Tina could not help but let out a scream as he suddenly appeared right out of her window. All she could think of doing was to try and lock her door and she managed to lock the door before he even tried to touch the handle. The surprising thing was that he was not trying to open the door he simply tapped on the window wanting her to lower it so that he could talk to her.
Tina looked at him with some amazement wondering what he wanted. He motioned for her to roll down her window. At first, Tina just sat there not moving like a deer caught in the headlights. She was just stunned and was watching him. He motioned again for her to roll down the window so that he could talk to her.
Tina quickly thought that if she did roll it down it was not going to be far enough for him to put his arm into it and try and unlock the car. She knew as long as she did that, she should be safe enough to roll it down so they could talk. Tina lowered the window a little over 3 inches. It was to the point that he could have squeezed his hand, and arm in the window, but it would not have been quick. She would have had more than enough time to roll it back up, trapping whatever he had put in the car before he could pull it back out.
He smiled at her in appreciation of her lowering the window and said, "I just love your car. I don't see very many beauties like this around here. How does it handle?"
Tina was so relieved he was just a car nut. He was just admiring the car. She had forgotten that when she drives the car people stop her and talk to her about it at times. They are usually the ones that wish that they had the money to get one, but they know that it is just out of their reach. The best that they would ever get would be to get a test drive and that is if they were even allowed to do that.
Tina felt a little bad because she knew that if her dad had not gotten it for her that she would not have been able to get a car this nice, especially as her first one.
Tina gave him a warm smile and said, "It's a great car, but it has a little too much power for me at times."
He looked closer at her and could see that she was very young and could easily see that a car like this would have a lot more power than a little thing like her was used to dealing with. He gave her an unarming smile and asked, "How does it handle?"
Tina looked up and said, "It handles great, but I am probably not the best one to ask about it. I have not driven that many cars."
He nodded realizing that this was probably the first car or one of the first cars that she had driven and would have limited knowledge of what other cars drive like. "How is it on gas?" He asked.
Tina had to think about that one and do a little math in her head. She was not really used to thinking about it. When it went empty, she just put more gas in it. After a bit, she said, "It usually gets somewhere in the mid-twenties. I'm sorry. I am not really sure what it gets all the time."
He nodded again and figured that she probably wouldn't know this one either but as long as she was there, he asked, "Would you happen to know how much it costs?"
Tina blushed a little at this one. She didn't know exactly what her dad paid for it, but she had looked it up online after he had given it to her. She saw that it was over 100,000, and that was part of the reason that she was so scared to drive the thing. In a weak voice, she stumbled out that it was over a hundred thousand in a voice so quiet and timid that he barely heard it.
He had figured that it was going to be something like that just from looking at it. He knew that the only reason that she had the thing was it was a gift from her parents. He was jealous that he had never had anyone ever give him any kind of car. He had always had to go out and earn everything he had, and to have people give their kids cars that were two or three times the money he made in a year was outrageous to him. He knew that even if he saved his whole life that he would never even be able to afford a car like that.
He reluctantly smiled at her and in a sour tone said, "Thanks."
In a small way, he was happy for her to have such a nice car, but he would have been happier seeing it in the hands of someone that would have enjoyed it and appreciated it a lot more like himself.
Tina could see that he did love the car and that made her happy, and proud, but at the same time, she was sad because it made her think of her dad. She smiled at him and said, "Have a good day." As she watched him walk away.
She put the window back up so that she could concentrate on doing her texts.
Tina was glad that the doors were locked now she would not worry about what was going on around her anymore. She thought that she should have done that in the first place, and she thought that from now on she was going to have to start doing that first thing when she gets into her car since she was traveling alone.
As she sat there, she thought about the way that some of her friends had offered to skip a year of college so that they could party. She knew that she didn't want them to delay their lives just to be with her, but she thought that it would be nice to have one of them along with her to travel with. So, it would keep her from always jumping out of her skin every time she heard a noise or saw something out of the corner of her eye.
She realized that a lot of the paranoia that she was experiencing was due to the fact that she was alone. The more that she thought about the friends that wanted to join her the more she was considering having one of them come along. Tina knew that all she would have to do was ask one of them that was already offering, and they would come along with her. Tina knew that it was just the loneliness and a little homesickness that she was feeling and that she just needed to stop thinking about it and it would get better. After all, this was just her second day of being away from home.
Tina went through the list of the people that had contacted her, trying to find out what was going on with her. For more than half of them, she knew that she would just send a mass message. It would tell them all that she was ok, and there was nothing to worry about. She was just trying to find her place and way through life. So, they just left her closest friends but she was not going to simply text her best friends, she figured that she would give them a call. And her mom. She guessed that she was her mom now even if she was a stepmom, she would have to consider her a mom.
That thought just felt so wrong in her mind, but as she thought back on the way that she was treated, and the way that she had heard about other girls that had stepmoms. They were kind of treated in the same way. The text that she had prepared and sent earlier was going to be enough for her for today. She knew if she was not feeling so betrayed and hurt that she would have said more to her.
Once she decided on the ones that she was only going to text it didn't really take all that long. Because she felt there was no reason to go in-depth with them. She was saving all that for the ones that she was going to have to talk to in person. She was hoping that a lot of them were going to be away, or too busy for them to want to talk to her. She knew that was just going to be wishful thinking, but there was always a chance. Tina gave a little smile at that thought for a moment. That quickly faded when she got the feeling of betraying her dad and Ken by being the slightest bit happy.
Tina knew that they would not want her to be sad, but at the same time, she really didn't think that she should be smiling.
The text didn't take long, and soon she was ready to head out on the road. But before she pulled out, she wound up asking herself the same questions that she had since she left which way, and where should she go? She had never decided where to go in her life. She always just when along with wherever the one that she was with wanted to go.
All the plans that she had had were gone now that Ken was gone. She knew that the only reason that she had come in this direction was the fact that it was the way that the car was facing at the beginning and the fact that someone had come up from behind her. She was thinking that she was going to have to come up with some sort of a destination. At least she could head off in the direction of it.
Tina knew that she was going to have to decide where she was going before she talked to the others. Because they all had been asking her where she was going already. She knew that they were not going to accept that she was just wandering around aimlessly. Even if that is what she really was doing, and that is all that she really wanted to do.
Tina knew that she could go anywhere that the roads led, and that included other countries, but since she did not bring her passport with her. She knew that she would be staying in the states because there was no way that she was planning on going back to the house just for that.
Tina thought that there were some things that she liked when she was traveling with her parents. There were no real destinations that came to her mind that she wanted to return to, but she had always liked the water, and there were mountains that she had been through that were not bad. There were always places like the Grand Canyon that she could go to. She knew that a lot of them were kind of touristy and she was alone but there was nothing stopping her from going.
She wanted to avoid really pricy things like Disney land and things like that. She had been to them before, and they were fun, but that was mostly because her dad had made sure that they were. Now they would just be boring because of all the waiting in lines to do things alone. She knew that was not the way that she wanted to spend her time.
Tina thought that this was going to be the perfect time to be traveling anyway it was late spring and the weather was good and the temperature was not too hot yet so she could go spend some time at the beaches before it did get too hot.
Now all she had to do was decide what beaches she wanted to go to. There are a lot of coastal beaches as well as all the beaches on the big lakes. It was not going to be an easy decision for her to make. That just made her wish that there was someone else there to help with that decision as well. She knew that she had more or less chosen to go to the water somewhere. It seemed like the most popular places were Florida and California. Not that she wanted to go to where all the people were, but they would have the best things to see. As she was thinking of the cost of things, she had heard that California would probably cost her more in the long run than Florida. Since she really didn't care which one that she went to. It seemed like Florida was going to be the better option.
As she thought about it, she remembered that she had heard there were miles of bridges that were over the water. That sounded interesting and something that she would like to see. It was going to take her to the very tip of the state, but she knew the only thing that it was going to cost her was the time, and money for gas to get there. She now decided that is where she was going to go. She knew that she was in no hurry to get there so it was not like she needed to take the fastest or straightest route. Not to mention that there would be plenty of time for side trips of anything that she thought might be interesting to see along the way as well.
Now that she had roughly decided where to go she needed to decide which route she was going to take. It was not like she wanted to just stay on the interstate the whole time. After all, all she would see would be the interstate. She knew that from traveling with her family. Most of the time they would fly everywhere but once in a while they took longer trips and drove. The interstate helped them get there faster but every state looked the same, you couldn't really tell the difference from one to the other unless the state was not maintaining the road as well as the other had been. Then you would easily tell that you were in a different state, but not that you would really see all that many different things.
She knew that she didn't want to go on all back roads either you never would know if you would run into road construction and some of the small roads could get a little sketchy and she didn't want to wind up in a place that was too far off the beaten path were they like to charge tourists a fortune because they became lost when they ventured there.
Tina knew that anyone that looked at her car would think that she was loaded with a ton of money to burn so they would charge her that way.
Tina looked up the best ways to get to Florida from where she was and it was lucky that she had kind of started off in the right direction so that she didn't have to go back in the direction of home to go there.
Now she felt all set at least to start up with. The car was full of gas, she was well-rested and ready to go. She knew that she was going to have to call her friends, but she could do it with the hands-free feature in the car. At least this part was something she was okay with being alone for. She hated talking out loud on the phone most of the time when others were in the car. She was always afraid that the other person would say something that they didn't want others to hear. Especially if they couldn't tell that they were on the speaker or that there was someone else in the car with her.
Tina saw a little movement in her rearview mirror, and it caught her attention enough for her to take a better look. Tina let out a gasp as she saw what it was.