The drive was a few hours long, so it gave both Emma and Daniel time to decompress from the craziness of what had just happened. For Daniel, having a hole cut out of their roof so his 12-foot-plus girlfriend could get out was wild enough, but he found himself even more shaken by the reaction of the gathered crowd of people. It made him feel so bad for Emma that he literally felt sick to his stomach. The way all those people had looked at her, shouted at her, ran away from her...it reminded him of those angry, frightened crowds of people with pitchforks in the movies. Deep down, he knew that their reactions were totally based on fear and a lack of understanding surrounding Emma's condition. But it still didn't make him feel much different about her being treated like some gigantic animal at the zoo. The firefighters and police had all been wonderfully professional about the whole thing, but Daniel was happy to be rid of the city. Every second that passed, he was driving Emma -- and himself -- closer to sanctuary, where she wouldn't have to deal with all those horrible crowds of anxious, fearful people.
For her part, Emma was lounging in the back of the special truck, her face up close to a hole in the wall that allowed her to communicate directly with Daniel. Whereas Daniel was going through a complex and anxious recovery, Emma didn't feel much of anything at all. She was fully aware that what had just happened was insane, just as she was fully aware that there had been a huge crowd gathered to watch her, a crowd that hadn't reacted particularly pleasantly to seeing or hearing her. But Emma had to a large extent managed to shut herself off from all of that. She was feeling a strange sense of distance from everything and everyone, whether they be the little cops who had gathered awkwardly in her house, the tiny firefighters with their miniature fire truck, or the confused and retreating mass of people that she had vaguely seen move backward when she stepped out of the hole in the roof. Emma knew that she should be feeling more of something, more relief or anger or gratitude or...just...anything. But she wasn't. As she stretched her huge legs out in the truck, she felt almost...bored.
She didn't enjoy feeling this way, since it felt so completely at odds with her current situation, and so she inclined her head towards the hole in the truck wall, pressing up her face a little playfully in the hole.
"Heya!" she chirped humorously at her boyfriend. "How's it going up there?"
When she spoke, she felt the truck veer a little to the side, quickly righting itself a moment later.
"Oh! God Emma, you scared me there!" said Daniel, shaking his head as he regained control of the truck's trajectory.
"What? Scared you?" laughed Emma, determined to fight her boredom with some self-imposed lightness of spirit. "I literally just asked how it was going."
"Yeah, well...your voice is a little...uh, louder than it's been in the past," said Daniel, knowing that he needed to tread carefully.
"My voice is normal -- I don't know what you're talking about," said Emma genuinely, looking down at her fingernails.
Daniel knew that this was not a good argument to be getting into right now, so he let it drop. "I'm...uh, I'm doing ok," he answered. The silence seemed to build up quickly after he finished speaking, and Daniel realized that his answer sounded too negative, and too serious.
"I mean, hehe, everything's fine and all," he continued, making an effort to sprinkle his words with a chuckle, "It's just...that was a little crazy back there, wasn't it? With all those people? God I'm glad to get away from them."
"Yeah I wasn't really paying too much attention to them," said Emma into the hole. "You just looked too cute, pulling up there in this little truck."
"I'm glad you still think I'm cute," laughed Daniel, feeling his spirits rise from Emma's compliment.
"Still!?" came Emma's blunt question. "What do you mean "still?""
"I...I mean, uh," floundered Daniel, his spirits dampening almost as soon as they had begun to rise. "I mean, with everything that's happened and all...I just...uh, I'm just glad that you're still attracted to me...even though...well, you know."
"Even though what, Daniel?" asked Emma. She was starting to get annoyed again. All she was trying to do was shoot the shit and act like a normal person for once, and Daniel had to pull her condition back into everything.
"Well...e-even though you're a lot bigger than me now," answered Daniel, hoping that he could stave off another one of her mood swings.
"Why should that matter?" Emma asked expressionlessly. "You're not the one who's been changing, Daniel. So why would I not be attracted to you?"
"Just...forget it, ok Emma?" laughed Daniel nervously. "I'm glad that you think I'm cute, alright?"
Several seconds passed by, and then Daniel heard Emma sigh into the hole. He thought that maybe she was sighing out of annoyance at him, but in actuality, it was out of annoyance at herself. She knew that she was acting bitchy and irritable, and she wished that Daniel didn't have to deal with it. But she didn't quite know how to prevent herself from jumping on his words and taking them too far in her head. It felt volatile inside her head...dangerous, even, to the point where she sometimes wondered if she was losing her mind.
'There I go again,' she thought to herself irritatedly, 'Making a huge deal out of nothing.'
She sighed again and decided that she would try and take another nap to pass the time. She hated these long car rides in these huge containers. They made her feel like a caged animal, but even worse, she wasn't able to see Daniel, to touch him. She felt reassured that he was in the driver's seat, steering her this way and that, but it was a poor substitute to actually seeing and feeling him. Emma had always been a tactile person, but ever since her growth condition, she felt like this aspect of herself had only become more prominent.
She sighed out again and pivoted her body away from the hole, doing a quick 180-degree turn as she curled up into a ball. She was surprised, then, when she felt the truck swaying back and forth, with an indistinct yell coming from Daniel through the hole in the wall.
"Emma!!" he was crying. "Don't....aaauughhh!! Don't....!!"
"Don't what, Daniel!?" she asked loudly, sitting up and blinking in puzzlement. She felt the truck gradually stop swerving...but strangely, she hadn't been afraid. Daniel, though, was clearly frazzled, and she could hear the fear in his voice when he spoke.