We didn’t get out of there before noon. The diner gave us free sandwiches, but wanting to get clear, we took them with us.

 

“I wonder who they were.”

 

“I’m still thinking some kind of safehouse. I don’t know. For all I know…or care…they were mob.”

 

She laughed. “Maybe.”

 

“Mob, CIA, foreign spies, I don’t care, they got me shot at, so lunch is only a small repayment.” Not that I was as annoyed as that. I still took the first driving shift, figuring I was likely to have less of the shakes than she was.

 

The road was clear, though, the city in our rear view mirror. I hoped that was the worst thing that would happen.

 

“It’s better food, though.”

 

“I still think whoever they escorted out that night was the chef being fired.”

 

Kanesha laughed, and made a gun shape with her hand.

 

“Hey, don’t joke about terminating people.” It was tasteless. It was still funny, much like a game of Cards Against Humanity, which Clara had managed to sneak past her parents and introduce us to.

 

“I don’t think it was, or I wouldn’t joke.”

 

I just kept us going north. At least we didn’t have a schedule, or a plan. Just…the road and each other.

 

And that tension knot in my stomach had finally relaxed some. A mundane issue, or what seemed to be, had sort of reminded me not everything was my problem.

 

Then I thought of the girl in the subway.

 

That wasn’t my problem either. My real issue was that I wanted everything to be my problem.

 

I wanted the power to fix them all, but I didn’t have it. And I… “You know. I want to fix everything.”

 

“Yup.”

 

“And I both want and don’t want more power. How mixed up is that?”

 

“Very, but it’s part of why I love you. You want the responsibility but not the power. Wrong way around.”

 

I laughed. I wondered how right she was. Thinking about it, I fell silent as the miles rolled past under our wheels.

 

Kanesha had her phone out and was looking for restaurants.

 

But I no longer felt any kind of normal.