The Moment Before

The highway was dark. They’d passed the last set of streetlights a half hour ago when they flew by the exit to who knows where at a hundred twenty kilometers an hour. The last exit for a while, as far as she knew. They’d fought about it. Pull off, she’d said. We’re tired. We need sleep. He’d resisted. Was she volunteering to pay for a motel? We can sleep in the car, she’d said. No response. He drove on past, and now here they were: six hours of driving and six hours of darkness looming ahead like a deer in the shadows of the road side. She thought about what he’d said, feeling the distance between them. No time, he’d said. She agreed. Never enough time.

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