Chapter 14: They Lost The Race

October 9th, 1995, 12:20 PM MST, Mile 2365, 23 miles west of Phoenix, AZ

Jackie and Jeff very soon got back to the separated lower level coach room. They had been running the whole way, with that boundless energy and enthusiasm that children seem to have and their parents wish they had half of to try to keep up. Their mom would have screamed if she had seen them doing that. She was a wonderful mother, but she could be more than a bit stuck up at times. They were both panting, but also had the endorphins flowing through their bodies from the exercise. They were almost giddy, smiling and laughing at their impressive performance, and ignorant of a few people they had woken up.

“Let’s get changed for bed, Sis,” Jeff said, “We can put on our pajamas, mom said so. I don’t want to sleep in my jeans, they are too stiff.”

“Alright, you go first.” Jackie replied, “Then I’ll do the same. I’ve been wearing these clothes two days now.”

“I got an idea, lets do it together!” Jeff exclaimed, “Did you see that huge changing room in the front of the car? It had a big seat and some stools and stuff! It’s really cool, and we could easily both fit in there, I think.”

“Mom told us we aren’t supposed to be naked in the same room.”

“That’s silly,” Jeff said, “Its not like we haven’t seen each other before.”

“That was years ago, Jeff,” Jackie said.

“Mom’s not here to say anything, though,” Jeff said, “I don’t get why she keeps trying to keep us apart all the time, you’re my best friend.”

“You’re my best friend too, Jeff,” Jackie admitted, “You know she means for the best, though. She loves us, and she knows things we don’t.”

“What could us seeing what we’ve already seen do, though?” Jeff replied, “I hate doing things separately.”

“Oh, alright,” Jackie said, “But you better not tell mom.”

“Why would I?” Jeff said.

Both kids grabbed their pajamas and ran to the changing room, sort of bouncing against each other and the carpet-lined walls of the car as they ran down the bathroom hallway of the car. They got changed together in the room, not hiding anything from each other. They weren’t quite turned on by it; they were too young for that. But somehow the intimacy of not hiding anything from the other added to the closeness they had.

In the little Texas town they had lived in, there weren’t many kids who were all that interested in reading or studying, and they were both the top ranked kid academically in their respective class. The other kids didn’t like them, poked fun at them, and ostracized them. Even their siblings, as much as they loved them, wanted to play different games, and do different things. They would include them if they were interested, but they so often weren’t. They were as close as a brother and sister could be; they never fought, they agreed on almost everything, they just plain got along.

There were few walls between them, and clothing was literally one of them. For those moments in the women’s lounge of that Superliner, one of the few remaining walls was taken down between them. Although they quickly got dressed, innocently and without thought about it, it was like punching a hole in the wall of a water tank. Water will gush through, and there was no real way to put it back in, even if you patch the hole. They were just another layer closer to each other than they had been before. Just a touch more intimate, a little more together, a bit more close.

After they got dressed, they looked at each other. They had both caught glimpses of each other in the rooms mirror, but they hadn’t been actively looking. But they felt the difference. Some sort of magnetic attraction made the two children embrace each other. They often snuggled, but this time ... without understanding why, just going through with their feelings, they kissed. It was brief, and it was soft, and it was mostly just affectionate. But Jackie could feel the outpouring of love between them and it was ... well, it felt wonderful.

They weren’t ‘in love’, or sexually attracted to each other, she didn’t think. It was way too early for that. But the innately intimate and symbiotic relationship between them was continuously in development, and that evening was a large step in that direction. Sharon’s basic fear was entirely correct. They were traveling down a road towards a dangerous relationship, and a dangerous set of feelings.

But Miguel was also right. At this point in their lives, they had already reached a point of no return; unless one of them somehow came across their soulmate, or fell in love- which was unlikely because they didn’t really socialize outside of the family- their path was water flowing downhill in a gorge. What they already had was already instrumental to each other’s happiness. Breaking them apart would bring irreparable damage to the other. It didn’t have to result in a sexual relationship, but it was already love beyond friendship; they just didn’t know it yet.

The two of them would be a couple for the rest of their lives. They would rise together, or fall together. This wasn’t the moment that determined it; everything had determined it. They were too compatible, too similar in age, and too isolated for it to have been different. What made this moment so special in this process wasn’t that it defined what was to happen. It was that it created recognition of it between them.

Jackie suddenly saw it; she was confused, but she saw it. She knew she had always loved her brother in a special way, but she never completely understood the whys and wherefores of it all. But in that moment, she realized that Jeff was a part of her. It wasn’t a massive revelation really; she had always been his protector whenever their father was around. She had always stuck up for him. That was just the way it always was.

The truth was, they always seemed to share the same interests. They were both book worms. They both did really well in school. They were both really smart. They both loved to learn. Neither of them were highly physical. They both liked each other’s company. Not just for conversation, or to play together. They physically enjoyed being together. The mere presence of Jeff next to her made her feel more comfortable, less lonely, and more at ease.

Jeff had felt the change, too. He didn’t quite know how to articulate it, even in his mind, but something had changed in the order of his universe. They had actively disobeyed a long standing directive of their mother’s; normally that came with guilt and fear, along with the childish elation that often comes with such disobedience. This time ... it felt right, it felt comfortable, it felt like he was fighting back against something that disagreed with his perception of the natural order of his world.

They looked at each other. They didn’t say anything; there wasn’t anything to say. They couldn’t really articulate what they were feeling and thinking, even in their own mind’s eye. But they both felt the slight shift in their lives, both knew that something had changed irrevocably. In their look into each other’s eyes, they knew that what they felt was right, and that their sibling had felt it, too, and was comfortable with it.

Jackie sat down in her seat, leaned against the window, and started reading, while patting the seat beside her almost automatically. Jeff followed the almost automatic suggestion and sat down and snuggled up to her, and started reading too. This normally felt really good, but this was even better than usual. The warmth of each other’s bodies, the closeness of their souls, the new and deeper connection of their minds ... it felt right.

Jackie came to a slow realization. In that little embrace they had shared, that little kiss, everything had changed. All the rules were different, all the expectations were changed, all the boundaries obliterated. It was a brave new world for them. They had silently acknowledged to each other what they had both felt for a long time now.

They weren’t just siblings, nor were they just friends. They were partners. They needed each other, on a level somewhere above what had been. They always had, but now they both realized it. To deny that would have been ludicrous, but they had eschewed denying it. They had accepted it, embraced it, enjoyed it. But the real question, was, besides their long-established partnership, what exactly was ‘it’? They knew they liked ‘it’, they knew they wanted ‘it’, they even, in an oblique way, understood ‘it’, too. But what exactly was... ‘it’?

Jeff sat content in his ignorance; he would understand it in time. It was good, and that was really all he needed to know. That was typical of a boy, perhaps.

Jackie wasn’t a boy, no matter how nerdy she might be. She was a girl, and she was not nearly as content not knowing exactly what ‘it’ was. She was really only pretending to read, she was actually ruminating on ‘it’. She wondered if ‘it’ was the thing people called love. With her little brother? She loved her brother, of course. He was family, friend, and partner, of course she loved him. But there was that other kind of love, the kind she didn’t know much about because it didn’t seem to really exist in her house. She didn’t want what her mother had with her father. She knew that wasn’t ‘it’.

But what about what George and Jill had? Or Josh and Akilah? Was what they had what ‘it’ was? Could that kind of love be what ‘it’ was? Did she feel that kind of love towards Jeff? It seemed possible, but also kind of weird. The only thing she knew for sure was that she liked ‘it’.

I must be freakin’ crazy, she thought.

The rumination ended. She hadn’t reached a conclusion, but she had brought the subject as far as her mind could manage to. The only logical conclusion seemed weird, strange, but ... also right. She couldn’t come up with a solution to the conundrum, she mainly concluded that it didn’t matter. ‘It’ was what ‘it’ was; que sera sera. What will be, will be. She was comfortable with what she had; elated, even. She snuggled him closer to her, and soon they both drifted off to sleep, content in the knowledge that whoever ‘it’ was, it made them happy to acknowledge ‘it’, and have ‘it’.

October 9th, 1995, 1:00 AM MST, Mile 2486, S. 355 Ave Crossing, Tonopah, AZ

Old man Langston was driving his ancient Chevy Biscayne south along S. 355th Ave, heading to his little shack in Tonopah, Arizona. It was an old car, a 1972 model. It was exactly the type of car he loved. It only had a few options, and a few modifications. It was a secret type of car, a lot more than it appeared to be at first glance. He liked that sort of thing. He enjoyed having things that were more than they seemed.

It had the cop-car suspension, the 454 Turbo-Jet V8, with much of the emissions controls removed, and a four-on-the-floor transmission. It had a 3.8:1 rear end. The suspension was also even further stiffened and beefed up It looked like a worthless rust bucket, but it had a hell of an engine and could drive like the devil. He knew it could do the quarter mile in about 12 seconds pushing over 110 mph. It was a very fast car, even by modern standards, and he liked that part about it the most.

He had just gone to visit his beloved, but estranged, wife and children for dinner. They were still in love, but she needed to live closer to Phoenix both for her kids and herself. He understood all about that. He just wished they could live together. But the city life just wasn’t for him; it make him sick to his stomach to be around so many people. She understood that, too. That’s why they lived this way. She was a wonderful woman and he didn’t know what he did to deserve her. She was the best woman in the world. She took him exactly as he was, even if it was far less than ideal.

He was deep in thought when he heard the blast of a train’s horn, looked and saw the light of a train approaching, and slammed on the brakes. The Secret Rocket, as he called his car, had damned good disc brakes all around, but he still had barely come to a halt as the train charged past, rocking the car on its stiffened springs, so close he felt it was coats of paint between the train and him. The tires had locked up, and the smoke from the burned rubber wafted forward onto the track. He wondered what had possessed him to stop instead of putting his 500 lb-ft of blueprinted and massaged big-block V8 to good use.

It wasn’t going exceptionally fast; nothing did on these worn-out old tracks. Maybe 30 miles an hour. But it was a passenger train, which surprised him. This wasn’t the time the Sunset Limited usually came through here. Oh, he remembered that train from years past, when it was still ran by the Espee. This train sure was beautiful though, with its stainless steel gleaming in the bright desert flood lights mounted under the bumper of his old Chevy sedan.

He was also pissed that the crossing was unprotected. Damnit, he was almost hit. Why didn’t they at least put some wig-wags over here? Jesus. Trains were so infrequent he almost never even thought to look. It was a dangerous crossing, for sure. He had ended up scaring the shit out of himself, almost literally.

When the train passed, he shifted the floor shifter back into gear and continued on his way.

He’d never know he’d be the last to see it before its fateful meeting with destiny.

October 9th, 1995, 12:58 AM MST, Mile 2392, 50 miles west of Phoenix, AZ

Akilah was on top of Josh, riding him with all her might. It felt so wonderful, it was the best thing she had ever experienced. As she rode up and down her breasts brushed against his chest, and it felt awesome. The physical ecstasy combined with the feeling of being with her soul mate, her lover, her best friend, it just created a moment of life she wanted to pause and luxuriate in before moving on to the next.