(song: "White Blood" - Oh Wonder)

We stop at a small-town gas station and lay out the road map against the hood of my car and mark out the areas according to what I remembered from the news broadcast. I figure back roads are a safer bet than major ones, and aiming for yellow and green zones along the way I hope will lessen the chances of meteor encounters.

      "We need to avoid major cities. If this situation gets worse and people panic it's going to be mayhem," I explain.

      Serena shakes her head in disbelief. "Why isn't the news telling people about this?"

      "This event is covering the entire northern hemisphere. That's too many millions of people to protect or contain. It's actually pretty smart of them to make the situation sound less dangerous, get people safe in shelters and isolate information."

      "Where do you think is going to be safe?"

      "Probably, Peru?" I suggest based on the radio show. "But going as far south as we can is probably our best bet."

      Serena nods, but I can tell that she's every bit as terrified as I am. We both internalize our fear and try to not let it surface. Now is not a good time to be freaking out. We have to discover our inner sociopath and aim for Texas without feeling any emotion about what could be happening back home.

      She goes into the gas stop and after a few minutes returns with a plastic bag filled with snacks and drinks. I didn't even think about bringing money, I'm glad that she did.

      We get into the car and make our way back onto the back roads. The meteor shower is still visible, but near the border of Washington state they look like they're burning up in the atmosphere. Most people probably would assume the worst of things was over. If my dad is right, they're just beginning.

      Serena plays with the radio dial to distract us from the possibility of death-from-above.

      A rap song plays stressing the importance of money, cars and using women. Because those three things are apparently really valuable during the apocalypse. I raise up one of my eyebrows and glance at Serena to see if she's thinking the same thing that I am. She smiles and that makes me smile and then we both laugh.

      "Okay, if you can do a better job of finding up-lifting music then you take over the radio," she says after her laugh dies down.

      "If you reach into my backpack and connect my ipod we can listen to the entire Back to the Future soundtrack," I say sweetly.

      She sighs in defeat and digs into my bag to search for it. "I am really convinced that you are actually the soul of a teenager from the 80's who's been reincarnated."

      "I won't argue with that." I motion for her to hurry it up. "Come on DJ! My ears want to hear the power of love playing."

      Serena plugs in my ipod and after a few seconds the track starts playing. Upbeat electric keyboard sounds reverb inside my dinky little car. A few barely visible streams of meteors burn across the landscape in the distance, but where we are life looks peaceful. Rivers still run, birds still chirp, and a few cars calmly pass us in the opposite lane.

      We are cursed with information of the truth, but choose for this moment to just indulge in a song from a time where the only concerns were hairspray and sneakers.

      Serena car-dances, I mean that's the only thing I can really call it. She has no rhythm at all. She jerks and shakes her head around while wiggling her fingers on an imaginary air guitar. She's a total dork.

      We sing the lyrics together, loudly and badly. Okay, so were both total dorks.

      By nightfall we reach Idaho. We stop alongside a bridge over a large river system between the mountains. Through them we can see bright white balls falling to the earth in a shower of light. We get out of the car and stand at the edge of the bridge to watch the spectacle. They definitely had to be landing north of us, where we'd been hours ago. It was terrifying and beautiful. Each light gleams and reflects off the glassy river waters before disappearing in the distance.

      "It's almost lovely, isn't it?" Serena dares to admit.

      "Yep."

      "If this is the beginning of the end, I want to tell you why I'm not capable of falling in love."

      I watch her profile. She doesn't look back at me, maybe it'd make it too hard for her to speak if she did.

      "My dad got my mom pregnant and thought marrying her was the right thing to do. They were in love on paper, but I never saw them be loving towards each other growing up. My mother—God she's such a cliche—but she had an affair with my dad's work partner and they're together now. My dad got blamed for some shady things that were going on at the business and he lost everything, all he had left was me. I decided I'd go live with my dad, even if it meant leaving everyone I knew."

      She inhales and works up the courage to say more. "So, I went to go tell Bryan—my ex-boyfriend—that I'd be moving. I caught him cheating on me with some random freshmen he met at a party. After that a switch just turned off inside me, I didn't even care anymore. I wasn't mad, or sad, I just realized that humans are animals and we all just act on impulse."

      "That's not true," I say defensively.

      She smiles. "Says the guy who impulsively grabbed the wrong girls hand."

      I cover my face with my hands in misery. "Yeah . . . I'm never going to be able to live that down, am I?"

      "Nope." she says and pats my shoulder.

      The evening sky gets darker by the minute. I don't know what the next day holds, but the urgency in my dad's voice seemed to imply that if I wasn't in Utah by tonight that I wouldn't make it to Texas in time.

      "We should get back in the car, we still have a long way to go if we're going to make it to Salt Lake by 1 in the morning," I say to her.

      "Logan, you'll need to rest, you've been driving for hours. I wish I could help you, but I never learned how to drive."

      "After we survive all of this, I'll teach you how to drive." I look at her and even though we stand close together, there's nothing that feels strange about it.

      Her chin lifts and her eyes are filled with the reflection of the meteors and the stars.

      "Is that a promise?"

      "Yes, Serena. It's a promise."

      My arm lightly touches the side of her arm, and even though we know that we have to go, we linger like that a few moments more. Her proximity to me makes the hairs on my arm stand on end. It's not an unpleasant feeling. I shouldn't feel this way, Serena is my friend and Kaylee's best friend. Serena is my best-friend's girlfriend. Morally, emotionally and physically feeling anything towards Serena is off-limits.

      Even if Kaylee hates me now, or forever, Serena is forever off-limits.

      The corner of her pinky knuckle touches mine. Instinctively, I hook my pink finger against hers. She doesn't flinch or recoil, the touch is welcomed. It's a small, innocent gesture, but it feels like the most forbidden thing in the world.

      We get back in the car once more and replay the soundtrack again. We'll probably end up listening to the same songs over and over again for the next 15 hours. This time, we aren't singing loud or imitating air guitar, we just watch the meteors rain down through the windshield and hope that tomorrow isn't worse than today.

      After four hours of the songs on repeat Serena falls fast asleep. To date, it's the longest time I've spent alone with a girl. Her head rests against the window and every time I drive over a dip or bump in the road the side of her head hits the glass and she stirs sleepily.

      I reach my arm out and gently takes hold of Serena to ease her head to rest on my shoulder. She tiredly accepts it and sleeps comfortably. The smell of birthday cake shampoo fills my nose and it reminds me of happier times when I was a kid and my grandmother baked me confetti cakes for my birthday.

      This is not wrong. We're friends, there's nothing wrong with helping a friend out with sleeping. I want her to be well-rested in-case we run into danger, right? This is not wrong, this is totally a justifiable gesture.

      My eyes start to feel heavy.

      If I nap for just 40 minutes I'll have enough energy to keep going. My dad said to not stop at all costs, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't counting sleep into the equation.

      I pull off the side of the road onto a dirt road with wood and barbed wire fences for cattle on both sides. I'm sure we'll be okay here. I rest my head against the top of Serena's, it's kind of nice. I close my eyes and allow myself to drift to sleep.

      A loud BOOM resonates throughout the land and the car rocks side to side.

      We bolt up in a panic hearing the sounds of mooing, running cows desperately trying to leap over the fencing and get past us. It's broad daylight, where did the night go? How long have I been asleep?

      Another loud BOOM.

      Serena grips my arm hard and gives me her most determined expression. "Logan, DRIVE!"