Take Me Home | ✔

Chapter Four

Woah woah woah.

A normal, well-raised girl would femininely and delicately accept the offer with a light, "Yes, please," but I was never that girl. 

Instead, I rose up so fast, my chair tipped back and slammed against the carpet of the small hotel bistro, and I smiled with a wide, Chesire-cat grin. 

"Oh, would you?" I say with a happy look in my eyes. I reached for his hand before he pulled back and shook it ecstatically. "I would eternally be grateful, Elliot, I really would be." 

Judging by the crazed look in his eyes, he didn't expect such a grateful and exuberant outburst, but he casually nodded his head, and disentangled our fingers, letting go of my sweaty grip. 

"I don't mind, I'm headed my way there." He takes a sip of his coffee like driving an almost-stranger across the country was a piece of cake. 

"Oh, really? For what?" 

The second I ask the question, his body tenses up, and he sits up straighter than he was usually sitting. He glares down at his cup of coffee, tracing the rim of the cup. 

"I'm visiting a good friend."

I knew then that he was, for sure, lying, because a hurt look became on his suddenly altered face, and he looked like he would burst into tears any minute. But in the span of a second, he looked like himself again, and rose up out of his chair like nothing was wrong. 

But as I picked and put my chair back upright, I see him pick through his pocket for his phone, turning it over in his shaking hands. Soon, Elliot's phone call conversation haunted me in the back of my mind. 

Did she lose a lot of blood? he had said earlier, his voice echoing in my mind.

But I shook it off. It wasn't my business to know who had lost a lot of blood, whether it his mom or his friend. It wasn't my business and the only thing that irked me more than getting lost in a new place was nosy people. 

Turning round to face him, I threw my coffee cup away and joined him at the door.

"When should we leave?" I ask him, but I was really hoping the answer was "soon." 

"I have to get to California fast, so we should get out of here as soon as possible," was his short reply, a hard look coming over his glazed eyes. Once again, he turns his phone over in his hands, rubbing the glassy surface anxiously.

He catches me staring at him. "You know, for my friend. She wants to see me soon." 

"Uh huh," I reply, nodding my head and bobbing along the fake conversation but not bothering to question any more. It wasn't my business. 

Finally, after all the bad luck that has happened in less than twenty-four hours, something was finally going right for me. I hoped for my sake it would last. 

"I just have to get some things from my room and we're set to go," Elliot said to me, and before long, we were together in his hall, as I waited outside his door for him to get his bags. 

It took all my energy not to hyperventilate from all the anxiety and stress. If only I had woken up earlier, I probably wouldn't be in this situation. But then again, I would be going back, and it would only be a matter of days before I would get back home. I forced myself to banish the negative thoughts and just think happily from now on. 

But it was hard not to want to cry at the prospect of my stolen luggage. I paced in the empty hall, kicking the walls softly with the stub of my shoe. I bit my lip, and tried not to think about all the things left in my suitcase that was probably being rummaged by some thief right about now. 

My phone charger, which would really save my butt. My wallet, which I would kill for, even if the only things in there were empty gum wrappers and a dollar bill. And most importantly, clean underwear. How would I live? 

Just as I began to think even more depressing thoughts, the creak of a cheap hotel door opened and out came Elliot, and in his hand was a lone suitcase and keys. 

He looked at me but not really looked into my eyes, as if he were hiding something. With a small voice, he says, "We should better go or we'll lose the daylight." 

I nod and stare at my empty hands. 

"So you don't have anything to bring? No clean clothes, no money, no phone...nothing?" he asks me. 

His dreadful question brings more depression weighing down my stomach. 

"Nothing but my useless phone and whatever lint I have in my pockets," I reply dismally. The second I break the tension with even more tension, I regret it, as the hard look fills his eyes and he tosses his phone through his fingers. 

"We can drop by the store and get you some clothes, I have a bit of pocket money left," he generously offered, and the gesture struck a pang in my heart. 

"No, you don't have to - " I start, but he interrupts me by handing me his phone. 

I stare at it, "What's this?" 

"Don't you wanna call your folks, let them know that you're still alive? I mean, stranded on the other side of the country, but I mean, you're alive, so that's gotta count." 

The image of the black phone just deepened the ever surging wave of dread I was trying to stomach. I'd spent so long trying to avoid all contact with my mother ever since her incident that talking to her seemed foreign. And to call her up and tell her I'm travelling with a boy I barely know? She would probably smack me for being so risky. 

"Uh, no thanks," I shook my head. "I'm sure they'll get the memo, soon enough." 

He shoots me a confused look, before pocketing his phone and shrugging. 

I follow him down the hall and to the elevators, and to his car, and maybe, eventually, back home. I anticipated the car ride with a little apprehension. Would it be filled with awkwardness and silence half the way back?

Somehow, I had a bad feeling mixed in with all the relief.