Those Hollow Lies

Anfield Ranch

07/30/09 – getting kind of late

It felt like we had been on the road for hours when in fact we had only left Chicago a little over an hour ago. Roz insisted that we avoided the busier routes and the main highways which would mean that we wouldn’t arrive at Anfield Ranch until just after dawn the following day. She mentioned something about hiding the car, but by that point I had been distracted by the way she was strapping her knives to her leg. I felt terrible, knowing we had to focus on the mission at hand and clearing Joe’s name, but I couldn’t control my feelings some of the time and I was lucky that Roz was typically clueless in that aspect and often missed the heated glances or the moment in which my eyes roved over her toned body. The bit I could remember from the plan for this trip was her repeatedly warning me that we wouldn’t be stopping more than once during this drive and so I ought to make sure that I was prepared for that in whatever way I needed to be. I could only assume that in the past Roz took her bike on road trips since every time I asked if I might need something she kept shooting me a baffled look and asking why.

I had never really enjoyed long car rides. I used to make the trip to Tallahassee each year with my dad to visit my mom’s side of the family and the whole journey was him arguing with the radio. With Roz it was totally the opposite. The radio wasn’t on and she had never been the biggest fan of small talk since a lot of pop culture references were a mystery to her. It might have been a comfortable silence between us, but I didn’t enjoy silence at all. I kept thinking about the girl sitting behind the wheel and when things began to change between us; our story. I usually wasn’t as sentimental as this, but with what Joe and my dad had been saying lately, I kept finding my mind drifting to it more and more.

“When you think you often sigh more than usual.” Her voice snapped me out of it and I blinked, looking over at her. “What is it?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking…about us.” I was reluctant to admit it, but this was as best a time as any and Roz would only ask me what was wrong if I shook it off now and then continued to ‘sigh more often’, as she put it.

“Please, Russ, not when I am trapped in a tin can with you.” Roz still wasn’t wholly comfortable with talk of feelings and romance.

“I know, I know. I’m not pushing anything, I just knew you’d ask me until I told you so I thought I’d skip that step. Don’t worry; I’m not about to go on one of my emotional endeavours that you hate so much.”

“I don’t hate them. I just don’t understand the reason for them.”

“Because it’s a pretty human thing to express feelings with words.”

“And what about when there are no words? Not everyone is the next Shakespeare.” Roz smirked, glancing across at me.

I had to admit, her answer caught me off guard. I was expecting some nonsense about exposing weaknesses and vulnerabilities from the trained assassin, but instead she gave an answer that stunned me into a moment of silence. I couldn’t decide whether she meant that was why she didn’t often speak about her true feelings or if she was just offering a general answer to my question.

“You overthink far too much, Russ. Just let it go.” She said with a loud sigh as she relaxed a little in her seat as the car continued down the dark, quiet road.

At some point during the journey I must’ve fallen asleep. I heard Roz saying my name and her fist connecting with my shoulder just hard enough to jolt me back to my senses. “You sleep like the dead.” She told me, glancing over me as though she expected to see something wrong.

“Yeah, car rides have put me to sleep since I was a kid.” I admitted, trying my best to stretch out in the confined space.

“Funny, you’ve never fallen asleep before.”