"How are we going to get out of this town?" Sleep filled Maple's voice. Her head lay in Staton's lap; slowly his fingers laced every red strand cascading down his thigh. A shallow sigh and a couple breaths later she sat up sitting on his lap leaning...
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The next morning was chilly. The crisp air wrapped around us just like the first time we climbed into the back of Breygan's truck. A part of me couldn't believe we were already leaving. It had been months at this point and California never felt like home, but this was the first place that Staton and I got to settle. Even if we never really settled. I'd thought about texting Aria and Julia to let them know what our plan was, but part of me was too scared to let them in on the secret. I hadn't heard from them since they had gotten home. I'd seen from a few of their Instagram stories that they were home safely. That made me feel a little bit better, but a huge part of me felt like Julia should still be here with us.
How would we have made this trip if Julia was still here with us, though? Would we have had to leave her here? Would Tony have been there for her? Was Tony still there for her? So many questions spiraled through my head. Maybe I would never get the answers to them, but I couldn't help but ask myself, just in case.
"Are you ready to go?" Staton asks, jumping in the driver's seat of the van. I nodded my head, taking a look at the suitcases that were sitting in the middle of the floor behind our seats. We weren't sure where to put them and figured we could move them to our chairs when we weren't driving.
"I couldn't be more ready," I mumbled, looking out at the beautiful sunrise. The sun was lighting up the mountains, casting a warm glow over the palm trees that lined the beach. I didn't want to leave this town for something that wasn't going to be nearly as pretty. I tried looking up images of South Carolina but without knowing exactly where we were going to end up I had no clue what to look for. All I could really come up with was the trees there were filled with long wispy strands of Spanish moss. I was excited to see that in person.
It was interesting with how rich our families were, that neither of us had ever traveled.
"I know I've asked this before, but what is the reasoning behind South Carolina? Why did you always want to go there so bad?" I couldn't remember Staton ever mentioning liking South Carolina, other than when we would talk about what our dream life would look like.
"My grandmother lived there and owned a horse farm. Before we moved to Washington, my family and I would go and visit her often. When she passed away, there seemed to be no reason for us to stay there anymore. We never lived there, but we lived in Virginia, which seemed to be close enough to travel there often. We would never miss a holiday. But as I said, once she passed away, there seemed to be no reason to stay on the east coast, and my dad found a better business in Seattle. They never even gave us kids a chance to have a say in the matter. I don't remember much from living over there, but I remember the love I felt from my family. I've always just been chasing that."
My heart sank at the thought of Staton not feeling good enough or loved by his family. Out of the two of us, he always seemed to have the better end of the deal, but that doesn't mean his situation was perfect. Obviously, if it was he wouldn't have been so quick to run away with me. He would have tried to convince me to stay, even if it meant moving in with him and his family, or us getting our own place.
