Timeless War: The Path to Max's Balance.

The rain beat down on the car's roof with a dull, rhythmic thump. I looked up from my phone, my eyes squinting through the dimly lit streets and into the night sky as I strained to see the street signs and buildings around me. The little light that managed to escape the clouds illuminated a few blocks ahead of me, but not much else.

"Hey, Dad?" I finally said after a moment, "I think I took a wrong turn already."

"Oh man," he groaned. "This isn't your first time at this school is it? You gotta be able to find this place by now."

My dad wasn't really thinking about where we were going - he was more focused on finding his way out of the undiscovered cul-de-sac we'd found ourselves in. We'd been driving around for almost ten minutes, and I guess he hadn't noticed his mistake until now.

"It's just that... This road kinda looks like the other one we took. It all looks kind of familiar." I shrugged. "Look, this one might be it here." I pointed at a street sign at the end of the street. "But if it is, then we're still lost."

Dad glanced up at the road sign and then back at me with an exasperated look on his face. He leaned forward and peered through the windshield at the traffic lights ahead of us before letting out another sigh. He pulled onto the shoulder and put his hazard lights on before turning to me with an exasperated look on his face. "Remind me why you had to go to this stupid school again?" He asked as he turned off the car and closed his eyes in resignation.

I felt my face flush red as I realized that I'd probably severely screwed up our plans for getting home tonight by insisting on going to this dance that wasn't even close to our house.

I'd been looking forward to tonight for weeks now - ever since my best friend's sister had convinced her parents to let him spend most of prom at their house instead of going somewhere far away like everyone else did. After she convinced her older brother to invite me too, everything started falling into place perfectly: we had an excuse for spending time together without any parental supervision! It was perfect! Of course, his parents were going to have to pick us up from prom eventually so they could bring us home after we went on a walk or something like that, but it didn't matter - we could just go with them! Or else they could drop us off somewhere nearby afterward!

What didn't cross my mind until later was that those plans meant that we would have to go directly away from Mom and Dad's house after prom instead of toward it - which meant we had to drive out of state! Ugh! I got so frustrated when Dad insisted that there *wasn't* an option for staying at someone's house overnight - especially when he wouldn't budge even after I told him how unfair it was for him to expect me to drive home late at night all by myself when he knew full well how nervous I get! The only solution I could think of was going with him and mom - but then they'd probably want to go straight home afterwards instead of hanging out with friends like they normally do...

So after a lot of fussing on both sides, it seemed like being picked up by Rachel's family was my only option - especially considering how much energy both parents had invested in making sure that everything went according to plan. They were both so excited about me going with Rachel's big brother (who they thought was cool) that they hardly noticed when they unknowingly sent us off in opposite directions instead of toward home together! So now here we were: stuck in some random suburb outside Chicago where nobody knew who either one of us were or what we were doing there - unless you count being lost in some random suburb outside Chicago as knowing who either one of us were or what we were doing there...