopping us but our empty gas tank” she replied.with a quiet laugh.
“Point!” was his reply. And as they coasted down the offramp and into the gas station to refuel he relaxed a little. Blue sky, open road, pretty girl, and just enough cash left to get them to the next town.