Starting Over - Belle's Road Trip

Belle’s shoes rested on the red bucket seat under her. She held her knee’s against her chest and laid her chin on the beige interior. She stared out the back window at the sandy, barren hills. She didn’t want to be here, she thought. Kyle made her come, just like everybody else in her life. He wanted them to include her, but she wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. She began a reverberating hum that seemed to resonate throughout the hushed car.
There was only about an hour more of light remaining. It left a purple tint atop the golden dunes leading into blue hues that grew bolder the higher you went. The sun was behind them now trying to melt underneath the horizon.
Ashley kept her gaze on the ceiling trying not to notice Belle’s noises. She had her arms crossed over her stomach and began weaving her knees side to side hitting the door handle with her left knee.
Oscar’s chair was reclined all the way back leaving little room for Belle behind him. His face was toward Kyle in the passenger’s seat. His breathing was rasping, but dulled as he repositioned leaving a wet spot on the seat.
Ashley glanced over at Belle with an agitated expression hoping she’d realize it and stop humming. She sat up in her seat to get her pink makeup box. She opened it, examined herself in the mirror, and reapplied more color. She flipped her chestnut hair over her shoulders as she brushed through it with her fingers. Then she offered Belle the mirror holding it out for her.
Belle shook her head knowing she wasn’t looking her best. She didn’t want to look spectacular so that they might think she wanted to be there. Or Kyle might get the impression she really did like him. So, before she got in the car she threw her blonde hair in a loose bun and used no makeup.
Kyle kept his eyes on the dark road in front of him as he struggled to keep his Wrangler in between the fading lines. He squeezed his lids shut to stop the burning. He could still see the arid landscape with patches of cacti and Joshua trees with what was left of the sunlight.
“Stop it already, Belle,” Ashley said with an irritated tone.
“Just trying to get a little music in this annoyingly, quiet car,” Belle explained.
Kyle peered at what he could see of Belle’s face in his rear-view mirror. She formed a large smile showing her white, strait teeth. He stared at her light brown eyes until she turned away to cover her face with her grey hood and lay against the window. He guessed she was ready to finally fall asleep.
Belle quietly hummed a familiar tone she would make before Zach came into her life. Now that he’s gone off to college maybe things will go back to the way they were before; the way they should’ve stayed, he thought.
“Stop humming already! It’s annoying,” Ashley snapped.
“Well, if there was music,” Belle said rubbing in the fact that she wouldn’t agree to music everyone else wanted in the last hour.
“How about country? You like country right, Ashley?” Kyle assumed.
“Love songs,” Belle argued with a grin.
Kyle turned the radio on. He tuned to a song he remembered as a child: “Leader of the Pack”.
Ashley began bouncing and swaying in her seat along with the tempo. She tried to sing the words skipping the ones she didn’t know, but kept singing anyway.
“I’d rather hear country than your version of an oldie’s song,” Belle complained.
“Ha, ha,” Ashley said sarcastically, “not everyone can sing, Belle, miss perfect-voice.”
Belle smiled at Ashley and said, “No just you.”
Ashley pouted her face. She whirled her head and looked out the window on her side of the car. She rewrapped her arms and rested them, once again, on her stomach. She turned her knees along with her whole body towards the door.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” Ashley teased keeping her face away from Belle. She shaped a smirk on her face thinking her comment would do to Belle what began to feel.
“Ashley!” Kyle yelled trying to get the bickering to stop before it continued further.
“I don’t know, you tell me,” Belle said.
“Girls!”
“I broke up with him,” Belle revealed, “but you knew that. In fact, you’ve talked to him since he’s been gone.”
Ashley snickered and criticized saying, “figures, you’ve always thrown away the things you care about the most like their worthless.”
“As opposed to someone who throws away the people that care about you by the way you treat them,” Belle argued, “Kyle and Oscar don’t wanna be forced to do things. I would know.”
“Since when do you care what they think or what they want? You take what you want and push it off and want nothing to do with it. But only now, your gonna end up hurting Kyle worse than you did Zach.”
Kyle jerked the car into the tight emergency lane and parked. He got out of the car and opened Ashley’s door. He grabbed Ashley by her shirt, pulled her out, and stuffed her in the driver’s seat.
“What are you doing?” Ashley panicked.
“You’re driving,” Kyle ordered, “just drive until you see lights then wake up Oscar, I’m too exhausted to talk to you. He knows where the hotel is so don’t argue.”
Oscar lifted his seat. He looked at Kyle with an eyebrow raised. He gave Ashley a pathetic look.
“You really can’t sing even though Belle’s a singer,” Oscar sided.
“Ha!” Belle instigated.
“And you do throw things away like they don’t mean anything to you, but they really do. Why are you trying to get rid of us, we’re better than Zach and your brother anyway?” Oscar informed, “And quitting the choir. What the hell is your problem?”
Belle took down her hood looking at Kyle pulling on his seatbelt. She set her hand on his shoulder.
“Great trip, Kyle. We’re instantly best friends.”
“You’re not even trying,” Kyle criticized.
Kyle closed his eyes and laid his head on the window seal with his back against the seat. He fought the urge to open his eyes to look at her as he let his body fall into it’s needed stillness.