I'll be here forever

chapter 41

Percy didn't ask about my nightmare after that, which I appreciated. I knew that I had been horribly persistent in finding out about his, and I was glad he let me keep the more painful things to myself. I suppose he understood me.

I didn't want to think about that hell river more than I possibly had to.

We packed up the tent, which didn't take long, because everything we owned was either in the dressers or in our backpack. We were used to living with very little.

Then we loaded up our latest stolen car, an older car, I couldn't tell you what kind. All I know is that it was silver, and it was obsessively clean. I enjoyed that part of it; usually, the cars we stole were disgusting.

And then we started driving, and we kept driving, him at the wheel. We still stuck to my route map, following the path I'd drawn on the very worn page I'd torn out of that magazine back in the Elmira barbershop. And even though none of the towns we'd already driven through brought back any memories, we enjoyed the trip.

Neither of us had discussed what was going to happen once we'd completed our journey of going through New York; honestly, I wasn't sure if we'd live long enough to. Monster attacks grew more and more frequent, the closer we got to Long Island, the last city on my map.

Actually, I hadn't even thought about what would happen after that. There'd be nowhere left to go, nowhere left to run. Nowhere to call home.

At this point, I was banking on the fact that one of these towns might magically reboot our brains and give us the memories of our families, our friends, each other. It got less and less likely, the closer we got to the end of our trip. Still, I hoped.

Now that I was thinking about it, neither Percy or I ever had a dream about anything but each other. I'd never seen another person or thing in any of my dreams and nightmares, and Percy hadn't mentioned seeing any either. Just one more cruel trick, I suppose.

Percy reached over with one hand and slipped it into my hand, his fingers entwining with mine. His other hand stayed on the wheel.

Even though now I knew that he felt the same about me, I felt like a little kid holding his hand, giddy and indescribably happy. My heart started beating quicker than it should've, and my face turned red as I squeezed his hand, as if confirming to myself that it was really there. He was really holding my hand right now. It seemed impossible, and yet here we were, his hand fitting perfectly in with mine.

It was different, much different at night. For some reason, everything seemed much more... surreal. Him holding me in his arms all night could pass for my imagination, and midnight kisses may as well have been a dream. A really, really good dream.

But here, during the day, the sunlight glaring into my eyes, everything was very, very real. His hand in mine was real, it was real. And I had him, I had all of him.

It was actually pretty nice being back on the road again. Our time in Cooperstown had been a lot longer than we'd anticipated, and I'd missed being on the road. Plus, eventually all the conversations were the same, no one ever spoke about anything new. It was almost like that town was stuck in their ways, never trying anything else. While it had been home for a long time, I was glad that we were on the road again.

I started to think about what we would do once we reached the end of our trip. Would we settle down in Long Island, stay there, live our lives? Would we save up for a car of our own and then keep driving and try a different state, maybe drive around the country, no longer searching for our memories but instead enjoying the journey? Would we even make it that long?

Morning melted into night, which turned into day, then becoming evening, so on, and so on. Days passed, driving during the day, sleeping together at night. Days, then a week.

A week with Percy. Just a week. Not much time in the grand scheme of life, not very long considering how much we'd been through. A week, but a week I'd never forget. A week of holding his hand, a week of kisses that made me feel like the only girl in the world, a week of being truly loved by him. A week I should've cherished more, a week I wanted to savor for as long as I could. A week I still look back on and wish, wish for again. A week when everything was perfect.

I would've clung to it much more tightly if I'd known what would happen.