I was late. I just knew I was.

I'd been driving for an hour before I finally arrived at the diner: our meeting place. I pulled my transport truck into a full stop, meddled with the finicky gearshift and turned the monstrosity off before opening the door and hopping off of the side. She was a good girl, my truck. Just temperamental.

I hope I hadn't been keeping him waiting for too long. He had gone out of the way to be allowed to ride with me. Hell, Alex and I had only met on the Internet; I would have been surprised if the issue that I might have been some sort of creep or killer hadn't come up. But I knew I wasn't either of those, and he knew that as well. I was just a thirty-year-old man who was looking to take a seventeen-year-old friend cross-country to visit his sick aunt, and his parents finally gave the okay due to their money issues. The least I could have done was be on time.

I checked my watch. Yeah, definitely late. Half an hour late. Damn.

I opened the door to the small diner, temporarily paralysed by the sweet smell of cake. It had always been my weakness, or so I'd sheepishly tell my friends. But there were more pressing matters at hand. Where was Alex?

But I didn't have to look long. The only teenager that had some sort of luggage would be the one I was looking for, and he was right in front of me. Faded blue jeans, a black, long-sleeved shirt, a black iPod and a weary smile, followed by his large hands waving me over.

"Sorry I'm late," I told him as I took a seat in the stool next to his. He had sure packed light. There was only a small duffle bag at his side.

"No, it's okay," Alex replied, smiling slightly and putting down his cup of coffee. I never took to drinking coffee at that age. I thought it tasted terrible. Now I can't work without at least two a day, or at least some sort of energy pill. "I've only been here a few minutes, really. How was your drive?"

"All right, I guess. A bit of traffic, but everyone gets out of the way when they see Big Bella coming," I told him.

"You named your truck 'Big Bella?'"

"Well Linda is so cliché."

"Right."

The man at the counter asked if I wanted anything. I told him a bottle of water was fine, which he reached under the counter for and left in front of me before wandering off to talk with other customers around the counter. "So this is really okay with your folks?" I asked Alex, who was absent-mindedly pulling at his blonde bangs to see how far it fell down his face. "They don't think I'm gonna leave you lyin' in a ditch somewhere, do they?"

"Of course not, Mister Davis."

I winced. "'Mister Davis' is my father. Please, just Tom."

"Sorry. I told them that you were respectable and that I put my complete trust in you...and that if they didn't hear from me in twenty days that I'd be more likely to be found in a dumpster than a ditch."

I gave him a crooked smile, but I didn't appreciate his sense of morbid humour. "So can we go?" he asked, reaching down for his bag. I stopped him and picked it up myself. Alex looked up at me with his green eyes and called for the tender to give him a check, which he pulled out a twenty and some toonies for. "I'm really excited about this," he said. "I've never left the province before, at least that I can remember."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I was too little back when we visited her before."

"Do you even remember her?" I asked. It seemed odd that he was so psyched to see an aunt he didn't even remember.

He waved it off. "Not from then, but she's been to reunions and stuff. I'm supposed to be some sort of representative from this part of the family, since no one else is able to come."

"Ah, all right then. That explains everything."

"Is that your truck? That's Big Bella?"

We had rounded the corner, and he galloped up to my truck, looking over the glossy surface of the hood. He reached forward, as if to run his hand over it, but pulled back before looking over at me. I smiled at him as I approached, patting my truck's grill. "Yeah, this is her. She's been with me a good five years now. She's a good girl."

"Awesome."

I had left my door unlocked, and Alex eagerly waited for me to climb in, toss his duffle bag in the small room with a small living area (my home during the longer trips) and unlock his door. He looked over both of his shoulders before climbing up. I gave him a hand to make that last jump into his seat. He cringed as he sat in it. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing. I just didn't think it'd be so comfy."

"What'd you expect? Rocks in the padding?"

"You'd be surprised what I'd come up with."

"Oh yeah? Try me."

"Maybe later," he replied, changing the subject and looking through the passenger-side window before buckling up. "Shouldn't we head out before it gets dark?"

"Right, right. Here we go kiddo."

"'Kiddo' is my non-existent little brother. Just Alex is fine."

I turned the key in the ignition, listening to the engine roar to life. Alex shifted a little in his seat as the cabin started vibrating. I pulled on the gearshift and slowly pushed on the gas pedal. Bella's brakes screeched as we pulled out of the diner's parking lot and on to the highway. Manitoba, here we come.

---

We had a dinner break in Barrie, stopping at a meagre walk-in restaurant along the highway. It was a casual place; something you'd see in any town. Then again, if I put it that way, it seemed out of place in a city.

But I don't think that really matters. It was still a nice place, and they had some angel cake I'd like to sample for dessert. I looked over the walls, covered in murals of half-recognizable celebrities and places in a style that only the original artist could truly understand. Alex and I had taken a seat in a booth closer to the back, away from the windows. He looked over the menu while twirling the straw around in his drink. I suppressed a chuckle. He really wasn't the kind of kid that could just stay still.

"Glad school's over?" I asked him.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Did you pass everything?"

"I dunno," he replied. His eyes never left the menu. "We don't get our marks back until August."

I sighed. "So how do you think you did?"

"Um...all right, I guess. Math went okay, but English was a total flop. I really don't like Shakespeare."

He paused when a waitress arrived to take our orders. "A cheeseburger and fries would be great, please," Alex asked. I watched her scribble his order down on her pad while chewing on some gum, before asking her for a BLT.

"And to drink?"

"Coke," Alex replied.

"Same," I added.

She sauntered off, shaking her hips in a manner that asked for attention to be drawn to them. Alex went into a small coughing fit, which quickly escalated into a large coughing fit. I reached over to slap him on the back, but he waved my hand away, covering his mouth with the other. Each cough in turn began to sound more wet and phlegm-filled than the last. I winced and looked around the diner to see how much attention this was bringing, but only the people in tables and booths relatively close to us were looking, and they soon turned away to try and talk over his fit.

Finally, Alex spit something into his hand. His eyes widened, and he quickly looked over at me before reaching for his napkin and wiping it away. "I'll be right back," he croaked, sliding out of his booth bench and heading for the bathroom. I heard more coughing through the door. I hoped he wasn't about to be sick. I'd probably be better off turning around and taking him back home.

He had left his napkin on the table. Someone opened the door to the diner, letting a gust of wind blow in. The napkin got caught in it and spun a little on the table. A red splatter was exposed in the centre of it.

Was that...blood?

Alex finally stepped out of the bathroom about ten minutes later, when the waitress was just setting our food down on the table. I thanked her, and waited for Alex to settle back into the booth. "Are you okay?" I asked.

He winced as he sat back. "Yeah, sorry. Don't worry about it."

"You sounded like you were gonna cough up a lung."

"I guess I'm just coming down with something. Either way, I'm starving."

He put the top of the bun on his cheeseburger, lifted it to his mouth and took a bite, chewing on it slowly and closing his eyes. I took a half of my BLT and did the same, but I kept my eye on him. Something wasn't right. Something wasn't right at all.

Alex took the liberty of continuing the conversation, turning the subject over to me while we both ate our suppers. Where were all of the places I was headed? What was I transporting? How was Texas (it was the last destination I had to transport to for my last job)? He showed great interest in the fact that I was going to be going all the way to Saskatchewan, that I was transporting some farming equipment, and that Texas was really hot this time of year. What he didn't seem satisfied with was that it would probably take three days before we were able to cross the border. But my truck was slow. It hated going past seventy kilometres an hour. If we kept ourselves occupied, all that time on the road would just fly by. I had learned that after a year or two on the road.

Eventually we both admitted we were full, though I gave Alex a once-over when I noticed that he had barely touched his food. There had to have been only a couple of bites out of his cheeseburger, and maybe a handful of fries had been eaten. "You sure you're okay?" I asked. He smiled, exposing his slightly crooked teeth and told me that he was while the waitress took the plates away and gave us the bill. I reached into my pocket for my wallet.

"No, no, I'll get it," he said, grabbing his own. "You just handle the tip. It's the least I can do if you're gonna drive me all the way to Manitoba."

"Well all right then, but there's no need to blow all of your money on me."

"Don't worry about it; I've got plenty."

Alex pulled out a twenty and a ten and placed them on the black tray with the bills, while I left a few toonies on the table. He had told me in one of our earlier conversations that he worked at a Tim Horton's and that he'd been saving up for this trip. I didn't know how much money that entailed, but if he felt like he had enough to burn on both our suppers, he probably had enough to last the trip. He seemed like a responsible enough kid.

The waitress returned with the change, we gave our "thank you's," and we left the diner together. He jogged to his side of the truck again. I noticed a slight limp. Then again, it wasn't that bad. I was an active kid at his age, and I had my fair share of injuries. Hockey was really bad for that, though he had told me he wasn't a sports fan...

I tossed him the keys and told him to get the doors unlocked, climbing into my side of the truck when he finally climbed in and unlocked my door, handing the keys back to me. "Do you wanna lie down in the back? It doesn't smell too bad," I said.

"Nah, it's—"

He recoiled in his seat. "Actually, that might not be a bad idea. I'll probably feel better after a little rest. You sure you'll be okay by yourself?"

"Alex, I've been driving by myself for five years. I think I know how to pass the time, as long as you don't mind me having the radio on."

"That's cool. Knock yourself out."

He twirled around his seat and went into the small cabin in the back, where I kept a mini-television, my bed, and a small pantry full of snacks in case one of us got a craving for munchies. I turned the key in the ignition when I heard him recline on the lumpy mattress. I hoped it wouldn't jiggle too much while I was driving. I checked the rear-view mirrors. A cop that had just driven past us disappeared into the distance. There was a large enough space to turn this baby on to the road. I took it in stride. We had been making a good pace, even despite the limitations of Big Bella and our need to stop for something to eat. We'd have to stop again in a few hours to sleep as well. Well, Alex would. I was used to pulling an all-nighter when it was needed. It all really depended on how he was.

It felt weird having a passenger whose condition governed whether or not I could stop or go. Was this what it was like to have a kid of my own? I've been a lifelong bachelor so far; too busy driving cross-country to really settle down, not that it really bothered me that much. More often than not I saw it as a ticket to freedom, and I've never seen myself as a father of any type, but even that can get boring over time. Maybe calling my boss and asking for a holiday wouldn't be so bad.

But for now all I had time for was these jobs. Get Alex to Manitoba in three days, and finish my own work.

Another thought occurred to me. Had Alex ever mentioned how he was going to get home? I couldn't really remember that popping up. We had left Barrie by now, and the highway was straight enough that I was able to chance looking behind me. Alex had slipped under my blanket. His eyes were closed. It would be better not to disturb him now. I could ask later. I turned the radio on to a rock station and turned the volume down low enough that I could hear it over the roar of the engine, but it hopefully wouldn't disturb Alex.