"Alice. Alice, wake up," he touched her shoulder, glancing across the car. It was raining, he needed both hands on the wheel. She woke up to the rippling blur of distant fields; water on the side window. Her breath spread and receded upon the glass. She had fallen asleep while they were still in the city and now, later, she saw dreamy green fields in the distance. Cold, gray spring rain. She sat up and ached in a dozen places. Her neck hurt and she winced, "Bleh."

"You should've let your seat back and just slept that way. Laying back." He had to watch the road, so Alice had the distinct perspective of observing him talk without being spoken to directly. His face was tense with worry and concentration. It was raining rather hard, and this stretch of road wasn't very well marked. He couldn't see her watching him, and so he continued, "I knew you were going to wake up sore, slumped over like that." She saw there was grey above his ear. He wrung his fingers on the wheel and kept checking the rearview mirror.

"I'm fine. Where are we?"

"I don't know. I need you to check the map. I think - I think we missed the exit a couple miles back, and I don't see any off-ramp; there's nowhere to turn around." He glanced at her and frowned at her groggy state. She wasn't with him in this moment, she was still waking up or something. He was the one driving and the one who knew how lost they could very well be.

"Are you okay?" He asked, and she heard in it the testy accusation. The implication that she wasn't okay, that somehow she was failing him. She was supposed to be the navigator and now they were lost. She heard his frustrated annoyance spilling onto her. He was embarassed and taking out on her.

"I'm fine. Let me find it."

"What? The map? It's right there, between your feet. You're stepping on it."

"I see it. I've got it." She rustled it open, a sprawling tangle on paper. It seemed entirely ridiculous and unwieldly. She turned it a couple times to get her bearings. She heard him sighing and the creak of his seatbelt. He was irritated, and now she was too.

"Okay, so where are we?" She asked, peering up the main lines, using her finger to trace over their route.

"I don't know. That's the thing, we missed the exit and I'm not sure how to get us back." The edge in his voice made her jaw tighten. She wanted out of the car, to walk and stretch and breathe the cool damp air.

"Well what do you want me to do? I was asleep. You missed the turn." The fight was inevitable and monstrous, clawed and already in the air, mid-pounce.

He rolled his shoulders and she could feel him winding up something sharp to say, something that would hurt. Guilt and doubt began to seep in around the edges; she was the navigator, after all. She did fall asleep, after all. And if she was tired, it kind of was her fault. They had sex last night. In a motel. It was awkward and protracted and he seemed such a little boy then, eager to please and getting nowhere. Perhaps she should've just faked something so they could've gotten to sleep. She couldn't remember the last time she really enjoyed their lovemaking. It had become a confessional and a series of reflexes; habit. And she could feel this now carving the air between them with claws out and fangs showing. She looked at him bristling within himself and wondered if he could sense it too, the inevitable stupidity. She wondered when she stopped loving him, and when she would admit it to him without meaning to, letting it slip by accident.

He glanced over to her again, about to speak. This is what they were going to fight about this time: being lost in the rain. And in the space between the flip and flap of the windshield wipers she saw two things with clarity: she saw his mouth forming the words, and through the crystal pane of the glass already blotting over with fresh drops, she saw the massive rolling wave of metal leaping across the divider. The 16-wheeler sailed through the air with an achingly beautiful grace, and the driver inside stared in stupid, unfocused shock. Completely out of control. There was no time for anything more; the surging tide of it blocked out the gray sky, sweeping everything away.