Chapter Thirty-Four:
A Long Night
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I couldn't believe that I had to travel all the way over to Tennessee with the boy who just broke up with me. I was having a hard enough time trying not to think about him and now being stuck in a car for however many hours was going to be even harder.
That Saturday, Cameron glumly took me over to my house and helped me pack up all my clothes and belongings. The rest, my mom said, would be packed up by the movers. I didn't know they would pack it up for us, but I didn't argue.
The remaining days of that week, I managed to hang out with Emma and tell her goodbye for a while.
We agreed to text, call, and FaceTime all the time. Emma is my first honest best friend and I didn't want that to end.
Once all my stuff was on the back of Cameron's truck, he stood at the opposite side of the truck and we looked at each other for a moment. I was the first one to move over to get in the truck. He followed afterwards. I made sure to get my iPod and headphones and kept them with me because I had a feeling I'd need them.
"I can't believe you're actually moving away." Cameron said. It was low and I thought he was talking to me but it was more to himself since he never looked at me. I felt guilty for a moment before realizing I don't need to feel guilty. He did this. He broke us up and now we can't be together.
But the butterflies I got every time we touched or he said my name never disappeared for a second. They were always there, haunting me of my feelings I still have for him.
A small part agrees with him. How in the world could it have worked? I don't know how long Matt's going to be in the hospital. All I knew was that I was willing to make every arrangement I could to see him as much as possible. But it seems that he wasn't as willing.
I decided to keep quiet. A conversation would be awkward right now. So, I leaned forward with my seatbelt holding me back and turned the radio on. That was much better. The next step was to plug my headphones in and put them in my ears before turning the volume halfway up.
I could see Cameron glancing over at me warily as I propped my elbow on the door and stared out the window. I wasn't in the mood for a conversation.
I flipped through the songs I had on my playlists and noticed that the battery was halfway down. I had my car charger, thank goodness, because I knew I would need it. But then I realized that Cameron's stupid truck didn't have a plug in. That was disappointing. I guess I don't get to play flappy bird now.
I had went through my one playlists of fifteen songs titled 'Favorites' one and a half times when Cameron started to pull over to the side of the road. I hadn't even noticed where we were at until now. Hay fields were surrounding all sides of us now with no sight of human life for next five miles or so. This grass had yet to be fully grown into hay for the farmers to make so it wasn't too high. A river was on the left side of the road which, for some stupid reason, is the way Cameron pulled off. Normally a person would pull off on the side they were driving on but Cameron here had to be difficult about it.
"What's wrong?" I asked after I pulled one earbud out of my ear. Cameron gave me a look of annoyance before he quickly and hastily jumped out of the truck. It was then that I noticed the black smoke coming out from the cracks of the hood. Alarmed, I threw my iPod down on the seat and jumped out the truck. Of course this would happen to me. Of course it would.
"What happened to it?" I whined, obviously annoyed as much as Cam was. He leaned both his elbows against the truck and covered his face with his hands in a stressful way.
"I'll have to check on it. Do you have cell service?" He asked me. I took my phone out of my pocket and sighed heavily. "No."
This was beyond suckish.
"Wait, I do. I have one bar. I bet if we were higher up it's be better." He stated. Then he looked at me and smile wickedly. It's weird how he can act as if nothing was wrong even for just a quick seconds.
"What do you think I can do? You're taller than me." I argued. He shook his head planted his phone in my palm.
"Climb on the back of the truck and get on the hood if you have to. I know it'll work better. Then you can call a row truck." He explained nicely while ushering me to the back of the truck. I sighed, feeling defeated.
On the top of the truck cab, I took in the sky. It was getting clouded over with rain clouds already and I knew right away that wasn't a good sign at all.
On the bright side, I got two more bars on Cameron's phone so that was a good sign. Before I searched a number to call, I asked Cameron where we were.
"Um, I think we're in Cascade, Virginia." He told me as he searched around for a tool. He was focused on his truck now.
I searched on his phone until I found the nearest number from the nearest town. I didn't know where this small town was with a towing company in it, but that was the only option I had. I dialed the number and held the phone to my ear.
After explaining where we were, which wasn't hard since there was only hayfields surrounding us. The disappointing news was that he'd be here in about two hours. I could have cried. Two hours in a truck with Cameron? I say truck because just as I got off the top of the truck, rain came down from the sky.
There goes my luggage.
Cameron hurriedly ran to the back of the truck with a trash bag he found behind his seat. I watched through the back glass as he covered my bags with the bag as much as he could. I have several bags since most of my stuff was back there. I just hoped my clothes wouldn't be soaked. Plus, his bag of clothes was back there too. I noticed that he put his under the bag last.
Oh, how sweet, I seethed.
He climbed back in and I watched the raindrops tap against the windshield periodically. I didn't think it would rain very hard right now.
"Thanks for covering my stuff." I mumbled, half distracted by the raindrops racing down the glass in front of me.
"Welcome. How long will it take for the tow truck to be here?" He asked. I could feel his eyes in the side of my face but I didn't dare look over. Instead, I grabbed my iPod and plugged my ears with the headphones.
"Two hours." I told him solemnly.
But when I went to pick a song, the screen went black. It was dead. Groaning in frustration, I yanked the headphones out if my ears and tossed my iPod onto the seat between Cameron and me.
"Stupid truck." I grumbled. This made my bad mood soar.
"I guess you'll just have to talk to me for the next few hours." Cameron said with a little bit of triumph. He liked having me cornered.
"What makes you think I'll talk to you?" I raised an eyebrow at him. He smiled a little.
"I don't know. Maybe because we have two while hours to endure." He answered back before crossing his arms over his chest. I scowled.
"That makes it easier not to talk." I deadpanned. It was a lie, I didn't like silence for that long. But I was willing to put up with it right now. Cameron frowned now.
"This isn't like you at all, Sophia." He said with a regretful tone. It was almost a sad ton.
"Gee, Cameron. I wonder why I don't want to talk to you." I snapped and turned my head to look out the window.
"Don't be like that. You know I was only thinking about what was best for us." He tried to pound his point into my head.
"How do you think that would help? You know what? Just drop it. I don't want to talk about it right now." I growled and leaned my head on the window. I forced my eyes shut to keep myself from crying hot, angry tears, but it didn't work. Although my face was relaxed, I felt a tear slide down my cheek and right over my lip. I hastily wiped it away and tried not to look like I was as a mess in the outside as I was on the inside.
Cameron didn't speak from that moment on. I could tell he was getting fidgety and he hated the silence. I did too; my ears were ringing from the silence.
Thankfully, I soon heard a truck roaring near by on the highway. I craned my neck to look out the window into the rain. I saw headlights and soon enough, the two truck was backing up to us and and hooking the front of he truck up to the back of his.
"Looks like you guys have a problem. Probably a spark plug..." The man trailed off. I sighed and shook my head. I didn't know much about cars, but I've heard guys talk about spark plugs before. And this doesn't look good.
"Okay. How about we take it to the nearest garage and we can get it in the morning?" Cameron asked the guy. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, about to pay for the towing.
"Yeah I can do that. Where do you want me to drop you guys off? There's a hotel in the next town up the road a few miles." He accepted the right amount of money from Cameron and tucked it in his pocket.
"Okay. Sounds good." Cameron glanced at me and I nodded my head. My mom would most definitely pay him back the money he spends. But I was planning to pay for the room tonight, he wasn't.
As we climbed up into the tow truck with me squished in the middle, the man who I saw was named Paul from his name tag started to talk to us.
"I'll warn you now, it's crowded in town. People are starting to go in vacation for the summer." He said.
"Why do they stay here?" I asked him, talking about the town we just entered.
"They're mostly on their way to the beach." Paul told us. I nodded my head in understanding.
Once we got to a hotel, Paul gave Cameron the directions to the garage he'd be taking the truck to. We'd inly have to walk there. Slinging one bag of my clothes off the back of the truck, I followed Cameron into the lobby of the small hotel and I saw just how crowded it was. People were piled in the pool even at this hour of eight o'clock.
"Can we have one room please?" I asked the person at the front desk. He nodded his head and I paid before Cameron even realized what was happening.
"Wait, did you just pay for the room?" He asked me. I simply nodded my head and strutted off towards the elevator. It didn't take long for Cameron to catch up to me. This was going to be one long night.
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Thank you all for reading!