“So,” I start proudly because this is it, this is the fresh start we needed, wrapped in the superficiality of stalking a celebrity.  “I doubt he’s listed in the phone book, so let’s just start heading towards the nicer part of town and, I don’t know, we’ll look for a house with a dog doing stupid tricks in the front or…”

But this isn’t it.  Far from it.  Pam is just staring straight ahead in the passenger seat of parked car, waiting for scenery to magically pass by.

“Pam?”

“Huh?”  She speaks before she rips her eyes away from the dashboard, meeting me with vague interest and attention that’s obviously somewhere else.

I smile sadly.  “I’m guessing you don’t really want to go stalk the king of late night television, am I right?”

I can see her try to muster up the energy to protest but she lets out air of defeat.

“Not really, no.”

“Hey, look, it’s fine.  Probably was a bad idea to begin with.  Don’t want to spend the rest of our time in jail, do we?”

She laughs meekly and fidgets with the charm on her necklace.  She starts to say something else, but I already know what it is and I’d rather spare her the awkwardness of being the one to say it.

“Wanna go home?”

She looks up quickly, a look of relief seeping through her body and pushing the corners of her chapped lips into grateful smile.  I nod and start the car, the engine seeming to rev up in a way so different than all the other times.  It no longer roars in possibility and opportunity for the road less traveled.  It speaks of finality and echoes the anxiousness to leave this strange place and go home, though it’ll be back in only a week.  As I go to put the car in reverse, I feel her hand settle gently over mine.

“Hey,” she says softly and I look up in obvious panic, worry, and most pathetic of all, hope.

“Let me drive,” is all she says, and I let all the hope out in one long breath.

“What?  No, it’s fi—“ but then a yawn sneaks up on me and I hear her scoff.

“Yeah, you look fine,” she says with obvious sarcasm.  And suddenly I can feel it; the burn of my eyes as I try to keep them open, the heaviness of my limbs, the fog muddled through my head making all thoughts blur together with no sign of comprehension.

 “Seriously,” she says again. “Let me drive.  Or do you not trust me with such a luxurious automobile?”

“I’ll have you know, Pam, this is a really nice car, okay?  A Corolla in case you didn’t know.”  I start to laugh but then I see that smile slip off her face.  

“What?”

She waves something invisible off with her hand.  “No, it’s—nothing. Just umm…” she licks her lips and I really hate that that’s all it takes for hope to come back.  “I remember you saying that.  To Katy, remember?  The first day she was here…”

The memory of it comes in a flash and it’s like I’m looking at it on a movie screen, completely separate from myself.  And I do remember; I remember saying it to her and causing her to giggle but feeling even more satisfaction in knowing that Pam was watching from an old pick-up as it drove away with her gaze trailing behind.

“Huh,” I choke out from the back of my throat.  “Good memory, Beesly.”

She blushes and looks away as though she’s been caught.  “Yeah well, it’s hard to forget Pam 6.0.”  

“Hey,” I say gently.  “Katy was—“ I shake my head, exhaustion furthering my inability to speak as well as think.  “She’s like, a downgrade, Pam.  You’re—“ I gesture towards her, as though the reason Katy is so obviously a downgrade should be as clear as the glass window behind her.  

“I’m what, Jim.”  And there she goes again, egging me on, whether she knows it or not, but she must know it, because she’s looking at me the same way she looked in the parking lot, the baseball field, the pier as I leaned into kiss her and it’s absolutely intoxicating and in my delirious stupor it’s damn near impossible to not do it again…

So I do it.  No ringtones to interrupt me this time, only a surprised whisper of “Jim?” before my lips are on hers and it’s so heartbreakingly real that I don’t even breathe as I kiss her once, twice, and then it’s an uncountable series of them, one right after the other in quick, stolen succession.  They’re never more than a breath apart before they’re happening again, each more urgent and passionate than the last. It seems cliché to talk about time stopping but in this case, it feels true.  We’ve been up for almost an entire day, the clock working against us with every second that ticks by, but in these moments, when I catch her bottom lip with my teeth, when she kisses the corner of my unshaven jaw and it sounds like sandpaper, when I push her head to the side with my nose so I have better access to her cheeks…those moments hardly seem to count against the limited time we have left.  It’s all those moments that add seconds, minutes, maybe even by some miracle hours to our day. Her hands move to my cheeks, tentatively but with firm resolve as they settle there, and I take it as permission to carefully clasp the back of my neck, willing her to never, ever take her lips from mine.

But she does, eventually.  Her hands fall limply to my shoulders as our foreheads rest on each other while we struggle to catch our breath.  I open my eyes and she’s looking at me with one big green eye since we’re so close and my vision can’t focus.  It’s awkward and unnerving and not like anything I ever imagined the thousands of times I’d imagined it.

It’s refreshing.

“You’re shaking,” she says simply.

I smile.  “Sorry.”

Seconds of silence pass, neither of us having moved and all we can manage at the moment is to try and slow down our breathing until finally she speaks.

“So, can I have the keys?”

“Keys?”

“To the car?  I’m still driving, you know.”

Oh. That.  Right.

“Yeah, no, definitely.”  It seems to take a gigantic amount of willpower on both of our parts to pull back from each other, to slide our hands off of shoulders and necks, and my body feels numb when I’m no longer touching her.  I fumble with my seatbelt and can’t quite grab the door handle and I must look like a complete idiot.  Apparently kissing Pam is detrimental to my motor skills.  We switch places and I smirk as I watch her slide the seat up as far it can go.  But then I really look at her, study her face, and it’s blank.  No joy but no nausea or panic either, so I chock that up to a good sign.  She remains quiet as we pull away from the diner parking lot, navigate side streets until we see the freeway.   If we head north, we’ll eventually reach the state line and from there, who knows.  South means Scranton, back home to a once familiar ground that now seems anything but.  

She turns on the blinker with a flick of her wrist.  Left.

Scranton it is.

3:59