The Story of us

Chapter 8: Never break into an abandoned mansion

Atlanta, Georgia - 1080 miles

It was raining in Graham the next morning. 

I had personally never seen the relevance behind people blaming their bad moods on the weather. I'm a bitch and I always will be; it shouldn't matter if it's rain or shine. Still, though, I was a whole lot more used to the people around me acting more miserable in circumstances where the weather was as gloomy as it was today. However, Harry, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. 

"Come on, Crazy Girl, smile a little more," he urged me. Then, in an act that led me to question his sanity (and mine, for allowing him to accompany me on my trip to Boston) he reached over the barrier between the two seats and gave a little shake to my shoulders. While I was driving. I'm telling you, the kid was fucking crazy. 

"Don't tell me what to do," I snapped at him as I tried my best to maneuver through the rain, hoping my uneasiness wasn't too obvious. I had always been anxious about driving in bad weather (don't even get me started on how I am when it comes to snow–thank God I lived in Florida, honestly), but knowing Harry, he would probably use that against me. I didn't need him to know any of my weaknesses; in fact, I didn't need him to know anything about me. What was the point, anyway? 

''You're always so kind to me." When he finally came to the conclusion that I was not interested in responding to any of his irrelevant comments, he shrugged and then began to sing. And it wasn't even as if it was some Top 40 hit that everybody knew, so I could at least hum along. (Not that I would ever do that, of course.) No, the little douche bag had to go ahead and start singing out some random country song from God knows how many years ago called 'Georgia Rain'. How accurate.

It would have been easier to tell him to shut up if he had a terrible voice, but as much as I hated to admit it, Harry was actually a decent singer. All right, fine, he wasn't decent–he was really fucking good. I wasn't going to tell him that (his ego was already large enough to overpower an entire population), but I wasn't going to tell him to stop either. His voice was deep and raspy, and it could almost be mistaken as attractive.

Notice my use of the word 'almost'.

All of a sudden, my phone began to ring, fortunately (unfortunately? I was really conflicted on this one) putting an end to Harry's singing. He immediately tried to grab it from me, but I knew his tricks well enough by now. I snatched it before he could, and ignored his whines about how talking on the phone while driving was terrible and that he was ninety-nine percent sure that Obama hated me. (Okay, honestly, what the fuck was wrong with this guy?) 

Hello?" I said, without even bothering to glance at the caller ID first. Which probably was not the best idea.

"Lexi! Hi! Are you still with Harry?"

My blue eyes automatically widened and Harry, being the nosy little shit that he is, managed to wrestle the phone out of my hands and hiss, "Who is it? I heard my name!"

"Your mother," I snarled, "she called to tell you that you're a fucking idiot."

He flipped me off, but I knew that, deep down, he wanted to laugh. (Probably because it was the truth.) "Lexi, seriously," he whined. "Tell me!"

Okay, we were actually going to die if he kept on shoving me while I was on the fucking highway. Not that you could really consider this a highway–since we were still in Graham, there were no other cars on the road. I wonder if they even had cars here. Maybe they still used wagons.

"For Christ's sake, it's Lila!" I barked at him. "Remember her, the crazy bitch who gave us a stolen car? I'm pretty sure that you don't know many other people like that."