Never in my life had I ever been so angry with my parents.

It was an unusual situation, one that I had not had the ah- pleasure of experiencing up to this point. My headphones were jammed into my ears to block out my dad's weird-ass music tht was playing on the radio of our hybrid. I kept my eyes shut in an imitation of sleep, which was only partially helping to shut down the car sickness that always accompanied my mom's driving.

It's funny, I'd always managed to ignore it before, as we would tell jokes or listen to some kind of radio program about something educational. With both parents working as college professors, there was always a lot of learning going on. And it never bothered me, up until today.

We were on a drive home from a vacation in Florida, heading back to upstate New York, to home. Which was exactly the opposite direction that I wanted to go. Where I wanted to be, back in the sunshine state, I had been offered an internship with an archaeological dig that would have let me spend the summer abroad, in Prague.

They hadn't let me go. Not just because of the fact that I was only fifteen. Not because they wouldn't be able to come with. Not because the Czech Republic was right next to Russia, which was not exactly the safest place in the world to be traveling right now. Because they disproved of the fact that I was interested in mythology and archaeology and anthropology at all.

Dad, always the scientist, the thermonuclear astrophysicist, had insisted it was folly. Mom, the literary and philosophy major, had claimed to have understood how I felt. She rationalized that the disappointment and anger was expected, normal, for someone who had just lost something that she had wanted. Rationalism.

Ugh.

It was easy enough to get along with her typically, as she used her understanding of human nature to make everyone happy, but sometimes, when she thought she was being understanding, it was a bit like talking to a brick wall spitting out figures about emotions.

I just didn't want to hear any of those facts anymore. Someone had a window open, and it was cool and dark in the night time air of North Carolina. I was laid across the back seat, on the passenger side. The music was loud, and the slow hum of the electric motor in our car, combined with the many uninterruptible hours in the drive ahead lulled me quietly into sleep.


Hello there! Just a piece I've been working on. I hope y'alll enjoy!