𝕤𝕒𝕟 𝕗𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠 • 𝕝.𝕙

thirteen

Luke held tightly onto my hand as we walked rapidly towards the front door of the house, passing all the people enjoying themselves. I looked around quickly to see if I could catch the sight of Andy, to just motion him that I wasn't staying, but it wasn't long before Luke had dragged me out of the door and onto the driveway.

"Why are you running?" I asked, holding tightly onto my handbag.

"Because I want to get out of here as fast as I can," he replied, getting to his car. The moonlight was reflecting on the light blue hood.

He unlocked the door and I got in quickly, letting my body crash against the comfortable leather seat. Luke did the same, and pressed onto the speed pedal hard, turning his head to look behind him as he was backing the car further down the road in order for us to get out. He bit his lip softly while concentrating on the road, hand clutching the steering wheel.

I didn't know where Luke was taking me, and I suspected that he didn't know, either. He had been very vague, and as soon as I'd agreed to get out of the party to follow him wherever, he'd just gotten up, pulled me up with him and basically ran to the door without saying a word to anyone. We'd gotten a couple of questioning looks, without any surprise. We must have looked like two maniacs.

When Luke was back on the main road, he turned the radio up, and drove away. I turned around to look at the distance between us and the party grow further every second, and when the house was out of sight, at last, I turned back to Luke, who had his eyes fixed on the road.

"That was unnecessarily intense," I sighed. The roof was off, and the wind was blowing in my hair as Luke took the exit that led us to the coast. "And where are we even going?"

"I don't know," he turned back to me, a slight smile forming on his lips. His hair was in a bun now. "Where do you want to go?"

"No way," I shook my pointer finger at him, shaking my head. "You're the one driving the car."

"Fine," he turned back to the road. "Let's say where the night takes us."

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

"It's not that scandalous," he scoffed. "We're just driving out of town for a bit."

"I don't have a change of clothes," I said. "I'm just..."

"Please, I'm sure you've done worse things," he chuckled. "Live a little."

I sat back, and the first thing that came to my head was Oli and me running away from a family dinner when I was twenty-three, and being nowhere to be seen for three days. When I had turned my phone back on, my mother had been harassing me, and my father had very nearly called the cops on us. I had been weary of the whole "disappearing" thing now, although I knew that I was twenty-five, and Luke was twenty-six, and my family had stopped caring where I went a long time ago.

I decided to try and let go of my stupid anxiety, but couldn't shake off the feeling that things between Luke and me had turned odd again. Even if I was where I'd been wanting to be that whole week, next to him, driving to infinity, drinking beer that I'd stolen from the party, and not knowing what would happen next. We had messed up, and even if I wasn't letting myself get upset about it, it had still happened.

And now, what? What was happening between us?

"I suggest we drive along the coast until we get too tired and we stop," he shot me a warm glance.

I simply nodded, looking at the starry sky and the house lights lining up the coast, like little dots of glitter, shining bright against the sea shore. I took in the sight and sat back, trying to get my body to get less tense and anxious about the situation I was in right now. I deserved to live a little, Luke was right. I took a big sip of the bottle of beer that was in my hand, hoping that it would help me loosen up.