Play the Game...

She watched the fields fly by outside her window. That's what it looked like. Even though she knew the fields were staying still and she was the one moving on.

"You hungry?"

She looked over at his profile. He never took his eyes off of the road ahead even when he was talking to her. "Starting to get that way."

"There's a little Gas and Go up ahead. We can grab some snacks there when we fill up, or we can wait for a restaurant."

"Why don't we ask them if there is any place close by. If not we can grab snacks. Maybe we should grab snacks for later just in case anyway." She didn't know how far they were going so couldn't really plan how hungry she might be when.

"That sounds good." He focused on the driving again.

She was kind of amazed how focused he could get. She had pointed out interesting things here and there but he never wavered. Just looked straight ahead with a few glances in the rear view mirror from time to time.

She went back to watching the fields. They were headed east. She would have rather gone west. Toward the coast. Through the forests. But instead they were headed east through the farmland. Acres and acres of the same. She should have been bored by the sameness, a few cows counted as something new to look at out here, but it was all lovely in its own way. The wheat was ready for harvest so it was waves and waves of golden stalks swaying in the barely there breeze. "I wish I had a camera."

"Why?"

"Why? To take pictures. It's really pretty. It would be nice to remember."

"I've noticed most people don't look at the pictures they take. They put them up on social media and then forget about them. They don't take pictures to remember, they take pictures to show everyone else where they are that others aren't."

She thought about it. Was that true? Did she only take pictures to show off where she was that they weren't? She dismissed it. That would mean she cared what other people thought. And she was fairly famous for not doing that. Sitting in office after office while authority figures lectured her on appropriate behavior that all pretty much boiled down to "what will people think?" She didn't really care. The only time she worried about what people thought was when it could directly get her in trouble.

"Did you want me to pick up cigarettes at the gas station?"

She turned to him and stared. Had he been reading her mind? She thought she had put out the cigarette fast enough when he was walking toward her group of friends. She guessed not. "Well that would be against the law, now wouldn't it?" She tried to make it a joke.

"Technically, it's against the law for the gas station to sell you the cigarettes. It's not against the law for you to have them or for you to smoke them. Just for them to sell them to you. Which you either already know, or don't care about."

"Got me there."

"So do you want cigarettes?"

"Can I smoke in the car?"

"No."

"Then no."

He nodded and kept driving. She wondered how long it would be but was refusing to ask. If he wasn't going to share details neither was she. She had turned it into a game. So far they were tied, but it felt like he was probably winning. She wasn't really used to that. She normally won everything she chose to play. Even if most people didn't realize they were playing. One of those authority figures had told her that being clever was all well and good but someday she would do well to be kind instead. She had just broken the arm of kid in her class. Kind was out of the question. But since she had refused to say why she had done it, and he certainly wasn't talking either, the authorities had had no choice but to put it down to kids just roughhousing.

Really rough. But he, nor anyone else, had touched her foster sister against her wishes again. At least not while she was living with them. She only played games to win.

Usually.

They were approaching the Gas and Go. "Do you want to wait in the car or would you rather get out and stretch your legs?"

"We've been driving for four hours. I really need to get out and pee."

"Oh. Yeah. Okay."

She couldn't believe he didn't need to. But then again she had had a Big Gulp right after school and he might not have. Who knows, maybe he was a once a day pee person. She had a foster brother for awhile that only went twice a day. Once when he woke up and once when he got home from school. He said he had trained himself to use the bathroom only when other people were not going to be around. There was no more vulnerable place to be than a bathroom. She had thought about waiting outside the door when he was inside just to jump out and scare him. But that would be a really shitty thing to do. Everyone needed some time that they felt secure.

When they pulled up to the pumps an overly excited Golden Retriever mix came bounding up to the car to greet them. "Gracie! Gracie, you get back here! You don't know that they want to talk to you!"

She laughed. Gracie apparently did not care what they wanted. She wanted pet. They both obliged. "Excuse me, where is your restroom?"

"Gracie, sit! Just around back. Here you go." He handed her a key on a long wooden dowel. "Gracie might follow you. I'll tell her no, but she has a listening problem."

She laughed. "Some of us do."

She thought she heard a soft snort from the direction of the pumps.

She peed for what felt like 10 minutes. Thank goodness they stopped when they did or she would have been forced to water the grain fields. She had a vague memory of doing that as a child. Being on a road trip where bathroom breaks were pulling over on the side of the road. She tried to remember more about that, but there just wasn't anything there. Had that been with her family, her real family, or with another set of foster parents? She just didn't know anymore. She washed her hands and checked herself out in the mirror. She was going to be 18 in a few months. Out of the system. On her own. She had been waiting patiently for that day for as long as she could remember. Something big on the horizon.

She pet Gracie for a little bit longer while she waited for him to settle up the bill and ask about restaurants. He came out with a bag full of snacks and a few sandwiches. "There isn't anything for another few hundred miles, they sell homemade sandwiches here so I picked up a few of those. We can eat in the car."

"Sounds good." She thumped Gracie on the side a few times and wished her luck in life then climbed back into the car and they were on their way again.

She didn't know to where. She didn't know how far. She just knew when the stranger had pulled up after school and said "Grab your things, it's time to take you home." she had gone.

You play the game. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you don't.