Highway 101 EXCERPT 2

​Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth turned back onto the road and began to drive again. Instead of the car being filled with music and laughter, it was silent. Elizabeth kept looking at the GPS, anticipating the time when it turns on again. The more time they drove, the more time that Elizabeth was starting to regret this trip. Yes, it would be fun for the three girls to spend sometime together. Yes, it would have been a lot easier if they splurged a little bit and bought plane tickets. And yes, printing out the directions would have been a smart idea. But, between graduation and summer plans, there was excitement between the three girls and no one was thinking.
            Five minutes turned into ten. Ten minutes turned into twenty. Twenty minutes turned in to a half hour. Elizabeth was starting to worry now. The GPS system still hadn’t come back, and Elizabeth was on edge.  Her hands started to shake, and she kept looking in her rear-view mirror to see if there were any cars behind them. She then, pulled over to the side of the rode and Alexa started with the questions again.
            “What the hell Elizabeth! Why did you pull over again?” Alexa said. Diana didn’t say anything. She just threw her hands in the air in frustration. She just wanted to get to the motel and start this “girls vacation”.
            “The fucking GPS isn’t working anymore! I have no idea where we are going. For all I know we could be headed towards Nevada” She yells while leaning back into her seat. She puts her hands over her eyes and starts to cry.
            “Stop crying Liz. It’s not the end of the world. We will get there when we get there” Diana tries to comfort Elizabeth while Alexa rolled her eyes. Clearly, she was annoyed with Diana. She wouldn’t stop complaining about how long the drive was and now she is basically saying she is okay with this. Bullshit. 
            “Hypocrite” Alexa mumbles.
            “I’m just trying to comfort a friends Lex, what are you doing?” Alexa didn’t say anything, she just kept looking at the window.
            “Maybe instead of being on your damn phone for the whole ride, you could have helped me navigate!” Elizabeth finally snapped. She was now angry and crying. “You have been shoving you fucking phone in my face this entire time!”
            “I’m trying to find where everything is at. I have been looking up dates and times for all the sites we can go see! Why don’t you ask Miss. Complainer back there to help you?” Alexa screamed at the driver.
            “I already did my part! I booked the motel rooms, I went over all of our work schedules to find the right dates so we could go, and I convinced our parents to let us go without them!”
            “You could have also printed the directions in case the GPS wouldn’t work!”
            “Why couldn’t Elizabeth have done that! She’s the one driving!” Diana sneered at Elizabeth. One moment she is getting comfort, the next she is accused for something that anyone could have done.
            “Since you were all over getting everything organized, you could have printed the directions, Diana. Or, Alexa, you could have looked up all of the ‘fun and exciting’ activities we could have done at home and then play co-pilot while we were driving.” Elizabeth she was past crying because she was sad, she was now crying because of frustration. This was supposed to be a fun trip for the three girls. Not turning into the blame game. We always end up blaming each other for things we did or didn’t do. Especially in school during group projects.
 
 
            It was eighth grade and in their world cultures class, they were supposed to do a presentation on a country that they were not going to cover in class. The three of them we one group of three and before they even started, they were arguing about what country to do.
            “I want to the Netherlands. I think it would fun.” Alexa stated looking at the list. Elizabeth wanted to do Italy because she could talk to her grandmother since she grew up there. Diana wanted to do Israel because she thinks it would be cool to learn about.
            “Listen, I think we should do Italy. Almost all the questions I could get my grandmother t answer and we could be done with this as soon as possible.” The other two girls looked at her and then to each other.
            “Sure, Liz. We’ll do Italy,” Diana said handing her the questions they were given, “you’re in charge of the questions then.” During the weeks they were working on the project, Elizabeth gathered as many questions as she could, Alexa tried to gather picture of some of the cities, and Diana gathered the supplies. When the time came to put all the information together, Alexa didn’t have many pictures, Diana still hadn’t gotten the trifold, and only half the questions were answered.
            “What the hell Liz! I thought you said your grandma could answer these questions! You only have half of them done!” Diana yelled, and Alexa was about to rip her folder in half.
              “Don’t put all the blame on me! You said you were getting the trifold and Alexa, where are all these pictures you said you were going to get?” She questioned them.
            “All I have to do is print them and then we could glue them on the trifold, if we had one!” This argument went on for an hour before we started working on the project that was due the next day. In the end, Alexa went to the library to print the pictures, but they were in black and white. Diana walked to the dollar store to purchase the trifold, unfortunately it was the smallest size they had. Elizabeth had to look up most of the questions, but some of them she couldn’t find and had to make up. Needless to say, they barley passed and got no sleep.
           
 
 
 
            They sat in silence, just staring at each other, not knowing what to say. After what seemed like forever, Elizabeth looked forward, back at the rode. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She couldn’t stare at her two “best friends.”