Set ten years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John Connor and his mother, Sarah Connor, are off-grid and separated in 2005. While Sarah is at Norfolk, Virginia, for matters too personal to tell her own son, John is surviving on his o...
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We stop at a picturesque wooden bridge with a babbling creek underneath and rolling fields all around. It's still early morning, like, really early morning, so the crickets are still out and it's still dark. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that we were in Bridges of Madison County, some romance movie that my foster mom watched all the time.
I shift the gears to break and turn around to look at Reyna, who had worked up a drool from the corner of her mouth.
"Hey, Reyna." I gently shake her awake.
"No funny business, Victor." She slurs. "Remember what your mom said?"
My stomach sinks at the name 'Victor.' "Reyna, it's me. It's John."
She opens her eyes, then closes them again in relief. Or annoyance. "John? Where are we?" She looks around, squinting.
I rub the back of my neck. "Would you believe me if I said we're in Nashville?"
Reyna climbs off the motorcycle and looks around.
"What?! How? How is this possible?"
"I... kind of pulled an all-nighter."
She scoffs. "So you're telling me that you drove, non-stop, from Oklahoma to Nashville?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Why didn't you wake me up?"
"Because you talk really funny when you sleep." I smirk.
Reyna does something I have never seen her do: she pales. "Wh-What did I say?"
I think, trying to remember. "Nothing bad. You said 'Chill Out,' and something about PDA. Oh, and you also said 'Atlantis'."
She laughs. "That was one of the best and worst times in my life."
She explains everything about how she had gotten accepted into Princeton through a martial arts tournament, where potential recipients were interviewed before being judged on their skills. No, they did not beat each other up.
She explains how she and her mom had one of the worst fights between mother and daughter—in public. She explains how she had to walk to her boyfriend's house and stay the weekend because she was too scared to return home.
"Reyna?" I ask when she's done. "Who's Victor?"
Her face flashes with nostalgia, then fear, anger, and sadness. "He...he was... my boyfriend. The one I was talking about. Why? How do you know him?"
"You called me that when I woke you up. What did he do to you?" For someone to have gone through that many emotions in one minute, they've had to have gone through an equivalent of hell.
"Prove my mom right." She mutters. "Come on, we should go."
"No, we should stay, just for a bit."
Reyna reluctantly agrees and wanders off to stretch and find food for us to eat. Meanwhile, I pace back and forth from one end of the bridge to the other. After the second round, I slump next to my motorcycle and hold my head in my arms.
I'm tired. So tired. I'm tired of running away. I'm tired of being vigilant and having to live off-grid. I'm so tired of wishing that everything is different. I'm tired of-
"Hey," Reyna says, placing a hand on my shoulder and settling in front of me. "I found us some breakfast." In her hands are a handful of berries.
I shake my head. "I'm tired, Reyna."
"Exactly, that's why you need to eat."
"I'm tired of-"
"This whole being on the run?" Reyna asks quietly. "Me too."
I'm tired of knowing that we won't last forever.
Reyna gently presses a finger to my lips, presumably to keep me quiet even though I've only begun to open my mouth. I taste something that explodes in my mouth with sweetness and seeds before leaving me with a sour taste. It's a raspberry and the taste is quick, only lasting for a second before I swallow.
She presses another raspberry to my mouth and trails her finger along my lower lip ever so slowly and softly. I'm glad it's still cold because my face and neck are heating up. I reach out, but she pulls away.
We finish the raspberries and switch turns on the motorcycle. Reyna says she'll wake me up when we get to Virginia. I'm too tired to respond, so I just shrug, wrap my arms around her waist, rest my head on my shoulder, and sleep.
I still taste the raspberries in my mouth.
"John." Reyna shakes me awake, and I swear I've only been sleeping for three minutes because I still feel like I've gotten hit by a truck.
"What?" I ask groggily, rubbing my eyes.
"We're in Norfolk and I need you to tell me where to go."
I'm not surprised that Reyna drove almost eleven hours straight instead of stopping at Tennessee's border like we established. "Don't I tell you where to go in the future?"
"You said, and I quote, 'It will be difficult to find my mother in Virginia since she kept a lower profile than I did, which is why you'll need to track me down first. I'll take you to her, where we'll plan to terminate Beischel and Cyberdyne once and for all.' You never gave me specific coordinates to track her down, probably because you were afraid that Cyberdyne would be listening in."
At least I did something right in the future. I look around. We appeared to be parked behind a grocery store, but if I crane my neck further, I could see the Norfolk welcoming sign. "Alright, I'll direct you."
Most of my directions consisted of heading east towards the beach. If Reyna found it weird that we were heading to the beach, she didn't show it.
Our navigation would have taken longer if we had taken the highway but Reyna took the backroads again. We cruise along an idyllic street of two-storied pastel beach houses. I tell her to stop in front of an ecru-colored one and park the motorcycle behind, facing the beach. She follows my command and we walk up to the back entrance.
I knock, but in Morse code. I tap my and Reyna's name. I hope she's still in there, and I don't see why she would leave unless she's on the move again.
Someone who I hope is my mother taps a question from behind. What do I always tell John?
