Calvin woke in the early afternoon, with a stubborn headache that pulsed behind his eyes. At first, he wasn’t sure where he was. Probably because he’d fallen asleep with his precise location still a bit of a mystery. A groan escaped his lips as he sat up.

He opened the car door, and stepped out. It felt like he had been poured out onto the pavement below. There was a knot in his lower back that he tried to assuage with some stretches, but it was as stubborn as the pain in his head.

There wasn’t much to see. A small structure that looked unlikely to hold anything more than a pair of single bathrooms. If he were lucky, maybe there would be a vending machine. The back of his throat felt like a dusty leather boot. Ironically, finding water wasn’t the first bodily impulse he felt, as he ran over to the nearest bush.

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As soon as he’d finished, he cast a guilty look around the parking lot, breathing a sigh of relief as he saw that his was still the only one there. He looked over the entire rest area, as if someone might have been hiding in the trees, but no one was there. It was only when he was washing his hands in the restroom inside the little building that he questioned why he couldn’t have waited a few moments more. The restroom smelled like piss, but looked relatively clean.

It didn’t stay on his mind for long, after all, no one seemed to have seen him. Still, it was out of character for him, and it only made his headache feel worse. It would have been nice to close his eyes one last time, but the desire to sleep in a bed became his only focus. He forced a few dollar bills into the vending machine which spat out a tepid coke.

He was too tired to even make a protest to the machine. With a sigh he walked back to the car. He needed to go back home. Not because there was any particular pull there, but because he could think of nowhere else to go.