Spencer Reardon

“Ka-thud!” 

A bump woke Sami up from their nap. They had dozed off while riding in the passenger seat of Alex’s crappy, grey Honda Accord. It was starting to get dark out, which made sense because they left around 4 P.M.

Sami turned to Alex, who was driving the car. He was wearing an old, battered green t-shirt whose imagery had long faded away. His red hair was usually a lot longer, but he had gotten a haircut shortly before they left. He was slouched over a bit, focused on the road, even so, Alex was still about an inch taller than Sami. 

“Ugh, how long was I out?” murmured Sami

Alex snapped his head over for a second, surprised by the broken silence. 

“Oh, uh, about an hour. We still have a while left,” Alex responded.

“Alright. Cool. cool” Sami fiddled with their camera a bit, taking a few seconds to get it set up before disappearing behind the lens and hitting record. Turning the beady little eye of the camera lens over to Alex.

“Are you really going to record everything?” Alex said, taking a side glance away from the road.

“I want to capture everything! This will make a cool little film; I don’t want to miss anything funny!” Sami said behind the guise of the camera, whose lens was expanding like the pupil of an eye. 

“Alright, fine.” Alex tried to remain focused on the road. Meanwhile, Sami turned the camera around towards the passenger window, giving Alex a break from the camera’s gaze. The two sat there in silence for a moment, while Sami recorded the passing scenery through the window. Until suddenly, they snapped back around, pointing the all-seeing lens towards Alex once again.

“Sooo, are you excited to see everyone?” said Sami, their mouth hidden behind the soulless gaze of the camera. 

“I mean, yeah, I guess… we haven’t really seen the whole group in a while, so I don’t know how—”

“Yeah, but this is Gronklesmith!” Sami exclaimed, “We made this holiday together, and it’s always a good time!”

“Yeah, okay, but that was a couple of years ago now, Sami, we’re almost done with college now and—”

“We did it last year.” Sami interrupted again.

“Okay, are you gonna let me talk?” Alex snipped.

Sami sank into their chair a little bit. The Camera lowered with them like it had replaced their face. “Sorry,” they muttered.

“It’s fine. And we did do it last year, but even last year felt a little off, and so much stuff has happened with the group since then, so I don’t know how this year will go. I’m honestly a little surprised everyone still wanted to do this.” Sami didn’t respond. “Sami?” Alex glanced over to Sami. Alex was met with the gaze of the camera, which Sami was still behind. The camera didn’t move, it just sat there staring, its lens constricted and tiny like the eyes of a terrified child, like it knew what was coming. “Sami… they know we’re coming? Right?” Alex asked, hoping to be reassured. The camera sat in silence.

Alex slammed on the brakes, the car veered to the right off the road and into a small dirt patch, the back end of the car entering the air for a few seconds from the sudden change in the road. Sami remained behind the camera even as they entered the air for a few seconds as well. Once the car was brought to a stop, Alex ripped the keys out of the ignition and turned to Sami, who was still readjusting themselves in the seat. “You didn’t tell them we were coming?!” screamed Alex, his face as red as a cherry.

“No”

“Did you even ask if they would be okay if we did?!”

“No.”

Alex didn’t say anything. His face just kind of puckered up a bit in rage, before turning to the steering wheel of the car and slamming his head into it while letting out a primal rage like some creature of horror.

Sami stayed silent; the two just sat there waiting for Alex to slowly boil off his anger. They sat there for what felt like hours, but was more in the range of half an hour. The sun had set at this point, leaving the two friends in the eerie silence of darkness. Alex just gripped the wheel tightly, staring into the dark abyss that lay in front of them. Sami just sat there looking at their lap, still holding the camera, just recording the awkward silence. Finally, it broke.

“Why would you not ask?” asked Alex, not turning his head to look at Sami.

“I don’t know.” 

“Why would you not ask our friends if it would be okay if we randomly showed up at their colleges? Why would you not ask if it would be okay if we hung out with them for a day? Why would you make zero plans?! Why wo—”

“BECAUSE I KNEW THEY’D SAY NO!” screamed Sami, the camera finally lowered from their face. They quickly shifted over to their side, away from Alex and towards the passenger window. They sat in silence again for a bit before Sami continued. 

“I texted everyone in the group individually about Gronklesmith… no one really responded… only you did… I thought that if we just… showed up, they’d go along with it, and we could have our silly holiday again for another year.”

“And so you lied to me about us being invited?” 

“You wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

“Okay? So? It’s just a stupid holiday—”

“IT’S NOT JUST A STUPID HOLIDAY,” snapped back Sami, who turned to Alex once again, tears already forming in their eyes.  “IT’S A COOL AND AWESOME HOLIDAY THAT WE MADE AS FRIENDS AND—AND— IT’S REPRESENTATIVE OF OUR FRIENDSHIP AND IF WE DON’T DO IT—”. Sami brought their head to their knees, and wrapped their arms around their legs, scrunched up like a ball already beginning to sob. Alex didn’t say anything; he just looked at his friend. Sure, he was still somewhat angry, but his rage had softened a bit. He just sat there listening. 

Sami continued to cry for a bit, but eventually the tears lessened, and they were able to continue their train of thought. “If we don’t do it. It might mean the group is over.”

“Is that a bad thing?” responded Alex

“Of course it is!” cried Sami, “How dare you even suggest that!”

“I just don’t see why you put so much importance on this group. It was nice it happened, but it might be over, things move on that’s fine, you can’t expect things to stay the same forever, like we don’t even know if we’ll be friends forever. ”

“Do you not want to be?”

This time, Alex didn’t respond. He didn’t really have an answer for that. “I- uh. Am I not sure? I like being around you, I guess, you’re fun to hang out with.”

“Then why have you been acting so miserable?”

“I don’t know! Maybe I don’t like it when you wave that camera in my face, or the fact that you lie straight to my face.”

“See, you don’t like hanging out with me and my camera.”

“No, I don’t like hanging out with your camera! And that’s not even what I’m concerned about; I’m concerned about you lying to me! Can you actually listen without deflecting or making excuses?”

Sami turned towards the window again. “Why are we still friends?”

Alex turned away, a little annoyed, and let out a big sigh. “I don’t know right now.” Once again, silence.

“I’m sorry for lying,” muttered Sami.

“Thank you,” said Alex, “I know how much this stuff means to you.” He fiddled with the keys for a bit, trying to decide what to do. After a while of mulling it over, he slipped the key into the slot. 

“Nothing we can do about it now, though, if we want to make it to Cleo’s college on time, we gotta keep driving now,” Alex said, turning the car’s engine back on.

“What? We’re still going?” said Sami, turning towards Alex, surprised. 

“Eh, why not? We made it this far, and if they say no, they say no. It’ll be a fun trip either way.”

“But why?” asked Sami.

“Because that’s what friends do, I guess.”

Sami picked up their camera and looked at it for a moment. “Probably gonna want to delete that footage,” they said, reaching for the off button.

“No, keep it,” Alex said, Sami looking over, surprised. Alex looked over and gave a little smirk, “Maybe it’ll make a good movie.”

Sami looked down, clicked a button and deleted the footage anyways, turning back to Alex and smiling 

“Nah. I don’t know… maybe some things are better between friends.” 

About Me

I wrote this story! Me! I did it! ME!