Take Me Home | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Eight (unedited)

Recap: Since the last time we've left Elliot and Vienna, they've dropped off Eli at Alberquerque (albeit without having Vienna and Eli kiss first and probably for the last time) and they've stopped in a nearby park off the highways of Nevada to let the truck engine cool. They ended up sharing long conversations in the flatbed of the pickup truck at 4 AM, and eventually fell asleep whilst sharing a blanket. :) 

song on the side is Mackenzie Bourg's "Everyone's Got A Story" bc he's a cutie pie and the song fits perfectly. 

and the photo that Elliot took of Vienna is on the side ----->

. . . . . 

I felt the first three raindrops come falling on my face. 

Then, the whole sky started peeing on me. 

The rain fell in torrents in less than a minute, and considering I was half-asleep on the back of a pick-up truck with my face tilted to the heavens, it was a pretty sucky way of waking me up. 

Instinctively I let out a shriek, covering my face with the blanket I had wrapped around me, and felt someone beside me jab their elbow into my ribcage. 

"Ow!" I hissed. "Elliot, that was my chest!" 

Still half-asleep, Elliot mumbled and groaned something I couldn't understand, and when he finally realized that it was raining and raining hard on us, he sat up instantly, cursing. 

"Eugh, of course this would happen," Elliot scowled, grabbing one of the blankets near him and throwing it over his head.

I stifled my chuckles at the sight of him, groggy-eyed and alarmed, at the prospect of rain.

"We better get back inside before we get soaked and get sick," he suggested, grabbing whatever was nearby to take back into the truck. 

The rain was coming down in pellets by now, and the darkening clouds seemed to have come from absolutely nowhere. The rain soaked through the blanket that I strategically placed above my head and was quickly dampening my clothes. Of course, like the gentleman Elliot was deep down inside, he had waited for me to climb down from the truck and held a hand for me. 

I jumped down and we made a race to get back inside the truck. We slammed the doors shut behind us  just as a pulse of thunder reverberated across the playground field, and arain hammered the windshield. 

Beside me, Elliot stuck his nose upwards in a twisted face, "Gross. We smell like wet dogs now." 

I gasped, "We?" 

He chuckled, running a hand through his wet, slick hair. "We." 

Just out of curiosity, I lift up my arm and take a whiff of myself, and I didn't smell that bad. But then again, the last time I'd taken a proper shower was when we took a pit stop at Elliot's uncle's house in Texas. And even that felt like decades ago. 

I then wondered just how long I had been with Elliot. It was dawn by now, the digital clock on the dashboard blaring 6:02 AM. The engine had stopped sputtering clouds and billows of smoke, so that was a good sign. But this meant graduation day was in less than twenty-four hours. Just tomorrow. 

Tomorrow. 

Just thinking about being reunited with my mother made deep, deep dread come flaring through my veins. I hadn't even thought twice about calling her and letting her know that I wasn't in North Carolina, and that I was alright. Actually, I wasn't alright -- but I was alive and breathing, and maybe that's what being 'alright' meant. But it would be an understatement to say that I wasn't looking forward to seeing her again.