An empty road ahead

Chapter One

                                                    

' Weirdo? Wakey-wakey. WAKE UP!'

The voice crashed into my dream, and pulled me into reality.

I opened my eyes groggily.

Outside my window, a girl stood on the fire escape, with her head sticking into my room.

'Lola.' I said sleepingly.

' The one and only.' she said, smiling.

' It's five a.m. Come back later.'

' Yeah no. Come on loser.'

I walked up to the window and opened it up completely.

' About time, lazy.' Lola said while stepping in.

She still had that crazy look upon her face, with her wild hair pointing at every direction.

' What do you want?'

' Oh, come on weirdo. It's the first day of summer break! Let's enjoy it.'

I'd rather spend it in my bed. Sleeping, I thought to myself.

' What's your plan?' I said finally.

' See? I knew you'd be up for it! Now, let's go!'

Shortly after I got dressed, we headed out in the streets of our little town Summit Lake.

Unlike us, the town was sleeping.

' Why are you up so early?' I asked Lola after a while.

Lola's smile faded and for a second, she hesitated. And then she put her mask on again, and answered flatly:

' My parents were fighting. Couldn't sleep.'

I looked at her quietly.

Lola had normally her guard up, and these few rare moments were the times I had the chance to really understand her.

Little did I know, that I'd learn to know a lot better about her during the following months.

Lola cleared her throat.

' Hey Blondie.' she said looking up at the view of the little mountain nearby. 'Let's do something fun.'

' Like what?'

With a wicked smile, she answered.

'Let's take a hike.'

' I'm dying.' she said, looking at the view.

I didn't answer, but my mind was going into hyper mode.

Lola's dying? Oh, god what do I know about first aid? Is she sick? Is it contagious?

We were on top of the mountain, that was about two miles away from our town.

' I'm suffocating in this dump.' she continued.

She was facing the old church and the mayors house, her home.

' What do you mean?'

' I need change. I've living in this deathtrap all my life. ' she turned and faced me. ' I'm sixteen. And I've never been outside this state.'

I didn't answer.

What could she possibly be talking about? I've never been outside this state either, and I'm not “dying”.

' I should run away.' she said, almost to herself.

' Not without me.' I corrected her.

She smiled. ' Of course. Were would I be without my meathead?'

She nudged my shoulder with her suntanned arm.

 ' But of course' she went on ' we couldn’t leave right away.'

I nodded, thinking about my bed.

' We had to pack first. ' she said quietly, almost to herself. ' Only the necessary. Like water, food, a pair of sunglasses, spare clothes and good shoes. But how would we get there?'

' Get where?'

' Anywhere. Nowhere. Wherever we wanted to go. We could do it, you know. Travel the world. See sights that are unknown to mankind. We could do that.'

I imagined me and Lola, traveling across the world. It felt good, yet very far away.

' So how would we get there?' she asked herself. ' To take a plane we had to travel to Vegas somehow.'

' My gran owns a car.' I said thoughtfully, not even noticing what I was about to trigger.

' Great! We can borrow her car and drive to Wherever.'

Suddenly, Lola stood up and reached out her arm.

' Come on weirdo.' she said hesitating. ' Let's head back.'

We did not talk about running away the following days.

We were too busy doing what Lola thought “every teenager should do before they get old and boring”. There were a lot of things on that list.

Some things on the list were creative, and honestly very true.

Like sitting on a balcony and throwing water balloons at random people below.

And others were just plain weird.

Like licking a cow.

' Come on weirdo.' Lola had whined. ' Licking a cow is every city girls dream.'

Lucky for me that I'm not a city girl then.

' Please? I'll owe you a million if you finish this list with me.' she gave me the puppy dog eyes.

I wish I could say that I did not lick a cow that day.

' How did you come up with this list?' I asked her one day.

' Easy. With this.' she held up the blue notebook would change everything.

At the time, I didn't think much of it. ' A notebook?'

' I've written down in this little miracle everything we need to do before we can graduate.'

' But what if we can't finish it in time?'

' Simple. Then we can't graduate.'

I looked at her doubtingly. 

' Mark my words: I will not graduate until I finish this list.' she said determinedly.

That would be a lot harder than she could ever imagine.