I woke up outside of a Scoop Shop somewhere in Ohio. Kevin was asleep on the couch, NiNi was reading
with a flashlight on one of the beanbag chairs, and Erin was asleep in the front seat. The car was
parked--Erin had pulled over some time during the night.
I stretched out on the floor in the back of the van. I saw Kevin roll over, and I looked up at the ceiling. NiNi
turned a page in her magazine. Erin snored softly in the front seat.
I remember what it was like being alone. We hadn�t been traveling for long�only a few days, maybe more, but
it wasn�t much. I remembered how I would long to hear another person breathing when I woke up at night.
Nothing romantic, wishing for the desperate love too many young women seek, but just wanting to be assured
that I wasn�t alone while the world was dark and droning. A clue that the weight of the planet didn�t crush the
breath from our bodies while we slept. I remember my certainty in belief that it would be such a pleasant
reminder to have another person breathing beside me, still asleep, when I would awake.
And here I was, lying sleepy on the floor with three other bodies, warm, all within my ears� reach. Two of them
breathing deep in their nocturnal dreams. But I didn�t feel safe; I didn�t feel reassured. I wanted to make them
still. I wanted to hear silence, the hum of the world that we don�t notice until it�s taken away.
I rolled onto my stomach, missing my beautiful habit of loneliness.
