Image Source: Unsplash- Andre Furtado
The dense Smoky Mountains ahead and behind us.
Lush and green and full of life
Full of summer rain and pine-scented early morning air
I watch them rise and fall with the curves of the road
Pink sunrise glows on your face, three hours of sleep showing itself
Yet, your perfectly blue eyes are still bright and smiling.
You reach for my hand and lace our fingers together.
Hold on tight.
Seven hours to go.
We leave behind the place we met five years ago,
Our timing never right until this summer
Until you kissed me at midnight in the moonlit hallway, holding my face in your hands.
Until now.
I think back to when you asked me on this trip
How you said a ten-hour drive to Birmingham on the backend wasn’t a big deal
Even though we both know it is.
I smile at the thought, the warmth of the memory spreading through my body
Six hours now
The vast Smokies wave their final goodbye in the rearview mirror
Peaks and valleys now permanently flat
North Carolina to the Virginia coastline
State lines mark a halfway point.
The light lifts more, brilliant and yellow
Rising high above the black asphalt
Your favorite podcast is our music, 48-minute episodes
Helping time move faster, but I’m never trapped in its grasp
Five hours.
Never ending road finally lulls me to sleep
The passage of time becoming an afterthought
Afternoon sun wraps me in a blanket
I see warm, bright colors paint my eyelids as I dream
I wake to fingers running through my hair,
You smile as my sleepy eyes struggle to open.
I look up at you, the face that I’ve loved since I was 16
And I wonder if you love me too.
Four more hours.
Terrain completely flat now, that vastness feeling smaller.
Enclosed in the dwindling hours.
No longer surrounded by our comfortable mountain range
Where we played hide and seek with reality
We pull over somewhere
The middle of nowhere
You let me drive and watch my maneuvers before you drift off, making sure I’m safe.
I hope you’re dreaming of me.
Three hours left.
“We should get gas before crossing the Chesapeake Bay,” you say through a yawn
The air conditioning caresses my face as I search for an exit sign
Three miles to the next one
We pull into a Shell parking lot, and you kiss me just because.
You’re driving again and roll down the windows
Virginia greets us with heavy, humid air
Moisture rises from the bay, the smell of late July filling my nose
You call your mom, telling her we’re crossing the bridge.
Two hours, then one.
The final stretch, but not the end.
This was written by our contributing writer, Nora Krall.
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