They stand alongside the fence overlooking the cow pasture. The sun is beaming, the air is pleasant and dry. The wind rustles through the tall dry grass and the hoof-stomps of cows is more present than their moos. The young man taps the fence near where he began sitting, gesturing for the woman to sit down for a moment. “Rest up, we’ll be off again soon,” he says. The leaves of the shadow of a nearby oak dance in front of the two. The woman’s chapped palms scrape against the fence slat as she puts her weight down. “Long road ahead. Still ‘bout two-hundred miles to Denver.” The grass by the fence is chewed short by the herd on the inside and mowed flat by a machine on the outside, which left tall tufts underneath the fence that tickle at the backs of their legs. Her Levis stick to the splintering, rough-hewn fence. The man adjusts his Bears cap, sweat-ringed and felted by countless days of use. The plastic inner brim peeks through the torn and soft edges of the navy cotton covering. He reaches into his pocket to retrieve his lighter, a silver Zippo with diamond texture on the side. He flips open his pack of American Spirits and grabs a cigarette by the filter. There are 5 left, one is flipped so the tobacco shows.

     Tara was sitting on a bench in Lakefront Park just a week ago. Sitting by him, waiting for him to say anything to persuade her not to leave him. The lakefront winds blasted the two as he struggled to light his cigarette. It took a while, and he relished in it. Maybe she was jealous of the cigarette, and how it could seem to take his undivided attention for just a moment.

     “I need to get out of here.” He said between desperate drags. “I can’t stand this shitty city.” Mike was never a city boy. He grew up in rural Indiana, but he moved to the city to go to college. “I’m gonna leave this whole stupid fucking city in the dust.”

     “Where will we go?” Tara didn’t even realize what she said until it was already too late.

     “I’m not sure,” he says, before taking another long drag pulling the cherry back to the filter and letting the smoke leave through his nose slowly. “Maybe somewhere out west.”

     He lines the filter up to his lips, puts his thumb on the wheel and strikes the flint. He takes a long drag to prime the cherry and exhales slowly. His shoulders slump, and his tension melts away. He carefully puts all of the paraphernalia back in his pocket.

     “Why are you still smoking?” Tara says, “you said you’d give that up if I came with you.”

     “Why does it matter?” He retorts, “my lungs ain’t gonna get any better.” He takes another drag and coughs out the smoke. The tobacco smoke clings to the air, the smog here as it is on the West coast, choking smoke, blotting out the sun, it’s much smaller here, but no less noxious.

     Tara looks to the cows in the distance. They huddle together as they systematically clip the grass and weeds. When she was a bit younger, she thought she was going to be a teacher. So, she went to college, and met Mike. He studied to be a veterinarian. They both dropped out after her first year. He still lies to his dad about dropping out, and, in return, he keeps getting money to live in the city.

     “Have you figured out where we are going?” She asks. “We’ve on the road for three days now, and you haven’t said anything about stopping.”

     “I still don’t know.” He takes another drag to stall before coughing again. “I still don’t know what I want. I don’t know anything anymore.”

     Of course, he doesn’t know. He never knows anything because he doesn’t think about anything. He’s a fuck-up who lies to his dad to keep getting a paycheck to wander across the country. Tara left everything to be with him right now. Why? Because she thought he could change? Stupid. She looks to the cows again, and her chest tightens. Their huddling herd is enough for them, so why can’t proximity be enough for her. Why can’t she be content with him?

     Ever since he dropped out he’s been retracted. They used to have fun and be alive. She had friends, too. But, after dropping out, she worked as a barista at a yuppie coffee shop making shit wages that barely paid rent. She didn’t even tell them that she quit. She just declined all of their calls and deleted their texts. They probably sent someone to check that she wasn’t dead. Whatever.

     Mike takes a final drag. He vacates the life from the rest of the cigarette, taking it in as his own, and he tosses the butt towards the road before the cherry touches the filter. “Let’s get back to it,” he says as he tugs open the door on the right side of his rusted old Chevy S10. Tara climbs in after he slides across the bench to the driver side. He puts the key in and attempts to start it. The engine struggles at least a dozen times before finally turns over. He shifts to first gear and tears off the grass back onto the road. Unlike Tara, he doesn’t buckle himself in.

     She gets a last glimpse of the cows before they disappear behind the rolling hills.