She likes dismal as I like blood. We’re the exes who became best friends, only we’ve never been together. She’s the best friend I never really knew, and that’s likewise just as true in reverse.

Driving through the fog, slowly, carefully, in a rental four-door Ford sedan, all the world is a blur. But the fog lights show just enough of the road ahead, and we continue traveling, westward, while a Brahms CD fills the slightly chilly air, on this second longest night of the year. Onward through the fog, we drive. I steal a glance, catch her smiling, guess she might be thinking the same thoughts I am. We’ll drive on past Toledo, find a Motel Six, get two separate rooms.

Better safe than to risk what we have.