"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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Things were starting to settle down emotionally. People were beginning to process as everyone watched their phones for the news updates. Waiting to see if anyone was hurt. So far there were no deaths--none of us could have been happier to hear that.
That was the only thing that mattered to us.
We had been driving for hours. Finally arriving where we wanted to end up tonight. A small little town on the very edge of the Oregon - California border. Enough that we were far enough away from the event but not quite a full state away from home.
We had followed the coast all the way down to a small town called Port Orford. Hoping it would be enough to ease our racing minds. But we were all amazed when we got there to see how small of a town it really was. Only a few thousand people lined the streets, spread out in houses that were trapped in trees, all waiting to kiss the ocean shore.
We thought there had to be a hotel around here somewhere. Something we could stay in for the night. But it didn't matter how hard we looked, there wasn't anything nearby.
"So now what?" Julia wines, her bubbly personality fading away with the nightmares that were soon to crowd her mind. The ones that would take over all of our very own minds.
"I have no clue..." Aria whispers, looking down at the ground as she kicks at the dirt. The rest of us were quiet. Holding our thoughts back as if they were poison to the air. Maybe they were?
"I need to ask this--" My words trailed off as I delve back into my thoughts. Did I really want to mention this? We all had to be thinking about it? At what point do we turn around and head home?
My heart skipped in my chest. I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to have to explain any of this to my mother. Her words, that voice, everything she would attack me with for leaving her... for leaving my perfect life. I wouldn't be able to handle it. But the more I thought about it, would I really be able to handle the real world? If the world was as scary as this, and we would have to work through these things then would I really be able to survive?
I'd never question my strength before tonight. Before that very moment in the store where I lay on the ground helpless, allowing the man I truly love to protect me from all harm. What was wrong with that? So it wasn't in me to fight? Would that really be a bad thing when all the world was doing was fighting, who was supposed to back down and leave it alone?
"Maple?" Staton looked at me, and I could sense the worry in his eyes. It weighed on him like two boulders sitting on either side of his shoulders, growing heavier with each passing second until finally, they were able to crush him. I found my hand wrapping around his, holding it tightly as if it would give me strength in all of our moments of weakness.
"Are we still ready to move forward? Do we still want to make our way to California and eventually across the country? Are we going to continue to travel like this, after what happened back there? Do we run from it? Are we supposed to sit down and talk about it?" I could feel the questions racing out of me like a lightning bolt. But it seemed like no one was listening.
