The car stinks. It smells like cigarettes, booze, cheap bathroom cologne, and vomit. Basically, it smells like Mom’s recent scumbag boyfriend, Anthony. The cigarettes and booze I can handle, it’s the vomit and cologne that makes the car ride unbearable.

Mom has rolled down the windows in an effort to air the car. It’s not working. I wrinkle my nose, squinting at the trees outside the car.

“Got the sniffles, sweet pea?” asks Mom cheerfully, tapping her fingers in time to the hick music coming through the speakers.

I roll my eyes. “No,” I reply shortly.

“Missin’ your friends?”

I turn to face her, giving her a death glare.

“Right. Forgot, hon. You’re still stuck in that whole ‘loner’ phase, right?”

My mother, the social butterfly, refuses to believe that her daughter can possibly be as anti-social as I am.

“Yeah, something like that.” A few minutes pass.

“How much longer?”

“Not much, sweet pea.”

I hate it when Mom calls me sweet pea. It makes it hard for me to be mad at her.