A short walk to the house

Alice walked along, blankly staring at the ground in front of her. Her arms still were draped across her body, and she couldn’t find any words to say as the awkward, long silence continued. Kristen rode along equally silent, seemingly content with the moment, occasionally looking down to her left at Alice, and smiling.

“Wait a minute. If today is the day you’re doing the tradition, then that means you’re birthday is today!” Kristen said excitedly, looking down towards Alice.

Alice shyly looked towards Kristen, then looked away sheepishly. “Yeah. Happy birthday to me I guess.” She said sarcastically.

“Wow, that has to suck! For your Eighteenth Birthday instead of getting an awesome present, or having a cool party, you have to strip down, and run through miles of wilderness and Main Street butt naked!” Kristen said, laughing and shaking her head.

“Yeah. It does suck. At first I thought it wasn’t so bad, since nobody could see me. But as soon as I got on the main road, it wasn’t fun, just embarrassing!” Alice spoke with frustration.

A short silence followed, then Alice worked up the nerve to ask “Where do you go to school?”

“Oh. I’m about to finish high school at Rutwood, a few miles north of here. Then I’ll be off to college to study biology.” Kristen said indifferently.

“Oh, that’s actually really cool!” Alice responded excitedly. For the next several minutes, they discussed where they were from, who they knew, and what they did at school. It helped Alice calm her nerves, enough so she barely noticed they had reached a house in the middle of the woods.