tired yet? ||cashby||

Chapter 3

"Okay," I agreed. "I should get dressed though." He smiled softly.

"I'll wait here for you," he said, taking a seat on one end of the island.

Excited, nervous, but mostly happy, I quietly scurried away to my room and pulled my pajamas off, trading them for a pair of shorts that I'd cut at the knees from skinny jeans that had gotten too short, and a zip up sweatshirt. It really surprised me that any person actually tolerated being near me for more than an hour or two.

So I tried very hard to not question a good thing, and tiptoed back upstairs, with my flashlight and phone, both concealed in my pocket. Austin hadn't moved at all from when I'd left less than 5 minutes ago.

"Ready?" he asked. I nodded, and we both exited the house. I actually had no idea where he was taking me, but I just went along with it and hopped into the passenger seat of his car. This could either be the start of a fun night or the beginning of a horror flick; I chose to put my money on the former.
It had been so long since anyone talked to me, took me anywhere, made any sort of contact with me, that I was just riding out this high.

"Where are we going?" I asked quietly. My voice felt like it absorbed right into the darkness of Austin's old black car, flowing effortlessly about the air. He shrugged.

"Sometimes," he said, smiling excitedly, "I like to just drive to see what I can find. There're some strange things going on at night in this town. We'll just go around until we're tired enough to sleep," he said. The center console divided us, and I felt a warm blush make its way into my cheeks. He was so handsome, and his personality just made it that much better.

"Okay," I agreed. "Let's drive." He pulled out quietly.

"If your parents ask where you were," he said, peeling out of our development, "I wasn't part of this."

"That's fair." I shrugged. "I don't really think that they'll care, though..." My dad didn't really care about anything. I think he was depressed with his job, but he kept putting on that same tie everyday, going to the same place, doing the same work. He didn't pay any attention to me, even when I needed some, like during the school year. My mom tried her best, but she was sometimes very oblivious. I never would have agreed to this if I had overprotective, untrusting parents.

"They wouldn't care?" he asked incredulously. "Some older guy, just driving you around at 2 AM?" After his statement, I think I saw him clamp his lips together. There was an implication in his statement, I knew, but I only let it fuel my good mood.

"They don't care about me," I mumbled, staring out the window. That was a lie; I knew they cared, but it was conditional, and limited, and they never acted like they liked me. My mom did sometimes, only when she wasn't too busy.

"That's not true," he said in an upbeat tone. I shrugged, wishing to change the depressing topic.

"What're your parents like?" I asked, pulling my knees up to my chest and resting my feet on the dashboard. His frown was so subtle that I almost missed it.

"Assimilating," he pronounced the word carefully.

"How so?" I smiled. It felt nice to talk with another person. He put on this mock-anger face, and shook his free hand like a fist in the air.

"Do sports, get a scholarship, marry a nice girl, have kids, retire!" he imitated his father. "That's all there is in life: work, marriage, family!" He stopped, placing both hands on the wheel. "I don't want that."

"What do you want?" I asked, smiling. He shrugged.

"I don't know. Maybe... Maybe I want to travel," he said, his voice aggressive with rebellion and excitement. "Maybe I want more mystery." I pondered his statement, and felt glad that my parents had little expectations for me.