Still Sleeping Next To Me

two

The thing is, she doesn't even question it until they've been driving for almost three hours. Once they start passing small little cottages with sheep in the fields, Lennon realizes that they aren't headed back to Cheshire. She has no fucking clue where they're headed.

"Harry," she says quietly, "where are we going?"

His bloodshot eyes flicker towards her, tongue swipes across his chapped lips. "I don't. I don't know. I've just been driving."

"You're scaring the shit out of me," she whispers. She wants to yell and tug out her hair from the pink roots and make it all better. "You're scaring me Harry."

Harry takes a minute to answer and she takes that minute to admire him. His wrist is draped over the steering wheel, his cheeks are hollowed out and bruised, and the sweater that he's wearing hangs off his body when she knows for a fact it fit three months ago, because she bought it three months ago.

He peeks at her again. "You remember the first time I came to your house? After my dad left?" Lennon nods and he takes a deep breath before continuing, "We talked about where we'd go. And we said Paris. Let's go to Paris. You and me."

"Paris?"

"We said we'd go. You said we would.

Lennon curses herself for every single time she hadn't listened before, because Harry is hurt and she loves him and he needs to go to a big city and have a little apartment. She knows she'd do anything for the boy with dull green eyes and too-big sweater.

So she doesn't comment on his new tattoos or the way his sweater is now too big or the way his eyes are still red. She says, "Okay."

Harry presses the brake and the old white Mustang slows down, makes what is surely an illegal U-turn, and heads back to the city they just left, the city in which they never shared a bed.

* * * *

The airport smells like hand sanitizer and loss.

Harry and Lennon walk through the barren terminal at six in the morning with pinkies locked together, duffle bags in hand, and electricty in their veins. As they approach the counter, the woman's eyes flicker to each of them before landing on Lennon, as if she is the one in charge.

"Ticket," the woman drones, voice thick with sleep and annoyance, "and your license."

Lennon wrinkles her nose; she hates hand sanitizer and she hates loss even more than that. "We, uh, don't have tickets. We need them."

"To where?"

"Paris. Right, Harry?"

He stares back at her blankly, toe scuffling against the ground and fingertips playing with an imaginary thread on his shirt. Her eyes rake over him, taking in the purple under his eyes and the way his sweater completely swallows him.

After ripping her eyes away from her lackluster best friend, Lennon turns back to the women. "We're going to Paris."

The attendant lets out an annoyed huff and begins clicking on her computer. The steady tap, tap, tap of the keyboard makes Lennon want to scream and punch the woman in face, because Harry is tired and he needs to go and it smells like hand sanitizer and loss.

It takes one minute of pure torture before the lady speaks again. "87 pounds."

Lennon hands over a money and is handed back two printed tickets, Flight 13D plastered boldly across the top, depature 7:39 am across the botttom. With a small smile of thanks, the two teenagers scurry away towards security.