“Let’s go on a road trip.” Harmony announced without context, their voice resonating in the poorly populated library. We’d been there for a while, quietly drinking our coffee while I studied and Harmony read a book. I had hoped the activity would become a habit for us, it was calmer, and I could keep up with my schoolwork and still see them. I looked up from my computer.

“Uhm, right now?” I asked, playing along.

“Perhaps this weekend?”

“Wait, you’re serious. Shouldn’t we be trying to figure out how to break the loop? Do you even have a car?”

“That can wait. And I do. It belonged to my mother.” I was surprised. Harmony never talked about her.

“Um, ok… This weekend is really soon. I dunno. I’ve got… like… stuff.” I floundered. I wasn’t resisting the idea, it sounded exciting, but I felt nervous. Leaving the city with Harmony felt taboo somehow.

“If you change your mind, I think you would have fun.” Harmony smiled. They met my eyes effortlessly.

“What about the whole, Kennan and India thing? Their neighbors?” I asked.

“I admit that I’m not entirely certain how this iteration plays out, but I have never seen David back off the way he did last week. And you prevented him from using the police, which is the other most damaging outcome. If you’re worried about them, or the ‘cornholers’ as you call them, we can absolutely stop by the kickback before we leave.”

“You’re really feeling this whole road trip thing.” I said, scanning their face.

At first, I was caught off guard that Harmony knew my little name for the annoying guys who kept showing up at Kennan’s parties. And then I wasn’t. Sometimes I forgot they knew everything about me. It probably would have been creepy if I didn’t like them. Even so, it was still unnerving at times. Harmony seemed to be waiting on an answer.

“Oh, sorry, yeah, uh, road trip… Where would we even go?” I asked.

“I’m not set on anywhere. Do you have a place that appeals to you?” Harmony asked back.

“I guess. I mean. If we go… I figure you’ve been lots of places, so we should go somewhere you haven’t been.”

“I’ve been a few places, but I don’t mind returning.”

“I think it would be more fun if we were both going to a new place. Then we would be having the same experience. But please tell me your car has heating.”

“It does indeed have heating. It’s been sitting a while so it will smell musty, but that always clears up after some cleaning and airflow.”

“Ok. If we find somewhere to go, I might be in. Might.”

“Excellent.” Harmony perked excitedly.

I was often suspicious of Harmony’s actions. It was an unusual dynamic to be so frequently with someone who understood the world so differently, and yet so much more thoroughly. In high school, Tsuki had dated a twenty-year-old asshole named Steve. Harmony was nothing like Steve, but they both seemed to use their alleged knowledge of the world to assert some vague superiority over everyone else. Harmony was subtle, calculating, but not cruel. Steve had been manipulative, vindictive, and domineering. For sex. I remembered it vividly, as if it had happened to me. I wondered where Tsuki was at that moment.

“A single day’s drive, say five or six hours, so we’re not rushing to get back… from Chicago…” Harmony was pinching in and out on their phone, presumably zooming around in maps.

“What looks fun?” I asked.

“I’m sorting out the ones I’ve visited… Saint Louis, Columbus, Detroit… What about Cincinnati? I’ve never been there.” They suggested. I watched Harmony’s face, still interpreting their enthusiasm.

“Cincinnati could be fun, what’s there? It has a zoo… But zoo’s are kind of sad. Plus, the whole Harambe thing happened there, right?” Harmony looked confused at first then nodded.

“It’s highly unlikely that we would bear witness to such an incident, and zoos provide a unique function in conservation efforts.”

“Yeah, I guess… But that’s still a no for me. Dicks out, ya feel?” I joked. Harmony didn’t get it. They returned to their phone, and I to my studying. Ten minutes of silence passed before they re-emerged.

“Alright, we could go to Cleveland, I’ve only driven through it, but it seems alright.” They said, spinning their phone to me.

“Oh, Ok, I mean, we can still go to Cincinnati, just no zoo… But Cleveland is also good, what’s there?”

“I apologize, I must have misunderstood when you mentioned the gorilla… I assumed… Cincinnati then? How do you feel about aquariums?

“Less sad, somehow. Except for seaworld. Fuck seaworld. There’s an aquarium in Cincinnati?”

“I believe there’s one, technically in Kentucky.” Harmony showed me what they’d discovered on their phone.

“Ok, I like that idea. Should we get an airbnb or something?” I said, trying to figure out in my head how much it might cost.

“I’ll book a hotel. Shall we leave Tomorrow? Evening or morning?”

“Fuck. Friday is tomorrow. Uh… Yeah, sure, why not. As if life could be any weirder right now. Can I, like, pay you back or something?”

“Nonsense. I have funds available, and you’re a student.”

“You’re a student too, Harmony.” I retorted.

“You’re right. But my money is irrelevant. Yours is not, assuming your life continues at the end of my iteration.”

“Assuming… The end of your iteration… That’s kinda fatalistic, you know? I mean, I try not to think about your death. But you talk about it so… As if it’s not real. It is to me.”

“Ray… I suppose… I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.” Harmony said softly.

“It’s ok. I need to think about how you see the world, and that’s not something I’m used to. I don’t think it’s wrong that you see your own death so vividly, but what marks death for me isn’t the same as what marks it for you. You get to see me again. I have to say goodbye.”

“It’s a good thing you like goodbyes.”

“Harmony…”

Harmony said nothing.

“Just… Let me do something nice for you. I know that what hurts the most is the feeling that nothing matters. I can’t fix that, but I want you to know it still matters to me.”

“I would love that…” Harmony said, reaching an open hand across the table as if to ask for mine. I immediately took it with my sweaty hands, grimacing as I realized it.

“Fuck, I’m sorry my hands are all… Uhm… Rad?” I asked.

“Rad. Covered in rad. Seeped in it.” Harmony giggled.

Harmony got up and leaned over the table. I closed my eyes the instant before our lips met.

It was bizarre though, the idea that I had just met Harmony and still trusted them enough to get in a car with them and go to a place I’d never been. But I had slept with Harmony on the third time we’d ever hung out, despite everything they’d said. Harmony had shown me a world I was pretty sure no one else would believe, and they had never shown themselves to be malicious. If I didn’t trust them now, when could I? Would it be too late?