15 Things

34: Driving, Driving, Dreams

The pair flies back to Vancouver, where they left Adrian's car. They drive for eight hours back to Idaho and spend the night. 

Adrian tells Autumn that if they went to Hawaii first, they would have to spend five days driving back to Delaware. By then, he knew, they would both hate life. 

So, he said, they would drive their five days first, then go to Hawaii as their reward. Autumn thought his logic was sound. 

They crash at a hotel, then are up bright and early to drive twelve hours across Montana. They switch drivers every few hours. 

The next morning, they drive the bulk of their trip in 13 hours. They get bored fast, so use a reward system for every 100 miles, they stop to get chocolate. It works. 

On the fourth day, they allow themselves to sleep in, then drive nine and a half hours to Ohio. Just one more day, they tell themselves, then we can go to Hawaii. 

On the last day, they drive their nine hours to their houses. They bring their suitcases to their houses, pack some different clothes, Autumn gets more books and logs the ones she read (now up to 691). They meet back at the car the next morning. 

"Ready to end this thing with a bang?" Adrian asks while buckling his seatbelt. She nods. "Of course!"

She gets the feeling that Adrian is keeping something from her. She wants to ask what's wrong, but thinks better of it. If he wanted to talk about it, he would say so. 

Right?

They dread the twenty minutes it takes them by car to get to the airport, but once they get there, they're relieved. After going through security, they eat lunch and board the plane. It's a connecting flight, going from Delaware to Kansas, Kansas to California, and California to Hawaii. After an exhausting day of flying, they waste no time crashing in their hotel room. 

The next morning, they go surfing on the beach (once again pretending they know how), admire beautiful views, observe volcanoes and make up scenarios if one erupted right then, and try to climb palm trees. They have enough fun to make up for the week of travelling. 

Days pass. When it's finally time to return home, they sleep nearly the entire flight. 

Autumn dreams. 

She dreams mainly of things she's experienced over the summer, but occasionally, she dreams of other things. 

She dreams of her mother. Sometimes she's packing her suitcase and saying that she's going to go to every state and choose which one she's going to live in to get away from her. 

Sometimes she's trying not to touch Autumn, because she thinks cancer is contagious, and all she wants is a hug. 

Sometimes she's pitching herself off the side of a bridge, screaming that she hates cancer on the way down. 

Autumn wakes up from these dreams in a cold sweat. 

Some nights, like tonight, she dreams of death. 

Sometimes they are nightmares, where she is dying, being consumed by cancer, eventually becoming a walking tumor. Other times she dies and feels absolutely nothing, and wakes up gasping for air. 

Other times, they are good dreams. She dreams that she dies and goes to Heaven, running to her mother and Jayson, where they have a family reunion in the clouds. Her pet goldfish she had when she was younger sometimes is floating in a bubble above their heads. The sun always shines, her cancer is gone and she can breathe without pain. 

She wakes from these dreams feeling uncontrollable longing. 

She won't let these dreams scare her. 

She can't.