VALERIE

Seventeen

"You're leaving?" Lily questioned as she was watching Nick from his bedroom door way, he was throwing some clothes into a suitcase casually, without even folding them.

Nick turned his head and nodded then looked back into his closet.

"Nick, is this because of what your dad said?"

"Ha, no." He deadpanned bending down in his closet to see what shoes he should take with him.

"Nick, where are you going?" Lily asked standing behind him now, he had such a mess in his room from all the clothes he had too taken out, she could barely find her footing.

"Somewhere." He replied vaguely,

"Nick."

"Lily."

"Please?" She bent beside him and pouted, sighing Nick shut his eyes in annoyance.

"Florida, I'm going to Florida."

"What why? What about school?"

"What about it?"

"Nicholas, it's your senior year."

"So? I have like 7 more months, besides this is probably just for a week or two."

Lily sighed, "Why are you going to Florida?"

Standing up Nick reached for an old destroyed shoe box on the top shelf of his closet, bringing it down he blew the dust off of it, Lily watched as Nick carefully opened the box.

Crumpled up dusty letters sat in the box, "My mom," He put the box down on his bed and began to rummage through it, looking for the envelope that would reassure him of his mothers whereabouts, "My mom, she left me this key when she left," He held up a brass key in front of Lily's face, "And when my mom left, she wrote to me for a year until I was nine, and on the last letter she sent me..." He turned his attention back into the box and pulled out the envelope he had been looking for, "This, in this envelope her sending address is on it, and she lives in Florida."

The hopeful look on Nick's face crushed Lily, she tried biting her tongue but couldn't, "Nick, what if she doesn't even live there anymore or what if it was a fake address?"

Nick stuffed the envelope and key back into the box, "That's what I'm going to find out, I write her letters maybe 20 times a year but I never get anything back, maybe she just reads them but doesn't reply."

"Why? What if she doesn't want to see you?"

Nick stopped moving around, she was right. What if she didn't want to see him? What if she didn't want anything to do with him?

The Eighteen your old gave Lily a fake smile before placing his large hand on her head to tussle her blonde locks, "I just need closure."

"Nick I didn't mean it like tha-"

"I'll find her, and whatever happens, happens, I just need to see her."