Out Too Far
The rain had stopped. It had left the road as a sleek black strip cutting across the glistening fields of green and brown, lone cows grazing on dew dotting the hills. Ymir leaned forwards on the driving wheel and watched a solitary hawk chase alongside the car, wings slicing through the damp air, keen eyes waiting for the sight of a stray mouse or hare rustling in the bushes that paralleled the tarmac.
With a sigh, she pressed her back into the seat, stretching out muscles that had grown stiff over the last few hours of relentless driving through nowhere. Her ears had long since become accustomed to the croaky rumble of the old truck her uncle had given her for her seventeenth, and her eyes hardly saw the hairline crack that struck out like a lightning bolt across the windscreen anymore. But she couldn't get used to the creak in her joints and the stiff ache in her muscles after hours of driving, and she knew if she stopped and walked about she'd just end up sitting on the truck bonnet, despite the rain giving it a glimmering sheen, and lighting up a cigarette.
She craned her neck, satisfied with the chorus of cracks and snaps ringing in her ears as she rolled her shoulders. She flashed a look into the rear-view mirror and saw the endless stretch of road behind her, no other vehicle in sight. In fact she hadn't seen another person or car for nearly two days already. Plenty of cows and sheep though.
Her uncle had given her the truck when she turned seventeen, along with a series of driving lessons already paid for and a warning that if she didn't pass the first time around, she wouldn't get another chance. Three years later and her uncle was six feet under and she was tearing across the countryside in the beaten old thing with absolutely no destination in mind. She probably should have thought it over, maybe planned out an itinerary, bought a map…but instead she had packed everything she thought she needed into a single suitcase, thrown it into the back, and left the ramshackle house she'd shared with her uncle for the past twenty years. She was glad to be out. The place had suffocated her, her uncle had chucked enough empty whiskey bottles at her, her 'friends' had spilt her lips enough times – she'd had enough with it all. She was free, and could finally put two fingers up at the world and not expect a volley of pain in response.
She drummed her fingers on the driving wheel and shifted into a more comfortable position. It hadn't sucked too hard, her life. Sure, she'd had a hell of a shit time, but she'd got the grades at school and was even accepted into a great university – which she would have gone to if her uncle hadn't ripped up the letter and smashed up her laptop in one of his drunken episodes. He'd always wanted her to work with him in the garage, repairing and rebuilding bikes and cars and God-awful engines that should have been kicked out for scrap. Going to a university on the other side of the country didn't work too well with those plans. The only good thing that had come out of it was that if her truck died on her now, at least she'd know how to fix it up.
Her stomach suddenly rumbled, reminding her that she hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday morning. She glanced at the passenger seat and cursed herself for not actually going out to buy a map. She had no clue where she was or how far away the next service station was. She peered out of the windows, twisting her head to look behind her for second before returning her eyes to the road. With all the animals she'd seen, there must be a farm or something somewhere but she hadn't glimpsed anything remotely human-made except the centuries-old stone walls that bordered the different fields and the road itself.
She sighed. Maybe she should have brought along her dead uncle's mobile phone – surely that would've had some form of GPS system. Damn the man for not letting her have her own. Too much money, he had told her. She had been already costing him an arm and a leg, apparently. Though she was positive that had he'd been greatly appreciative of the child's support thing that had been routinely paid into his account and gone straight on booze until she was eighteen. After that, he'd had a reduced tolerance of her existence and the whiskey bottles flew more and the kind words were spoken less.
With a roll of her eyes, Ymir powered down on the accelerator and let the truck roar over a hill, the tyres leaving the tarmac for a moment and soaring through the air before hitting the ground again with a slight thump and clattering of loose metal and plastic.
She smiled as her gaze settled on a signpost ahead and she slowed the truck, the bend in the road after the hill straightening to reveal that she'd arrived at a crossroads. She narrowed her eyes at the sign, dismayed when she saw that half of the letters had faded from years of harsh weather, but she could still make out a few place names.
She tapped a finger on the wheel.
Straight forward seemed to lead to a dead-end, never-heard-of-before little rural village which would have tickled her fancy if she'd come across it two days ago. So it was either left or right…
Well, little had gone right in her life so that seemed reason enough. She flicked the indicator on, even though there probably wasn't anyone for miles around, and turned the truck right, pressing down hard on the pedal.
After an hour, the fields had begun to recede, the short stone walls joining up to farmhouses and then she was driving through a small rural village.
She slowed after noticing a speed limit sign and meeting the furious glare of a man who looked like he should have died decades ago. It didn't take long for her to be exiting the nameless village and she was spotting more signs of civilisation.
Suddenly a more recent sign appeared before her, informing her that within the next five-hundred metres she'd be entering a roundabout. Finally. From the looks of it, if she took the second exit she'd be on her way to joining the motorway and hopefully soon be finding a place to stop and eat, catch a few hours sleep and fill up on petrol.
The roundabout was hardly a roundabout at all. It was more like someone had sunken a hole into the centre of the road and filled it with logs as some sort of sorry attempt at art.
Indicating once again, she took the second exit and ignored the speed limit signs, roaring towards the motorway at top speed.
Until she saw the sheep in the middle of the road.
She slammed on the brakes, wincing at the screech of tyres on tarmac, twisting the wheel so not to knock straight into the damned woollen beast, and ended up stopping right in a thick thorn bush, her head smacking hard against the seat.
Ymir swore, struggling with the gearstick and hitting it into reverse. She glanced at the mirrors, trying to see where the sheep was and finding nothing. After driving into the gutter and crashing into a thorn bush just to avoid it, she wasn't just going to reverse straight into the thing.
She tore her seatbelt off and kicked open her door, jumping out and striding to the back of the truck.
Ymir had always found sheep to be slightly creepy and was expecting to see the woollen creature hiding out behind the truck, its creepy eyes and its creepy face grinning at her when she startled at the sight of it. But what she didn't expect was the shock of blonde hair rushing towards her the second she stepped around the side of the truck, delicate hands grabbing at her leather jacket, patting her down as a panicked voice said, "Oh my God, are you okay? I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have been in the middle of the road like that!"
When Ymir didn't reply and instead just gaped at the girl checking her for injuries, the blonde stopped and squinted up at her with concern. "Did you knock your head?"
The question woke Ymir up from her daze and she shook the girl off, taking a few steps back. "Who the hell are you?" She glanced around, trying to find the sheep that she'd nearly run over.
"Are you sure you didn't hit your head?"
There wasn't a sheep anywhere in sight, not even in the neighbouring fields.
"Excuse me?" the girl said, approaching her with an increasingly worried frown. "Are you okay?"
Ymir slapped the blonde's hand away before she could touch her again. "What the hell were you doing in the road like that?"
The girl blinked, and then smiled sheepishly. "I dropped my breakfast."
"Huh?" Ymir looked over to where the girl had been crouched down and saw what seemed to be a half-eaten apple sat casually in the middle of the tarmac. She returned her attention to the blonde. She was wearing a fluffy, grey-white coat and was small enough that being curled up in the road made her easily mistaken for a sheep. Or at least so to an exhausted Ymir.
"I'm sorry," the girl said. "You're not hurt, right?"
Ymir's head did sting a little and her wrist ached from snapping the wheel around so fast, but she'd suffered much worse before. "No."
With that, Ymir turned on her heel and opened her door, meaning to get right back into her truck and drive away, but the girl was suddenly hanging off the back of her jacket.
"I'm sorry, but could you give me a lift?" the girl asked, offering Ymir a small apologetic smile.
Ymir narrowed her eyes. Then she glanced at the bushes, expecting some old man to be waiting in the wings for when she agreed so he could rush out and take everything he wanted. She'd heard enough horror stories to know that picking strangers up wasn't a good idea. Especially ones that pretended to be hurt, vulnerable… or nearly crashed your truck.
Ymir shrugged the girl off. "You can walk."
"Wait!" the girl cried as Ymir got in her truck and slammed the door shut. She started banging on the window as Ymir clicked her seatbelt on. "Please, wait! I've been walking for days! I don't even know where I am. Please!"
"Well, sweetheart," Ymir said to her through the glass. "I don't have a frigging clue where I am either, so you can carry on walking."
"Sweetheart?" the girl repeated, blinking at her through the glass blankly. "Wait, no. You can't just leave me here."
"Watch me."
Ymir started reversing out of the thorn bush, watching the back of the truck through the rear-view mirror. Seriously, if this chick thought after nearly killing her and destroying her truck she was going to give her a lift, she had another thing coming.
But then the girl was standing behind the truck, holding her hands up, her stupid little pink rucksack swinging off her arm, big blue eyes pleading to Ymir through the reflection in the mirror.
She hit the brakes, rolled down the window and leaned out. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
The girl ran around the truck and invaded Ymir's personal space by sticking her head through the window. "Please! Just a lift."
Ymir recoiled away from the girl. "Just a lift?"
"Just a lift." The girl nodded, her head about ready to rock right off her neck and roll away.
Ymir stared at her. She could drive away right now. She was sure the girl could retrieve her head from inside the truck just in time before Ymir plummeted the accelerator and drove away at a hundred miles per hour.
But for some bizarre reason she ended up saying, "Get in."
The girl's stupid little face lit up. "Seriously?!" she squealed.
"Get in," Ymir growled at her. "Or I'll change my mind."
"Oh my God, thank you!" She sprinted around the truck, excitedly getting into the passenger seat and grinned across at Ymir as she positioned her rucksack on her lap. "Thank you so much."
Ymir sighed, rubbing her hand over her face. What had she got herself into? "Seatbelt."
The girl blinked. "Sorry?"
"Put your seatbelt on."
"Oh!" The girl scrambled to pull it across her chest, fumbling for a few moments before it clicked into place. "Okay, ready to go."
Ymir started driving down the road again, trying to remember if the sign back at the roundabout had had distances on it.
It barely took two minutes of silence before the girl spoke again. "So," she started, singing out the word, "What's your name? I'm Christa."
"Ymir," she replied, not taking her eyes off the road.
"Ymir? Never heard of that one before."
She could feel the girl's stare burning into the side of her head and gritted her teeth. "Well, my parents were weird."
Christa hummed in response. "My parents were weird too."
"Good for you."
"My dad was some rich guy with way too many mistresses," she rambled on. "My mum was one of them."
"That so."
"Yeah." Christa turned in her seat so her body faced Ymir, obviously mistaking Ymir's disinterest for actual interest, and hugged her rucksack to her chest. "She died of some disease when I was five and my dad took me in. His wife didn't like me. Couldn't really blame her though."
"Look," Ymir interrupted before she could go on any further. "Why are you telling me this?"
She could sense the girl's bemusement before she heard it in her voice. "Just making small talk."
"Your miserable life story isn't small talk."
"I just thought…"
Ymir didn't want to know what the girl thought. "I'd rather drive in peace."
"Oh, um…do you want me to-"
"Shut up? Yes."
"Oh." The disappointment in Christa's voice punched Ymir straight in the heart and it annoyed the hell out of her. "I'm sorry. I'll be quiet."
"You do that."
Finally the road through the countryside turned upwards and she was soon indicating to join the motorway, leaning forwards to spot a gap in the speeding traffic rushing past and making the slow-moving truck shake.
"Now!" Christa suddenly shouted, making Ymir jump and sharply twist the wheel, nearly slamming into the side of a minibus full of school kids.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Ymir yelled, quickly pulling into the slow lane and trying to ignore the terrified looks of children and the angered glare of the teacher through the minibus windows before it drove ahead.
"I was just trying to help!"
Ymir glanced across at her, half wanting to open the door and kick the girl out into the motorway traffic, while the other half of her wanted to just bring her little face hard down onto the dash in front and knock her out.
But instead she took a few deep breaths, calming down the hot flare of pure rage in her chest and burning fury pulsating in her clenched fists on the wheel. "Okay," she whispered to herself. "Okay."
"I'm truly sorry."
Ymir glanced across at her again. "Look, sweetheart – Christa – I don't care one iota about you or your family or anything about you. I don't want your help. I don't even want to hear your voice. I don't want anything from you. You've nearly wrecked my truck twice. Sit there, shut up, and when we reach the next service station you're getting out and I'm never seeing you again. Do you understand?"
"But-"
"Do you understand?" she asked again in a harsher tone.
"Yes."
Christa's voice sounded so miserable that Ymir had to look at her again. The girl was curling around her pink rucksack as if it was a big teddy bear, burying her face into the top, her nose scratching the zipper, her blue eyes gazing forlornly out of the windscreen.
Ymir sighed. What a mess she'd gotten herself into.
It was another half an hour before they were finally pulling into a service station. Ymir's eyes brightened when she saw they had a coffee shop attached, along with the usual greasy fast food places. She parked the truck, turned off the engine and shoved the keys into the pocket of her jeans. She reached into the other pocket for her wallet. Opening it, she counted the twenties and tens and fives and the few coins she had. She was glad that at least she'd remembered to grab the contents of the shoebox under her uncle's bed before she left.
"Um…"
The girl had been so deathly quiet that Ymir had actually forgotten that Christa was even in the truck with her and she jumped at the sound of her voice. "What?"
"I don't have any more food and I have no money on me," she told Ymir, her eyes never leaving the notes poking out of Ymir's wallet.
"So?" Ymir questioned, snapping her wallet shut and opening her door. "Time to get out, sweetheart."
She waited for Christa to climb out of the truck and slam the door before locking it by pressing the button on the keys in her pocket. When the lights flickered orange, she turned away and made her way to the food court adjoined to the petrol station.
"Wait, Ymir!" Christa ran to catch up with her, struggling to put her rucksack onto her shoulders.
Ymir walked faster.
"Wait!"
She ignored the girl's calls and skipped up the steps to the main door and felt the rush of heating blow over her face as she entered. She wrinkled her nose at the poisonous smell of burgers and cheap grease reached her along with the heat, and walked over to the coffee shop.
Snatching up the healthiest sandwich she could find at thrice the price of a burger at the place opposite, she approached the counter and ordered the largest cappuccino they had on offer.
"A medium latte too, please," a voice added from her elbow.
Ymir spun around to find Christa smiling warmly at the balding man on the other side of the counter. She was holding a wrap twice the size of her head and a packet of crisps which she placed beside Ymir's sandwich.
Ymir watched in horror as the man tapped them in on the cash register, bringing the price up to near twenty pound.
"Ma'am?" the man said, frowning at her while she gaped at the glowing green numbers.
"She's not-" she began.
Suddenly her wallet was ripped from her hands and a twenty pound note was pressed into the man's sweaty palm. Before she could utter a single word of objection, the man was thanking her and dropping a few measly coins into her hand, waving them towards the end of the counter where a girl in a black cap hurriedly attacked the coffee machine to make their drinks.
"What the hell was that?" Ymir hissed at Christa while the blonde girl grinned happily while she watched the steam rise and the milk froth.
Christa seemed to realize something and blinked up at Ymir. "Oh, here." She passed her wallet back. "Thanks."
"Thanks?" Ymir spat. "You're thanking me?"
Christa nodded.
"Who do you think you are?" Ymir snarled, fighting to keep her voice down so not to draw anyone's attention to them. "You can't just-"
"Large cappuccino and a medium latte?"
"That's us, thank you." Christa sprung forwards, taking the cups from the girl with a great, big, happy smile, and then turned and dashed away to find a table beside the window.
Ymir followed after her, carrying their food and feeling at a complete loss and in half a mind to beat the blonde up and bash her skull in on the corner of the table that she was perching herself at.
When Ymir took the seat in front of her, Christa froze. She was shaking the last bits of sugar from a brown packet into her latte and she suddenly seemed horrified at the sight of it.
"I…Oh…I…Wh…What did I do?" she muttered, her big blue eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears. She looked utterly mortified and her hands, still hovering over her coffee, were shaking.
"You messed me over, that's what you did," Ymir growled, reaching across the table to slide her own coffee back to her. "Here's your bloody wrap and crisps." She chucked the two at the blonde, not feeling one bit of regret when the packet of crisps hit the girl in the centre of her chest and made her flinch.
The girl looked up at her. She was quaking. She looked terrified. She looked so…so lost and so vulnerable. So incredibly unlike the happy-go-lucky annoyance that Ymir had nearly run over and been forced to spend unnecessary money on.
"W-who are you?"
Ymir had brought her cappuccino to her lips, hoping that a drink of hot coffee would calm the volcanic heat of rage inside her, but now she froze, slowly lowering the cup. "What?"
"W-where am I?"
Ymir could hear her heartbeat thundering in her ears. "Look, sweetheart, I've had enough of you for an entire lifetime. Stop mucking me around."
But Christa was shaking her head, cringing back into the cheap plastic chair, shrinking away from the steaming coffee and the soggy wrap and packet of crisps as if they were giant spiders crawling across the table.
Ymir frowned, studying the girl in front of her. The atmosphere around her had completely changed. It felt dark, heavy, almost morbid. "Christa?" she called out softly, actually hearing concern in her voice for once.
The girl's reaction was immediate. She tensed, her entire body bolting upright in her seat, her mouth dropping open and then shutting with an audible clash of her teeth. "W-what d-did you just say?"
Ymir's eyebrows rose up into her hairline. "Christa…?"
The blonde's eyes slowly closed and she released a long, quivering breath. "I-I see."
Ymir snorted. "You see? Well, would you please enlighten me?"
Blue eyes opened and the shaking, terrified girl nodded. "My n-name's Historia."
"Huh, right." Ymir looked down to her coffee. The girl was messing with her. Totally messing with her and Ymir did not appreciate being messed around with. She made to lift her cup to her lips again but instead smacked the side of her fist onto the table top. "So who the hell is Christa? Huh? What the hell is with you?"
"It's h-hard t-to explain," the girl- 'Historia' – stuttered quietly.
"Try."
"O-okay…" The girl closed her eyes again for a moment, taking a deep breath in before speaking. "I have d-dissociative identity d-disorder."
"Diss-what now?"
"Multiple personality d-disorder."
"Oh." Ymir looked down at her coffee again and took a small sip of it. She then reached for her sandwich, carefully picking at the wrapping but for some reason being completely unable to open it. She gave up, pushing it aside. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I h-have split identities," the girl replied. "Me – Historia, and t-the other one."
"Christa."
"Y-yes."
Ymir watched the girl's hands. They were clasping and unclasping on top of the table, still shaking, her fingers trembling so much that the liquid inside their coffees was lapping against the sides as the table shook along with her. "So who got into my truck?"
"Your t-truck?" Historia shook her head. "I d-don't remember a t-truck."
"You don't remember?" Ymir asked, surprise entering her tone.
"I don't remember anything s-she d-does."
Ymir frowned. She then pointed out of the window they were sat beside. "There." Historia turned in the direction she pointed. "That beaten up thing there."
"The d-dark red one?"
"That's it."
Historia turned back and Ymir could see the girl swallowing. Her fingers started shakily playing with the sleeves of her fluffy coat.
Ymir took another sip of her coffee.
"You don't remember me?" she asked the girl.
Historia shook her head.
"There more of you?"
The blonde tensed, shaking her head harder, the mere thought of having more identities clearly scaring her witless.
Ymir exhaled through her nose. "I don't know much about it," she said into her coffee as she took another drink, enjoying the burning liquid searing down her throat. "But isn't stuff like that sometimes because of abuse. A coping mechanism."
Historia stared at her and when Ymir met her eyes, she snapped her gaze down to her own coffee. She hadn't touched any of the food and the way she looked at the steaming cup made Ymir think that the girl didn't even realize it was hers.
"You made me get that," Ymir mumbled, slightly irritated. "You better have them."
"W-what?"
Ymir gestured at the wrap, crisps and coffee. "They're yours."
"I d-didn't-"
"Okay, Christa got them. She's an arsehole. Now eat."
Historia opened her mouth and then closed it again, saying nothing. She then reached for the wrap with a shaky hand and started peeling back the packaging, taking small bites and getting whatever sauce the chicken was in all around her mouth.
"So, is it a coping mechanism?" Ymir prompted, standing up to grab a few unused napkins that someone had left on a neighbouring table.
"I t-think so," she replied, holding a hand over her mouth as she chewed while accepting the napkins with the other. "S-she's been around for a while."
"So you're the original?"
Historia seemed taken aback by the question. Ymir watched her lips form the word original while she wiped away the sauce, as if it were foreign phrase she was just learning. She then nodded, slowly.
"Right." Ymir tried to get into her sandwich again, smiling slightly when the cardboard ripped apart with ease.
"W-who are you? H-how d-did…?" the girl asked uncertainly. She had paused eating to watch Ymir greedily bite into her tuna salad sandwich.
"I nearly ran over you with my truck and you demanded a lift." Ymir took another bite. "Or, well, Christa did."
Historia didn't reply straight away. "You b-believe me?"
Ymir had finished her first sandwich and wiped away the crumbs from her fingertips. She eyed the girl, picking up her coffee again. The blonde was either an extremely good little actress or she was telling the truth. The stammering 'Historia' was highly different to the bubbly 'Christa' who seemed to apologize too much and got on Ymir's nerves.
"I believe you," she answered. "There's no reason for you to be lying." Except for the fact that Ymir had been very close to murdering the girl earlier.
They went back to eating their food and a few minutes of silence later, Ymir stuffed the rubbish they'd accumulated into her empty coffee cup and stood.
Historia shrank back, startled.
Ymir raised an eyebrow at her, walking away to drop the cup into the bin. She then went back to the table to find the girl hurriedly stuffing the last bits of wrap into her mouth.
"I hope you end up wherever you're heading," she told the blonde. "See you."
She then spun on her heel and strode out of the coffee shop, through the main door and back towards her truck. She needed to fill up on petrol before she left so she started the engine and slowly eased the truck out of the parking lot and stopped by a pump.
As she filled up, she kept an eye out for the small blonde. She would have liked to catch a few hours sleep before continuing the long drive to anywhere, but she didn't want the girl to latch onto her anymore. Historia – weak, vulnerable, obviously terrified of her own shadow – was someone she could probably deal with, but Christa was something else entirely.
After paying for the petrol, Ymir started climbing back into her truck when a hand suddenly grabbed the door before she could close it.
"Hey!" she started, ready to punch some teenage boy who thought he had a chance of robbing her, but then froze when she saw the blonde girl struggling to catch her breath while clinging onto the side of her truck.
"Y…y-you d-didn't…tell me…your name," she panted, the hint of her stammer telling Ymir that she was still Historia – thank the Lord.
"I did tell you." She frowned and corrected herself, "I told Christa. It's Ymir."
The girl smiled, the faintest glimmer of it on her lips before it vanished and the grey returned to her expression. "That's a nice name."
"Cheers. Now, could you kindly remove your hand from my door?"
Historia released the door, backing away from it when Ymir violently slammed it shut, starting the engine with a quick twist of the key. Then a timid knock made Ymir look back up and roll the window down. "What?" If the girl asked for a lift again she had no idea what she'd do.
"T-thank you," Historia said instead. "For everything."
Ymir paused, a lump suddenly forming in her throat. "Right," she managed. "You're welcome."
Then the small blonde girl nodded and retreated another step away from the truck. "Goodbye, Ymir."
Ymir watched her for a moment, those big blue eyes gazing back, her ghastly pink rucksack hanging off one shoulder, her fluffy coat shifting slightly as a cold breeze swept through the service station, making her blonde hair caress her pink-tinged cheeks. She was alone, scared, a complete mystery, and her face held an entire book worth of secrets. A whisper of a smile pulled on the corner of her lips.
Then Ymir put the truck into gear and drove away, leaving the girl behind.