Leaning against the door of the dusty red truck in the school parking lot, Chris Chambers tried to include himself in the conversation but he wasn't sure of how to say anything without looking stupid. Gordie Lachance and Cale Coulthard were laughing together like best friends, and Chris was jealous. Of course, the two of them did go back a long ways. But Chris was not jealous of having to share his best friend's attention with this girl. He was jealous that this girl wasn't sharing her attention with him.

Cale Coulthard. Not very many guys that went to Castle Rock High would look twice at her. She wasn't especially pretty, but her small frame and dusting of freckles made her cute at the very least. Two years before, she had effortlessly won Chris over when she had slammed into a parked car, and then lay sprawled out on the ground laughing. He liked a girl that didn't take herself too seriously. So as she and Gordie, who had been next door neighbours since nursery school, talked animatedly, Chris just stood there wishing he knew something that could make her notice him a little more. But, he reminded himself, what girl would ever like a Chambers?

"You flunked Mr. Lane's quiz?" Gordie demanded incredulously. "Did you like write backwards or in Arabic or something?"

She shrugged and smiled up at him sheepishly. "I'm profoundly stupid."

"I'll say," he teased.

"Whatever, I'm just glad it's Friday finally." She gestured towards the school. "That place keeps making me unsmarter."

Gordie just laughed. "Just keep telling yourself that, Cale."

"Hey," a voice called. "Chambers, how you doing?"

Chris turned his head to see who was calling him and saw Teddy Duchamp walking towards him with that same old casual swagger, Vern Tessio and his sister trailing slightly behind. "Hey Teddy," Chris said. "Hey Vern. And uh…Vern's sister."

Claire Tessio, who was not at all like her brother, rolled her eyes and gave Vern an impatient look.

"Listen, uh, I'm not feeling too hot and so I was looking for someone to bum a ride off of, and so I saw you guys and so I thought maybe you wouldn't mind giving me a lift home?" Vern babbled. At the age of sixteen, he had finally overcome his lisp, but he still succumbed to the urge of non-stop chatter.

"No problem," Chris said. "I'm giving Gordie and Cale a ride home too, so if you don't mind the tight fit, it's alright."

"Are you saying I'm fat?" Gordie asked.

"Definitely," he replied, smiling. "You want a ride too, Vern's sister?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, but then attempted to smile pleasantly. "Yeah, I just had gym class and the laps were hell today. So if you don't mind."

Teddy was looking at Chris expectantly. When Chris dug his keys out of his back pocket and began to make his way around to the driver's side of the truck, Teddy announced, "Okay guys, I guess I'll walk home now. Even though I have a lot of heavy homework. And a headache."

A small smirk tugging at the corners of Chris' mouth, he looked back. "Teddy, would you like me to drive you home?"

"Oh, I don't want to impose myself."

Chris had to pass his house in order to get to the street where Gordie and Cale lived, which were the next closest to the school. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Tightening his grip on the wheel, he imagined what he'd be coming home to. His father, probably too hung over to go to work, would be lying on the couch waiting for him to come home so that he could have someone to release his anger that he felt towards himself. Chris knew that his dad couldn't stand himself. Why else would he try and make everyone else's lives miserable if he was just a content man trying to scrape through a poverty-stricken life? Chris understood why his dad always hurt him. He just didn't know how he could do it. He really didn't want to go home.

He looked over at Gordie and Cale, who were sitting next to him in the front with Cale squeezed in the middle. Easing the decrepit old truck to a halt at a stop sign, he asked, "Wanna go somewhere?"

"Are you going to come with me?" Gordie grinned.

"No." Chris shook his head and applied pressure to the gas again after a noisy station wagon passed by. "I just asked you that because it seemed more polite than 'please get the hell away from me and go somewhere I'm not at.'" He missed the turn to Sage RD, where Gordie and Cale lived. "Yeah I'm coming. It's my truck."

"Can I drive?" Cale asked.

"You don't know where we're going," he reminded her.

"Do you?"

"No, but we'll get there anyway. And you will never drive. I enjoy living. You drive like a cockroach driving a matchbox."

Pursing her lips together, she appeared thoughtful. "Should I ask where that simile came from or just ignore the fact that you were ever speaking?"

"I have these dreams sometimes and yeah, they're strange."

"COOL!" Teddy cried. "Is this a road trip?"

Chris paused. A lot of time had passed since he would have called Teddy Duchamp one of his friends. Teddy was loud and flamboyant, and his emotions were unpredictable. Did he really want this guy as a backseat driver?

"Uh, sure, Teddy."

"Ohhh no," Claire said. "I did not sign a waiver for any road trip."

They were approaching Castle Rock City Limits. Chris knew fully that if he didn't come home for supper, he'd be in a world of shit, but he didn't care. That was later, not now. Right now, he was heading towards the highway with Cale and his best friend, and he was pretty determined not to let anything hinder his plan.

"Come on, Claire, it'll be fun," Vern urged his sister. "Dad's in Boise for the business crap thing and Mom won't care if we go out for the weekend."

"I hate being kidnapped," she sighed.

"Nah, you're not being kidnapped. You're being borrowed." Chris stole a look at her in his rear view mirror. "You can leave any time you want."

"Leave? But we're going like ninety miles an hour."

He laughed. "Yeah, that's the catch."