***

About an hour later, we found ourselves twisting between the New York and New Jersey border. We were lost, and had been for what seemed like days. I was holding the road map, but it was really hard to read. You know maps. You literally could use them as king size sheets on an overweight blue-whale. Anyway, we were lost and totally freaking out.

“Okay, we’re over two hundred miles from home, and we’re going to rot here!” I cried.
“We’re not going to rot, alright? We're not even two hundred miles away, either. It's only Jersey and York, Newark and Long Island. We’re going to find our way out of this.”
I looked at him sincerly. “Okay, okay...” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I felt the car turning into a parking lot, and I opened them. “Where’s this?”
“It’s an information center. I saw it on one of those big green highway signs. Come on.”

We got out of the car and walked inside the building. It was very small, and painted a beige color. The man at the orange desk inside was short, fat, and bald, but he had a most cheerful voice, and as he spoke, his glasses slid down his nose.

He pushed them back up. “Greetings!” He said, his voice small and happy. “What can I do for yas?”
Seth and I walked up to the counter. I looked up at him as he spoke, “Uh, yeah, we’re kinda lost.”
I scoffed, “Kinda,” and looked down at the ground.
The old man laughed and Seth looked down at me. He was about three or four inches taller, “Don’t mind her,” he said as I sighed, “she’s cranky. She just woke up from her nap.” He sounded a little exasperated with me.
The old man just laughed, “I see. She you’re sister?”
Sarcasticly I laughed, “Ha! Not in a million years. I wouldn’t want freak eyebrows like his.”
The man laughed and Seth rolled his eyes. “I see, well where are you trying to get to?”
“Long Island,” he said, “but we’ve been going in circles for about an hour.”
“Well no wonder!” the man said, “Let old Redd help you out here. You’ve simply been taking the same exit over and over again, hehehe,” he chuckled.
“Seth, you are such an idiot!” I groaned, and I stood straight up and went to sit on a leather sofa next to a window.
He looked over at me and frowned, then back at Charlie. “Thanks. Do you have any updated maps we could use?”
“Certainly, right over there in that rack. Help yourself, they’re free of charge.”
“Okay, thanks. How much do we owe you?”
Redd grinned, “It’s on the house, young man. You need to get her someplace important, I can tell.”
Seth smiled back at him, “Thanks, see ya,” he said, and he turned towards me as the man went into a back room. As he walked past me, he grabbed me by the hand and picked me up from the chair, “Come on, Jos.”
I stood up and followed him out the door. “Geeze, you’re impossible.”

What was yet to come was something startling, that would prove to me that not only was Seth impossible, but faithful, and persistant.

***

Seth fell asleep in the shot gun and left me here to drive and pick up fast food along the way. As he slept, I forgave him for getting lost. He just looked like such an innocent little boy, with his eyes closed and his shy face inactive...dormant.

He breathed slowly as the skies around us grew dimmer every minute. I soon noticed a great sunset and decided to pull over on the shoulder of the road and watch it set. I slowed the car down and stopped it on the loose gravel. When I turned the key and pulled it out, Seth stretched and woke up. I was just stepping out when he asked, “What are you doing?”
“Sun’s setting. I figured I’d rest awhile and watch it. I was just going to sit on the hood of the car.”
“Oh,” he said with effort in his voice as he yawned. He closed his mouth again, then opened it to say, “Care if I join you?”
He seemed a little reluctant, as if he thought I was still mad at him. I just smiled, “Sure. Come on.”

We sat on the hood of his small Toyota and just gazed into the dying beauty of an array of reds and oranges and a light blue turning into midnight black. The sun sank into a desolate auburn, and seemed to scorch away the pain of the day, bringing the glory of the night to rest on our shoulders.
“It’s fasinating...”
“Yeah,” he answered me. He put his hand behind me and leaned on it. I crossed my legs and leaned back on the palms of my hands.
“I wonder if the people in China are wishing night was coming instead of day. They wouldn’t have to be waking up right now if it was.”
“True...” There was a long silence. The only sound was a cricket in the distance, and the voices of the wind cooling and blowing away all the debts that had been laid on North American’s everywhere that day. “Josie?” Seth asked me. He looked up at me.
“Hm?”
“Um...” He said, just staring into my eyes. The sun gave it’s last ray to our faces, and it bounced off him, making a perfect shadow. My heart skipped a beat at his sudden enhancement of complete and utter attractiveness. I saw something happen to his eyes as he looked right into me. He squinted, and started to open his mouth, but nothing came out. He was stiffened, and for one moment, one solitary moment, I knew I wanted to kiss him. I got the feeling he wanted to kiss me too, but something was there that was holding us back.

It was the fact that we loved each other like a brother and a sister. Brothers and sisters don’t kiss each other like that.

But now, perhaps, the sun gave his ray to open up a new light. There was something there. It just could be believed.

He limpened his expression and laughed while looking down at his feet. “Nothing...nothing, it was stupid.”
I laughed back, agreeingly. “Hey, Seth...did you...uh...you know, like...um...wanna...”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Weird, right?”
“Yep.”
He grinned, and a small look of dissapointment fell over his face as he looked once again at the last shadow on the ground as it faded with the sun.
My smiled lessened too. I hesitantly leaned over, and pecked the top of his head with a kiss. Then I put my arm around him and hugged him.

“You’re the best friend I ever had, Seth Adams.”
He looked at me and smiled, then blushed and looked back at the floor.
“Come on,” I said, hopping off the front of the car. “Let’s get out of here. Mosquitos have some disturbed army swarming all over my main arteries.” I began to open the door to the drivers side. Seth looked behind him and smiled at me. We just stood there grinning at each other, until we finally broke out laughing. He hopped off the hood and got in as I was starting up the engeine. He popped Matchbox 20 in the CD player as we headed off into the boundaries of New York. We were almost there. Just six more hours and my father, Nick Jones. I couldn’t wait for his loving, fatherly embrace to hold me and tell me how much he loved and missed me.

I just couldn’t wait.