Highway - 1. Chapter 1

“What do you mean I can’t go?” I half whined and half yelled at my dad.

“You’re not old enough to drink, so I don’t want you at this party.”

“Your dad is right.” My mom chimed in.

“God this is so unfair! All my friends are going!”

I grabbed my keys in a huff and stormed out of the house. Still angry, I revved the engine and tore out of our driveway and down the street. “I’m 18, I’m old enough to make my own goddamn decisions.” I mumbled to myself. “I’m not a child. I’m an adult and can drink if I want to. All my friends do it anyways, so it’s whatever. No big deal.”

I sometimes fight with my parents, not very often, though. Just over stupid stuff, like them wanting me to get a job to pay for the gas, for the car they got me. But in the next breath they complain about my grades not being high enough to get into a good school. I tell them that they can’t have it both ways. I’m either focused entirely on school or I get a job and slack. They don’t seem to understand that, though.

Usually their bark is worse than their bite, which is why it’s no big deal for me to take off like that. I’ll drive around for an hour or two, maybe chill at a friend’s house. I’ll come home, they’ll apologize to me (if they’re still awake) and we’ll all move on. Except once, when they actually grew a pair. After some stupid argument about me getting a speeding ticket or failing a test or… something. Anyways, they actually stopped paying for my cell phone for like four whole months. It was absolutely terrible!

Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t even realized that I was already on the highway. That’s kind of bad, I guess, to zone out like that. I quietly brooded for about fifteen minutes, cruising down the highway, thinking about how unfair my life was and how mean my parents were to me.

Then I noticed him.

He’s my age, maybe a bit younger, 17, perhaps. He had short blonde hair and was absolutely stunningly beautiful. It was just him and an older guy in the car, but he was sitting in the back seat, which I thought was weird. Luckily he was, though. He was sitting behind the driver, but if he had been on the passenger side, I never would have noticed him.

I tore myself away from him to keep an eye on the road ahead of me, making sure I didn’t smash into the car ahead of me. The car in front was signalling to move back to the right lane, to take the off ramp, I guess. I started to put my foot down on the pedal when I glanced back at him.

He made eye contact with me and I’ll always remember the emotions in his eyes. He looked really tired and scared. My foot was still down to the floor so I began to move ahead of him. I glanced over my shoulder to maintain eye contact as long as possible when I saw him mouth something to me. I’m not sure exactly what he had meant to say, but it seemed like he said, “Help me.”

“Oh shit!” I yelled, as I took my foot off the gas again. As I slowed down again, I drifted back to being parallel with him.

“Help me.” He mouthed to me again.

This time it was unmistakable. I pressed the OnStar button, to get help.

“OnStar, this is Karen speaking. How may I assist you this evening, Mr. Evans?”

“Yeah, hi. I’m pretty sure the person in the car beside me is being kidnapped or something.”

“One moment please, while I transfer you to your local police department.”

There was silence for a moment. I was secretly fuming at this Karen chicks calmness. I know it’s part of their job not to panic, but it just bothered me. There was a beep and it rang twice before the line was picked up.

“This is Constable Wilkins. We have tracked you to be moving northbound. What is your emergency?”

“The person in the car beside me is being kidnapped. He kept telling me to help him.”

“Please stay on the line. A cruiser is being dispatched and will be intercepting shortly.”

Shortly? Jesus christ, that could be forever.

I kept focusing on him, trying to give him some visual cue that help was on the way. My last boyfriend didn’t put out, so I ended it quickly. This guy, he was probably straight, but maybe I could get a ‘thank you’ blowjob out of him, or something.

The Constable was asking me a bunch of questions. He asked which exits we’ve just passed, to figure out where on the highway we were. He asked me to describe the driver; I told him how the driver looked to be about 40 or so and had black hair. I couldn’t really see if the guy was heavy or how tall he was, or anything like that. I couldn’t give him a license plate number, but I gave a general colour and make/model description for him, too.

I finally got the guy’s attention and raised my eyebrows a few times. Right at that moment, the police’s lights and sirens went off, to pull the car over. The Constable asked me to pull over as well, because I needed to give a statement or something. I slowed down and stopped behind the cop car. We were all on the shoulder of the road.

Slowly the cop got out of his car. He came over to me first and asked if I was the guy that reported it. I told him I was and he nodded. He thanked me and asked me to stay in the car.

“Of course.” I assured him.

He nodded and pulled out his gun. It scared the shit out of me, watching him slowly approach the kidnapper’s car, I was gripping the wheel in anticipation. Finally he got to the window and I heard him yelling at the guy. Telling him what to do and to get out of the vehicle. When the guy was on the ground, the cop handcuffed him and threw him in the back of his cruiser.

Once that was done, he motioned for me to come over, to give my statement I guess.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Evans. I mean, Matt. Matthew Evans, sir.” My nervousness consuming me.

He chuckled. “A brave thing you did, Mr. Evans. Listen, this is pretty cut and dry. I’m going to need a statement from both you and the victim, but he’s pretty shaken up. Let me hop into my cruiser, do the paperwork I need to do. While I’m doing that, do you mind talking to him? Calm him down.”

I nodded and slowly approached the passenger side of the car, with the guy still in it. I slowly opened the door and got into the car, sitting beside him.

“Hi, I’m Matt.”

He took my extended hand and shook it. “I’m David.” He replied, weakly.

“One hell of a day, eh?”

“Happy birthday to me!” David cheered, sarcastically.

“Oh shit, it’s your birthday?”

“Yeah. I had just gotten off work and was walking home when that piece of shit grabbed me. My boss had let me off work early, it being my birthday and all.”

“Oh snap. But at least you got to sleep in this morning, right?”

“No, I went to my other job first. I went straight from there to my second one. I haven’t been home since before the sun was up this morning.”

“Jesus, that sounds harsh. What about school, man?”

“I dropped out as soon as I was allowed to. It’s just mom, trying to raise 3 of us, so she really needs the money. I also mow lawns and shovel snow, to make extra money. We do alright.”

David was smiling and I could tell he was really proud of what he does to help support his family. I felt a knot in my stomach as I thought about my home life and why I was even here right now.

“You look like you’re hungry.” I proclaimed.

“Well, I guess…”

“Let’s go grab a coffee. I doubt you’ll be getting much sleep tonight after what’s happened, so you might as well be up all night with someone to talk to.” I smiled.

“Sounds great. But, I don’t know…” His eyes moved down to the ground.

“My treat. I insist.”

“Oh, thank-you. That sounds lovely.” He looked up at me, smiling. But there was the hint of shame in his smile.

There was a tap on David’s window. He rolled it down, “I’m ready to take both your statements now.”

There was an unspoken eagerness, from both of us, to get this mess over with so we could sit down and talk, properly. I wouldn’t say that we rushed, but we certainly both quickly explained everything that happened that evening, to the cop.

“Well, I think that’s everything. David, since you seem physically fine, I don’t need to take you to get medically examined. Do you need me to take you home or is there someone that can pick you up?”

“No, I think I’m okay.” He told the cop, glancing at me and smiling.

He seemed a little hesitant, but got into his car, anyways. “You boys have a safe night.” He told us, then drove away.

I handed David my cellphone and told him to call his mom to let her know he was okay and that he wouldn’t be home right away. He walked off and spoke on it for a few minutes. He returned it to me, with a smile on his face. We both got into my car and I was deeply excited and nervous about what the rest of the night had in store for me.