As Written

by Abby Sundeen

Skye’s love for road trips has been both passionate and infinite for as long as she can remember. Going to a little beach town for spring break, a national park over the weekend, a little day trip to an art museum a few hours away - there’s nothing more perfect. You can imagine how thrilled she was, then, at the idea of taking a two-week trip to go and meet Jonah’s parents.

Jonah was never as keen on the idea.

He loves his parents, don’t get him wrong, but they’re a lot. And road trips are a lot. And Skye is a lot, no matter how much he cares for her.

Jonah’s parents love him, too, but more the way a virus loves its host. They’ve been so immensely insistent on meeting Skye for the first time that he couldn’t say no when they asked him to bring her on his vacation. They’re bumbling around their house now, starting the preparations in the guest room and making sure there’s enough food in the house for two more hungry mouths.

They couldn’t be more prepared if they tried.

Skye and Jonah haven’t been driving for that long, but the scenery has already changed from their forested little college town to miles and miles of empty plains. When the world is flat and featureless around them, save for the occasional “save yourself and believe in God” billboard, the only real entertainment comes from inside the car.

Skye has full control of the music for the next hour, until they trade off again. She’s singing along to her favorite song, the same one she’s played the past four times she’s been on aux. It could never get old to her. To Jonah, it got old after the second play, and he’s doing his best not to grab her phone and change it himself.

She’s not a fantastic singer, but Jonah’s focused on appreciating the fact that she feels comfortable belting in front of him. No matter how off-key it is. That’s not supposed to matter when you’re in love, so Jonah is trying very hard to ignore the fact that it does matter very much.

He dislikes even more than the song has stuck like an earworm, so even after it ends he can’t get it out of his head. It’s not even the kind of music he likes. Skye loves this weird kind of synthetic, almost hyper-pop music; she found it when she was in her earlier high school years, and somehow it’s stuck with her as she’s grown.

Skye’s parents were just as confused then as Jonah is now about this “phase” of her music taste. At least, they had hoped it would be a phase, but it hasn’t gone away. She’s still in love with her songs, one genre awkwardly compounding over the others. A warm pride in her music is what lets her sing these lyrics as loud as she can for the fourth time, directly into Jonah’s right ear.

How is this only the second day of the trip?

Day four and the issue of the aux cord has faded into the background. They’ve both cycled through nearly every playlist they have at this point, and their own respective music platforms aren’t giving them anything good to listen to. Jonah has Apple Music, which Skye makes fun of relentlessly.

There’s no real reason, she just thinks it’s funny. Jonah thinks it’s stupid.

He doesn’t have to deal with that music-but-not-music genre now, though, so driving without music isn’t as unbearable.

The issue comes with the question of figuring out conversation. It’s not Skye’s forte, and she’s more than comfortable with sitting and just enjoying Jonah’s presence. Small talk is far from her favorite thing, and if there’s no music to yell to then she’d rather just watch the world pass by.

“Let me know if you want to trade,” she says for the fourth time today.

Jonah has been driving for the entirety of every day on this trip. He just needs to have control over something, and he very much cannot control the person sitting in her passenger seat.

“I will,” he says. He won’t.

Jonah’s phone buzzes between them, a solitary interruption to the hum of the car’s engine as they drive. “Can you check that?”

Skye grabs the phone and tries not to look at the other notifications on the screen. As much as she’s a naturally curious person, she’s pretty sure she trusts Jonah. “It’s a text from your mom.”

“What does it say?”

She scans the message and focuses hard on keeping her eyes from the message history. “She’s asking when we’ll be there.”

Jonah glances at the GPS and tries not to let himself show his relief. “We should be getting there by the end of the day tomorrow, depending on how far we’re able to make it tonight.” The idea of spending time not in a car with Skye is intoxicating, and he holds onto the thought like it’s gold. The car speeds up.

Meanwhile, Skye is trying hard not to let Jonah know how much she’s been enjoying this. There’s something about just being in the car with him, even if they’re not talking, that makes her feel so much closer to him. She sends the text to Jonah’s mom and sets his phone in the cupholder between them.

Both of his hands are on the wheel. She wishes he would release one to hold hers. Jonah wishes she would stop looking at his hands.

“I’m excited to meet your parents,” Skye says, breaking her own rule of not making small talk. Does this count as small talk? She’s genuinely excited to meet them; they seem like a great family, from what Jonah’s told her.

His parents, reading the text, are on their way to the grocery store now. Jonah told them one of Skye’s favorite snacks is raspberries with yogurt dip, and they didn’t want to get fruit that would go bad before Jonah and Skye even got there. His mom has a list written in sloppy cursive for them to go off of, the same way Jonah would plan an errand.

Skye, on the other hand, likes to meander when she goes to the store. She always knows what she needs, but she doesn’t often know what she wants, and she’s content to find out by the method of wandering. Lists were never meant to be followed precisely as written.

Which makes her one of the worst people to run errands with.

He almost forgets that he’s supposed to respond to Skye with a sentiment in kind. He doesn’t have many sentiments to share; knowing Skye, and knowing his mom, he’s going to be surrounded by talking and raucous laughter for the next few days. Why did he invite her?

“I think they’re going to like you,” he opts to say instead.

Skye nods. It’s a good enough answer to her; she’d rather not hear the predictions and the suggestions. The more scripted their meeting is, she thinks, the more artificial it’ll be. If Jonah wants to bring her to meet his parents, she wants them to meet her as she is.

Jonah halfway hopes they won’t like her.

They stop for dinner a few hours later, when the snow starts. It’s all gentle flurries, nothing to disrupt the visibility or the clearness of the road. They find a cute diner to go to, and Skye makes their hotel reservations while they wait to be seated. It’s a cute nearly-nothing town by the name of Craydon; it’s large enough to have its own school, but there are about two stop lights total.

Gentle red-and-yellow fluorescent lights keep the diner feeling homey, and Skye interlocks her fingers with Jonah’s as they follow the server to their seats. As soon as they reach the table, Jonah shakes her off; he’s been holding onto the steering wheel all day, and he needs a break from holding things.

He definitely could have taken one hand off the wheel.

Skye picks up on his tiredness as if that’s what she was trained to do. She considers herself pretty good at reading other people, even if the moments like this sometimes hurt. “I can drive us back to the hotel,” she says. It’s less of an offer and more of a decision; they both know Jonah needs the rest.

He still feels the need to talk, even though he would have to physically try to get more annoyed by her at this point. “What was the most interesting thing you saw on the drive?” He just can’t sit with the silence.

It’s fake, and she knows that he’s not really interested. She knows, she knows. But it’s still nice to be asked, so she answers. “There was a really neat piece of graffiti we passed at some point.” She doesn’t remember why it was so neat; she just remembers that she liked it. Jonah doesn’t really care anyway, so there’s no need to go into detail.

The issue is that she knows he doesn’t care, and she knows that he’s just pretending when he asks her things like this.

But he asked her to come and meet his parents, halfway across the country. That has to mean something, right?

Jonah’s parents, meanwhile, are buzzing excitedly on their couch about meeting this new girl named Skye. They were the ones that offered to have her over, but Jonah seemed enthusiastic in his agreement. This must be a special girl, they’ve decided, if he wants to bring her this far to meet them.

They’re watching TV just to pass the time now. All of the preparations have been done - well, as much as they can be. The guest bedroom is in pristine condition, and Jonah’s siblings have all cleaned their rooms just in case he wants to give his girlfriend a tour of the house. Their dog, Cooper snoozes on the couch beside them. They’ve been telling their German shepherd puppy all about this soon-to-arrive visitor and how he has to behave himself so that she’ll come back, even though they know he’ll be all jumps tomorrow.

Jonah doesn’t say anything about the graffiti. He’s too busy thinking about how he’s going to pretend to be as excited as his parents tomorrow.

He’s too busy thinking about how to bring it up to Skye that after this road trip, he’s not so sure things are working out the way they would have liked. Skye knows that too, realistically, but it’s nice to hold onto things for a while. As much as Jonah hates pretending, Skye knows how nice it is to exist in that reality, even for a bit.

So she lets herself sink into the diner booth, with her hands resting on the slightly-sticky table, looking at the boy she knows doesn’t really love her. Maybe things will change when she meets his parents, and he’ll see how good of a fit they really are.

The snow got worse overnight, and Skye is doing her best not to cry because of it. Jonah is doing his best not to show his relief that he gets more time to stall another car ride.

Both of their backs ache from the hotel bed. They lay and watched TV and slept, but only kind of. It’s more like they took turns being awake, watching the other rest and failing to get comfortable and wondering if the other was equally aware of their rapidly-approaching downfall.

Skye had threaded her fingers through Jonah’s hair and wondered what it would be like if she could read his mind. Jonah had watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest and wondered if he was supposed to find this beautiful.

His parents aren’t particularly happy to hear about the delay, but of course, they’d rather have the kids safe. His mom is worried about the raspberries going bad by the time they get there, and she’s already compiling a list for another grocery trip just in case they do.

“What’s the plan, then?” Skye asks. She has more experience driving in the snow between the two of them, and she knows she’d be able to manage just fine behind the wheel if they were to leave now. She also knows Jonah won’t give up the driver’s seat that easily.

He shrugs. “It’s supposed to stop in about an hour. We’ll leave after that, and hopefully, still get there by the end of the day.”

“I could always start us driving,” she offers. She knows his answer, but, “I grew up driving in weather like this, and you’ve got a capable little car.”

“Still my car,” he says, looking out the window. His back is fully turned to her and she hears his voice only because it echoes off the glass. “We’ll wait.”

She plops back onto the bed and sighs. One twist and her spine pops in pretty much every place possible. No comments from Jonah, of course. He likes to talk, he can’t stop talking, except when it’s anything genuine about her.

They ignore each other until it’s time to leave. Skye has finally accepted, by the time she’s in the car, she’d also rather not talk at all. This road trip really isn’t turning out the way she had hoped it would. She’s not so sure anymore that meeting Jonah’s parents will solve things.

Jonah’s mom is relieved to hear they’re still leaving on the same day. She shouldn’t need to go and buy more raspberries, after all.

The last leg of the drive is only another six hours. They don’t bother with the radio; Skye debates on just putting in her earbuds and listening to her currently-on-repeat playlist. She doesn’t, though, just in case anything changes. In case he wants to talk.

They’re about a half hour away from Jonah’s parents when Skye finally says it. She hates that she’s the one to do it. “This isn’t, um…”

“No,” Jonah says. “It’s not.”

She grits her teeth and nods. It’s not surprising; she almost wishes it was. How much easier would it have been to feel the way she’s supposed to if it had caught her off-guard? Is she faking? Has she been this whole time? She just keeps looking out the window, away from Jonah, the way she has been this entire trip. “Yeah.”

They finish the drive in silence, both pondering questions unanswered. Are they supposed to share a bed? Skye can sleep on the couch if needed. She can sit in the back seat on the trip back, or she can grab a bus ticket. Something, anything, other than this would suffice.

It’s all hugs when they get to Jonah’s house. His mom takes Skye into a tight embrace that she could practically melt into. “It’s so good to finally meet you,” she says. “Jonah’s told us so much about you!”

She makes eye contact with Jonah over his mom’s shoulder. He can’t look away fast enough.

“Thank you so much for having me,” Skye says. The past few days have given her an affinity for pretending. So it’s easy to pretend that everything is fine when she meets her kind-of-ex-boyfriend’s mom for the first time.

Jonah’s mom, who introduces herself as Marcy, takes Skye by the elbow and leads her to the kitchen. “How relieving it must be to have some actual food,” she says. “I’ve spent the whole day getting ready for you two.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Skye says. She hopes Jonah’s hearing all of this, too - how much effort his mom put into everything just for it to turn out like this. Marcy is far too excited at the moment to pick up on the minutia of their interactions, the fact that they won’t look at each other or that Jonah has yet to smile since walking in the door.

They spend the rest of the night talking and eating. Skye eats what she can, but the nausea accompanying her heartbreak has killed her mood almost completely. Jonah’s eating like he’s a vacuum cleaner, complaining about how tiring the drive was as if Skye wasn’t offering every hour on the hour to switch with him.

Whatever.

It’s just a few days that they spend there before Skye fakes an emergency and gets a plane ticket back home. Anything is better than having to drive all the way back with him.

Jonah drives her to the airport, once again in silence. Skye has her earbuds in, listening once again to her favorite song. She hums the lyrics and hopes the sound grates against Jonah’s ears.

When they get to the airport, Skye grabs her things from his trunk and walks straight in. Jonah stands by the passenger side door and watches her walk for a moment before starting the drive back.

The raspberries sit in the fridge after she’s gone, unopened, and already starting to mold. Jonah’s the one to throw them away.