Fireworks

Chapter Ten

"You know how everyone's always saying seize the moment? I don't know, I'm kind of thinking it's the other way around, you know, like the moment seizes us." ~ Jessi Mechler, Boyhood

//

"It takes three hours and twenty four minutes to get to Orlando from here, without traffic. I say that we leave today and stay at a hotel for tonight and tomorrow night then we head back the day after the concert," Charlie explained.

"Are you just suggesting it?" I giggled.

"No, I already bought the night at the hotel. We're leaving at noon, be ready," He ordered.

"Alright, bye," I finished, hanging up the phone.

Even though I have over an hour to pack a bag and I already picked out my outfit to wear to the concert tomorrow night, I decided to start packing now. I pulled out three outfits, since I'm a complete overpacker. I always bring so much more than I need, but whatever. It's better to have too much than not enough, in my opinion.

//

"Bye Dad! Bye Liv!" I called to my family.

"You're leaving already?" Olivia asked.

"Yeah, Charlie's in the driveway," I answered.

"Hey, Em?" My dad awkwardly said, waving me over. Liv went out the back door towards the beach and I walked into the kitchen to meet my dad.

"Yeah, what's up?"

He sighed. "I don't really want to talk about this, but I'm your dad and I kind of feel like I have to, especially because I never have before."

"If you're going to say no sex, be careful, keep your belongings, et cetera, thank you, but I've heard it all from mom," I smiled.

"She stole another job of mine, didn't she?" He scoffed, rubbing his temples probably from relief.

"No offense, but you didn't really have any job in my life for the past couple of years," I admitted.

"Okay, that was a fair comment. I'm gonna let that one go," My dad laughed. "Go meet Charlie, the boy's waiting for you outside. Have fun, and remember what you said about me telling you."

"No sex, be careful, keep your belongings," I repeated. "Bye dad, love you."

"Love you too, see you in a couple days," He finished. I grabbed my two bags and shoved one onto my shoulder and held the other in my hand. When I was settled, I exited the house and walked out to Charlie's car, throwing my bags into the backseat and sitting in the passenger seat.

"Sorry that took so long," I apologized.

"No worries," He replied, bobbing his head a little bit to the music. His taste in music isn't exactly my taste in music, but I like it nonetheless. He is a huge country music guy, but he also likes some weird type of music that doesn't really fit into specific genres. The current song was one of those. As much of a music girl I am, I still don't know anything about this music.

Charlie pulled his car out of my driveway and began the long ride to Orlando.

//

"This was my sophomore semi-formal dance," I said, showing him a picture off of my phone. We had stopped at Shake Shack and were eating burgers right now. There was major traffic for a lot of the way so far, so it is already six o'clock and we were hungry.

"This was my sophomore semi," Charlie replied, showing me an image on his phone. The picture was almost identical to mine, except with different people.