Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
I frown. “Doesn’t the result matter at least a teeny bit?”
“Only if your parents send you to grad school.” He smiles and shuts his kit. “Hope that isn’t your doodling hand.”
It isn’t; I’m a lefty. But it is my jerking one, and I doubt that’s information Professor Patel needs nor cares to have. Yes, I use my right to poodle my noodle, sure, unexpected, but as masturbation commonly goes, no one’s there to criticize how I do it.
When I’m outside again, heavy clouds have brushed aside the afternoon sun, and my bench is covered in a ton of birds whose wrath I’d rather not incur.
They cleaned the grass of the Cheetos.
Professor Patel’s haunting words about paths and doodling and adventure don’t get to me. I’ve got Project Spruce Jailbreak, the greatest adventure I’m about to embark on. It’s more than just a road trip; it’s a chance to prove to myself that I have authority over my own life. That I can be my own man. That I can be free.
Also, less delicately put: it’s going to be fucking fun.
It’s two hours later in my dorm that I drop onto my computer chair, ass naked, phone slack in my hand. “You did what?”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry!” cries AJ on the line. “I was telling Ollie about our trip, then his girl found this deal on TravelBuddy … and then Paris wanted in. Paris, bro! My future wife! It became this big thing, a group chat got started, some of the other gear crew got roped in … I couldn’t stop it, man.”
I just showered, and my first thought is: I definitely should’ve dressed before answering the phone.
This so isn’t a naked conversation.
“I was gonna be, like, hey, why don’t you just come with us,” he says, like suddenly my road trip is their idea, “but I know how you are about big groups, so I figured you’d, uh, not want to go …”
I’m staring at the screen of my laptop, left open on the desk. There’s a folder in the dead center named Project_Spruce_Jailbreak just like in my notebook, but with underscores separating the words. Next to it, the thumbnail of a pic I took of me and AJ on the last day of class that I gave an egregiously long filename: My_best_ buddy_&_roadtrip_pal_who_will_save_me_from_another_long_summer_of_being_stuck_in_my_tiny_adorable_hometown. Again, underscores. Not me pretending long-ass filenames are suddenly the most important thing in the universe.
“Ollie has a cousin in Cali,” AJ goes on, “so everyone, like, just wants to go straight there and skip all the boring desert stuff …”
Behind my laptop, colorful sticky notes line the wall covered in my bad handwriting and doodles. Notes about Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood, Elvis impersonators. Grand Canyon. Fire Wave Trail. Cave systems in Arizona, like the Lava River Cave in Flagstaff I’ve been dying to see. A back-road journey to the west coast through the mountains, cheapest hotels in LA and San Francisco. Each spot I planned to take selfies with AJ. I even made a list of our favorite stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame so we don’t forget any.
He doesn’t know about that last part. Supposed to be a surprise.
“I gotta chase after Paris, bro, ‘cause if I chicken out again, I’m kissing our future goodbye, and I can’t do that. I gotta man up! I’m gonna marry that girl someday, y’know?”
He doesn’t know how dangerous it was going to be to drop this bomb on my parents a mere week before I was expected back: Surprise, I won’t be home until the tip end of July! By then, I’d only have to spend a mere two weeks home in Spruce before I’m due back on campus. That seems like the perfect amount of time to be home, right? Not too much, not too little. Hell, maybe I’d even appreciate those weeks more and not spend them sulking by my window at night wondering what else my life could be.
“You understand, right?” His voice turns into pudding. I know he feels bad. I’m always the guy who understands. He relies on that a lot. “I’m pretty sure you don’t still wanna tag along. It’d be, like, ten of us. Maybe twelve. Ashleigh might bring her weed.” He rethinks it. “Definitely will bring her weed. And it’ll be all straight couples, too, I guess. That’s like a nightmare for you, huh?”
“Y-Yeah,” I agree, then wonder if I might’ve agreed too fast.
“I figured. And hey, it’s not like you and I have nonrefundable plane tickets, with your thing being just a road trip.”
My thing, he calls it. Just a road trip.
Wasn’t long ago we had hot wings and beer at Gino’s right off-campus when I told him what this trip meant to me. That it’s my chance to have an adventure of my own. That it’s proof I’m alive.