Haze in the morning. Morning without sun. Morning that, without a clock, Briar would mistake for night. Black trees. Grey sky. Orange streetlights washing over her face, her face tucked under the collar of her coat, her coat draped like a blanket over her chest and lap. Briar had gotten no sleep, little sleep, back aching sleep. But by now she was familiar with the lowest setting on a stiff nylon bucket seat’s lean back. Familiar with waking up in the frigid darkness of her passenger seat, which was marginally more comfortable than the driver seat. Driving since she was tall enough to, and enjoying longer and longer drives since she figured out that with enough patience and disregard for comfort, she could get so far away from a place that even its memory couldn’t touch her.
Once fearful of nights spent at lonely rest stops, by repetition now made common, she methodically pulls herself apart. Uncurls her strong legs from the dashboard, moving slowly against the painful twist of bone sitting wrong within her muscles, and tendons tensed for too long. She puts her coat on right, one green sleeve at a time, up and over her soft shoulders. Her dog stirs in the backseat, and shoves its black nose to the front as it stretches and firmly pokes her arm for attention. Briar ruffles its ears. She steps out then, into that parking lot. It’s empty but for truckers asleep or half-asleep in their cabins. She thinks she could be a trucker if she applied herself, as often as she makes these days-long drives. Knows she would enjoy the work. She keeps that thought like an old dog-eared business card in the back of her leather wallet for when she needs it.
Her breath freezes while she scoots to the looming brick travel center, illuminated by stark white forever-on lights, beyond all the grass lawn and bushes carving out a place of rest between miles of highways and thick forests. She takes her piss and comes back to her hatchback. She relieves her dog and gives it its fixings. Not too much though, or in an hour it will upchuck in the backseat, and she’ll have to stop and smell it, and scoop out the wet and the partially digested meat-grain-nutrient chunks with damp paper towels. She lights a cigarette if she has one.
Briar finally starts the engine. The check-me light comes on the dashboard like an apology that the thin metal cabin frame and foggy glass windows didn’t keep her warm while she slept. She forgives her car, over and over, different mechanics saying they’ve done all they can to find the leak the check-me light begs attention to. The sun threatens beyond the hills. She waits for wakefulness to take her. It won’t for another 60 miles or couple hours down the road. At which point, as dawn settles into day, she will stop for black coffee before the highway madness forces her foot to leaden on the pedal and knobby hands to slacken on the wheel. The coffee and steady sunlight chase away the persistent cycling visions of veering off the road. As she shifts on to drive once more, Briar keeps her focus on the cracking black pavement ahead, streaks of yellow and white lines, grass and wildflower margins, tree line hiding secrets she will never be privileged to discover beyond the no trespassing signs. She leaves the radio off to enjoy the drone of wheels on pavement, morning birds in trees. The mileage on her car pries out the claws of memories sunk deep in her skull. Briar speeds down the route she’s taken time and time again. On back North to home. Home-home. Not the one that demands all the miles travelled, and no meet-in-the-middles.