Tension - (5 Parts)

[glowstick03]

I'm really glad everyone likes it! Thanks for all of the comments- they make me quite happy. Don't worry, I AM working on it, but I'm having a little trouble making it sound the way I want to...but I'm hoping to have the next part up this week!

[glowstick03]

Oh, what the hell. Here's some more! I'm gonna do my best to post more regularly.

~~~

Part 4:

I jerked awake as the car went over a particularly nasty bump. My eyes flew open as I panicked, not able to remember where I was. I looked to my left and saw Jason looking at me apologetically and then I remembered. I was stuck in a car with my ex for two hours until we reached San Diego.

I sighed dejectedly and slumped back in my seat, rubbing at my slightly itchy nose. I’d taken a couple of antihistamines that Jason had bought for me, but those never made my symptoms completely go away, and we’d had to open the windows again if we wanted to not die of a heat stroke. Now I just felt uncomfortable and drowsy. My head felt dried out, but my nose, throat, and eyes still itched. It was more of a dull itching now. Not the intense burn it had been a little while ago. I would definitely sneeze again…but not as often.

I looked towards the clock on the dash. It read 6:47 p.m. I looked back out the window, then did a double take. 6:47…I had been asleep since around 3, just a little after we’d left the store and I’d downed the pills. Benadryl had always made me so sleepy. But….we’d left at 2…which meant we were supposed to be there by now. I looked out at the landscape around me. We were no longer on the freeway, but a two lane highway. I didn’t recognize the surrounding landscape in the slightest.

“Jason.” I said, unable to keep a bit of an edge from my voice. “Where the hell are we? We were supposed to get to San Diego almost three hours ago!”

Jason spared a glance in my direction. “Uh,” was all he said.

“Jason,” I repeated. “Where ARE we?”

He flushed. “I’m…I’m not exactly sure.”

“Excuse me?” I said in utter disbelief. “Jason, how hard is it to go south and stay along the damn coastline?” I realized now that the coastline was nowhere in sight.

“I…I got distracted with the whole….allergy thing…and then I think I made a wrong turn after we left the store.”

“Oh, for the love of Gouhhh,” The tickly feeling escalated sharply. My breath hitched and my eyes squeezed shut. I pressed a hand to my septum. The itchiness increased and I involuntarily sucked in a breath, and then the feeling abruptly faded. Relieved, I tried again. “You are probably the only person I know that could get this lost on the way to San Di-freaking-ego! How long have we been on this…highway?” The word was foreign to me, as all there were in Los Angeles county (and many of the surrounding counties) were freeways.

“I don’t know…an hour?”

My jaw clenched. “And you don’t have a GPS or anything like that, do you?”

“No,” he said shortly.

“Awesome.” I crossed my arms, scowling. “Just awesome. Kia is somewhere in San Diego in trouble and we’re lost in God knows where! And n-uhhh…nuhh…hih…hyehi...HIH…hyetchoo! Eitchoo!” I cupped my hand around my mouth and nose, feeling a light spray mist it. “Uhh…” I groaned.

“Bless,” murmured Jason quietly.

I rolled my eyes. “HyehKSH!” I rubbed at my mildly rebellious nose. I looked at the landscape desperately, hoping to find a landmark I knew. All I saw was the sun setting behind the mountains. But mountains weren’t of any use to me….those were everywhere in California.

Jason switched on the headlights.

“Have you called Kia?”

“There’s no service around here.”

A pit dropped in my stomach. No. No. No. No. No. I whipped my own phone and stared at the screen, willing him to be wrong. He wasn’t. In fact, he was so right that my phone was nearly dead from trying to find service.

“So, what exactly are we supposed to do?” I asked. “We don’t have a clue where we are, our phones don’t work…”

“Look, we’re bound to happen upon some kind of a sign.”

“Well, regardless of whether or not we do, the next store or gas station or house that we see, we are stopping at, because you clearly can’t be trusted to know where to go!” I snapped, seething. Jason was notorious for getting lost. But I’d honestly forgotten that little tidbit of information…and even if I hadn’t, how hard was it to go south? From where the sun was setting, it looked like we were headed east, which could not be good. I pulled off my aviators, just having realized that I fell asleep with them on. I put my head in my hands.

***

“Hitchoo! Ih…itchoo!” I caught the sneezes in a slightly soggy tissue, then gave a miserable cough. I had a splitting headache, I could barely breathe, and I was cold.

A hand reached over to rub my back. “Bless you, love. I’m sorry you’re so sick. We’ll be home soon,” my boyfriend told me.

I shivered under the blanket that had been in the back of Jason’s car. I was curled up in the passenger seat underneath the thin piece of cloth with a couple of crumpled tissues in my hand and my head against the window. I tried not to think about how crappy I looked in front of my boyfriend. I knew that he thought this kind of thing was cute, but it was still something I was having trouble grasping. I definitely did not feel sexy. I opened my heavy eyes to look out around us. We were on the freeway, coming close to passing underneath a sign. It told us we were headed towards Ventura.

“Jason?” I croaked.

“Yeah?”

“Do you…” I paused to give a few chesty coughs. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“I thi-“

“HehTSH-tshoo! Hih…yetchoo!”

“Bless you. And yeah, I’m pretty sure that I do.”

I coughed again, my head spinning. “No, Jason, you don’t.” I tried to laugh a little, but it only made me cough. “Ventura is too far west. In fact, it’s the beach.”

“Hey, I just went south.”

I frowned. Going south should have done the trick. Jason had driven me home from the convention we’d both been attending in San Jose. All he had to do was get on the 87, merge onto the 85, then the 101, then the 5, and then the 210…shit. “You never left the 101, did you?”

“Nope.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. “Jason, honey,” I sighed, “you were suuuhhh…suuuh-hitchoo! You were supposed to- hehgshoo! To get on the…the…kshoo! Ksh! On the 87 first, then mer…mergihh, igishoo! Merge onto the 85 and then on the 101, then the 5, and later the 210, of course. Eichoo!” I slumped back in the seat, sniffling.

“Oh,” he said quietly, staring at the road ahead. “Can we easily get to Pasadena from Ventura?”

“Yeah, but it will take us about another hour…” Another hour I wanted to spend sleeping in my bed.

Jason seemed to know what I was thinking. “Oh, Mara, I’m so sorry you won’t be able to get home sooner. But we’ll make it.”

I struggled to keep from looking upset. Guess this meant I shouldn’t ever trust him with directions…

***

I looked up again at the landscape in the descending darkness. Desperate, I looked all around again, twisting in my seat, hoping to recognize something. When my eyes found the setting sun again, I realized something. The sun was behind us, which could only mean…I whipped back around, just in time for the headlights to shine on a road sign that read “Welcome to Arizona.”

“Oops,” said Jason quietly as my jaw dropped.

“Do you have any sense of direction?”

~~~

TBC :]

[TheCakeIsAlive]

I missed this! How did I miss this?

Awwww... poor Mara.

Love the update!

[Nicole]

Just read this for the first time today. Love it!

[ilovesneezing]

How did I miss such an amazing update!?

This is getting better and better. I LOVE the flashbacks

[Candy]

Oh my gosh I had almost forgotten about this one...I hope you haven't abandoned it!

[Whysprr]

I love this! Please please please continue!

[Wishing]

I love this! Please please please continue!

Ditto xx

[glowstick03]

Thank you so, so much for the comments! They really do make my day I'm sorry for not updating...I'm in the middle of moving yet again and sometimes I need a little prodding to post an update! Sorry :/ Anyway, this next part is quite short and has no sneezing. It just sets the stage for confrontation between Jason and Mara and, of course, more sneezes So, please don't hate me for the shortness and nonsneeziness! Once I am settled in my new home, there will definitely be more!

~~~

Part 5:

“Arizona?!” I all but screamed. “What the fuck is your problem?” We were ten minutes into the desert state, and I was still yelling at him.

“How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”

“What are we supposed to do now? We’re hours away from where we wanted to be! Kia needs our help!”

“Look, how about we stop in the first town we see and give her a call, eat some food, and get gas or something?”

I slumped back in my seat, fuming. “I don’t want to have to spend any more time with you than I have to!”

“Mara, stop being ridiculous!”

“Oh, I’m ridiculous? Because last I checked, I know the difference between south and east!” I spat, staring out at the steadily darkening desert. Jason’s truck’s engine was loud in the vast emptiness.

“Mara, I know what I did was…bad, but it’s been over a year.”

“No, Jason, don’t even try! It didn’t happen to you, did it? You weren’t the one that had to go through all that shit! No, you were absolutely fine, and then you went and started dating that skank! Don’t even try to understand what I had to go through!” I put my shaking hands in my lap, touching the severely depleted tissue pack.

“I wasn’t absolutely fine,” he said quietly.

I looked at him. What the hell did that mean? No. No! I couldn’t think about it. Not any of it. I pushed my mind away from those dark thoughts swirling through my head. I settled for exhaling in an annoyed fashion and turning to look out the window.

“Just find some place where we can stop.” I crossed my arms over my chest, hugging myself.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not stopping anywhere where there’s a way to contact anyone else until we talk about this.” Jason pulled off the road, beginning to slow down.

“There’s nothing to talk about!” Dust swirled around us as the car came to a stop. “Jason, get back on the road!” I rubbed at my nose, feeling some of the dust hiss up my irritated nasal passages as I breathed in.

“No.” He flicked on the hazard lights and then turned squarely to face me. “I am so sick of you doing this. All I’ve done is try to be nice to you today! And all you do is act like a bitch! Don’t even think about giving me that look! You have! There’s no way we can survive each other’s presence for even another hour, let alone another entire day! We’re going to talk about what happened. Right here, right now, and see if we can fix this mess of a relationship we have.”

I stared at him, my mind blank from shock. And then, without even thinking, I grabbed my bag, opened the creaky car door and slammed it shut as I jumped out and began to walk into the desert, the stars twinkling above me.

~~~

TBC

[ilovesneezing]

Oooo I liked the short little update!!! Thanks for updating

[LetMeBe]

Please update this! It is soooo good!

[smiles15]

Soooooo good!

I'm absolutely dying for more!

[Zwee]

Okay, this is super cute! You simply HAVE to finish! Don't leave us hanging!!

[glowstick03]

I promise I will not leave you hanging. I will finish; the next part is in the works. Unfortunately, for various reasons, I really, really need to get caught up on my schoolwork, and that does take priority. I'll post as soon as I can.

[alpha_dog]

I love this story

[bben9-kun]

Why you left us hangin homie. You lied...?....

[doglover111]

I just found this... it's so good. I hope you continue it

[elements]

No clue how I missed this!!! Would love to read more if you want to share Glowstick Your writing and character development is amazing!

[starpollen]

Loving this.  Do, continue!

[JustASneeze]

Oh my gosh I'm so into this right now! I love how you have made such expert use of flashbacks and have steadily built the character interaction. Simply amazing. I cannot wait to read the next part!

[v a n i l l a]

This might be one of my all-time favorite stories. The setting is spot-on, the characters are incredibly developed and they seem like real people, and the juxtaposition of the angry fighting and the adorable flashbacks is just amazing. I hope you continue. <3

[chronic reader]

i know it's been 8 years, but i hope you'll still continue

[elements]

I'm with you Loyal-phan! Just reread the whole amazing thing! Love it Glowstick

[Kaitlynne]

You are a MASTER storyteller!

[Catsgotyourtounge]

Old one but please continue