Words She Wrote to Him

I've just begun a fiction writing course, and one of our first assignments was to combine a sentence strip I received ("lost a map of the United States with all of the cities named 'Springfield' circled")with a character who has the opposite of three traits I described myself with:
*Conventional (Not Eccentric)
*Uncompassionate/stonehearted (Not Compassionate)
*Indifferent (Not Inquisitive)
____________________________________________________________________________________

"Mayb..hm--maybe it's under the back of the...passenger...."

His potato fingers are feeling for the coarse angular planes of a poorly folded paper map. It's wrinkled and bleached by his sister's irresponsible care during her college excursions with windows opened for cigarettes, trash, cops, rain and wind through fingers. Cooper Fisher has just lost this map of the United States with the cities called "Springfield" circled because that's where a girl is. He is looking for a girl that Instant Messaged him accidentally a week earlier, resulting in his first falls and pangs of love and lust.

LoveMe123: Dave?
H1Th3r3: what? my names Cooper Fisher.
LoveMe123: I'm sorry, I think I typed in the wrong screenname. I was looking for my friend Dave.
H1Th3r3: obviously,
LoveMe123:...well that was a dick thing to say.
HiTh3r3: *obviously.
H1Th3r3: sorry you feel that way. im just bein honest.
LoveMe123: I can be honest too, see? "You're so ugly! Why why why would I lie to you?"
H1Th3r3: i love that song.

Although initially hesitant, Lishy Juarez continued to write to Cooper Fisher because she had little better to do beside update her status on Facebook and Twitter. She's still young and didn't think anyone knew who the Violent Femmes were, so his response to her quotation also piqued her intrigue. After his admittedly dick comment, Cooper Fisher redeemed himself by cutting through the sway and swagger she usually received from boys. She had grown accustomed to shrugging at their impromptu jazz performances based on the instruments she provided in what she typed, but Cooper Fisher was satisfied with hums and handclaps. She liked that simplicity, that cold.

LoveMe123: What do you think of my pics?
H1Th3r3: havent checked em out yet.
LoveMe123: Really?

H1Th3r3: you should change your font. its difficult to read.
LoveMe123: lol, really?
H1Th3r3: yeah. my eyes hurt.

She didn't mind him being terse. Usually boys wrote too much, and she'd grow annoyed with their mojoless (and thus blatantly superficial) means of impressing her, like those birds who fluff their feathers, puff their chests, and dance funky chickens to impress potential mates. This bird--Cooper Fisher--was busy lying down, looking up, not even at Lishy Juarez, a female with the power of choice. She was attracted to this indifference because it made her feel like more than a body.

LoveMe123: So what kind of movies do you like?
H1Th3r3: i like everything.
LoveMe123: Everyone says that, but no one means it. You can't possibly like EVERYTHING!!!1! What do you LOVE, then?
H1Th3r3: I liked the soloist. and world's greatest dad. sometimes i quote in good company.
LoveMe123: ...I'm so glad you like the same music I do.

LoveMe123: I just realized, you haven't really asked me any questions yet. Why not?
H1Th3r3: i dont know. im content knowin what i know.
LoveMe123: That was so feng shui.
H1Th3r3: you mean zen? usually people would say that's zen. feng shui is used for designin rooms and placin furniture in peaceful places an stuff like that.
LoveMe123: lolz, yeah! That was like one of those Bill Nye "Did You Know?! Now You Know!" moments. Have you ever seen that show? I watch it online sometimes.

After finding the map and starting up the car again, Cooper Fisher sat and exed out with a purple Sharpie marker the Springfields he's already visited: Springfield, North Dakota, Springfield, South Dakota, Springfield, Wyoming, Springfield, Nebraska and Springfield, Oklahoma. The first stop and shop for a girl named Lishy Juarez was only about three hours away from home in state number one. He made the decision to leave home after realizing his summer had been dissatisfyingly too safe and too quiet. He then calculated how much money he'd have to spend (that he'd been saving for a new laptop) on food, gas, hostels (when the car wasn't warm enough), and drumsticks (Lishy Juarez is a drummer and would "way prefer a bouquet of drumsticks to a bouquet of flowers"). He skipped Kansas--thought it smelled, figured Lishy wasn't from there. He had the rest of summer to find her.

While driving, between adjusting radio reception and bulging eyes for the fuzz, Cooper Fisher was thinking about words she wrote to him, punctuation marks, emoticons, acronyms, anything to reason out whether or not she was translating an affectionate infatuation through the silence and stoicism of instant messaging. Cooper Fisher was also thinking, when the reception was keen, about how thrilling it is when a song's lyrics are illuminated in the midst of a listener's life's sorrows and smiles, miles driven and blocks walked, aspirations and inspirations. Here he was, following James Murphy's triumphant voice now: "We set controls for the heart of the sun, one of the ways that we show our age." He knew he was still young because he was going for her.

After sorrows of flats and hunger, smiles of Lishy Juarez and her words, miles driven in side streets and highways, blocks walked past corners hushed and raucous, aspirations to kiss her and make her cum, and inspirations to take up drumming himself and find better theaters at home, Cooper Fisher thought he had found Lishy Juarez in his fifth week, third day, eighteenth state, and nineteenth Springfield (there are two in Kentucky). He was listening to this go-getter go-get-her fist-over-muffled bassless lo-fi radio pulling into Springfield, South Carolina, and he simultaneously shivered and grinned at the lyrics, not knowing why. "Logic will break your heart forever. Be brave...."

He was two states off, but found her in Springfield, Florida.

"Hi. Does Lishy Juarez live here?"
"Who the hell'er you?" questioned her father.
"I'm a--I'm a friend from school. We planned to hang out before school started again."
..."Yeah? Aren't you a bit old t' be hangin' 'round my daughter?"
Cooper Fisher was confused, but then he realized he never asked how old Lishy was and she never told him. He kept on, hoping that she wasn't fifteen or something ludicrous like that. He'd come so far. "No, sir. I jus' look old for m' age."
"Yeah?"
"Yup. Sure. Yes, I mean." He was nervous and it was obvious, though he had every right to be. Cooper Fisher was a homebody whose greatest adventure before this was discovering a delicatessen better than the one four miles closer to home and the worst trouble he ever monkeyed around in was losing a DVD from Blockbuster before having a chance to return it.
Lishy Juarez's father looked at Cooper Fisher. It was an uneasy moment, especially when he looked down and jutted his bottom lip to the left in ambivalence.
"Lishy! Get do'n 'ere. Y' gotta friend at the door!"
Cooper Fisher inhaled, held, and exhaled as slowly as possible.

"Oh my Jesus! Cooper!" he was elated that she recognized him from the crappy photos in his profile; they were crappy because he had a scar on his left temple from when he was nine that embarrassed him. He was expecting a hug next. "What the hell are you doing here?! I mean, I haven't seen you online in weeks, and I thought you lived forever away. I thought you died or something!" Although she smiled, he couldn't tell if it was because she was happy to see him.
Still waiting for a hug.
"Uh, yeah: I basically drove here from home to see you. I just...I can't explain how much our conversations meant to me and I jus--"
"Cooper. Shut up. Seriously?! This is---" Lishy Juarez caught herself before saying it. She stepped out of the doorway and closed the glass door behind her. They were now in the sun, on her brick step, next to bushes that browned brittle and weakness, unwatered for weeks. "This is really fucking creepy. I mean," she sighed agitated, "I'm only fifteen and we only spoke for, like, five days."
"Wrote." Cooper Fisher was crushed.
"What?"
At least a hug, even now.
"We only wrote 'for, like, five days.'" His eyes turned up as he quoted her.
"Whatever! It doesn't matter! I'm a curious girl and all, but you totally got the wrong idea if you think all of my pokes and lollerblades and talk--writing about sex and music and boys and movies and feng shui was a sign of loving you...even liking you like that. That way. This way." Her voice was descending. "I didn't tell you my age or my state because I didn't think it was important and, being five years older, I really didn't think that you'd make a move like this." Now it was shallow.
"I'm--"
"I mean--what?"
"You go ahead."
"I mean, if circumstances were different, maybe this would be really sweet and we'd make out like wombats and I could finally see a penis in real life." Her eyes bulged when she said 'finally see a penis' and she looked back through the glass door to see if any family was around to hear her mention it. "But I'm too young, too far, and too new to you."

Maybe the hug was impossible now.

Cooper Fisher waited a moment to see if she was done so that he could apologize.
"I'm sorry." She wasn't looking at him, but she could hear that his head was down. "I guess I thought too much about it all, read too much into the words you wrote me. Got carried away."
She knew at least that he was a boy of few words, fewer emotions, and no questions. She hugged him and he moaned a momentary satisfaction, which creeped her out more. Upon letting go, he walked to the back seat of the car, leaned in, and pulled out a bundle of drumsticks, mallets, and brushes wrapped in forest- and winter-green tissue paper around a cone fashioned out of a North Dakota newspaper, six weeks old. He handed it to her without words, she accepted and thanked him without words, and he drove off.

Several hours later, Cooper Fisher turned on the radio, which sounded not just distant, but morose as well, now, and smirked in his bittersweet disappointment. He felt defeated and disgusted, but he met her and she hugged him. One of those songs from days ago came back: "Logic will break your heart forever. Be brave...."