Love Will Tell Us Where To Go

I ended up taking another nap while Harry went back to listening to “The Fault in Our Stars” As disappointed as he was that he still didn’t get to finish it by the time we landed, he was just as excited as me. We have been on this plane for way too long and we are so hungry.

As soon as we got our luggage (thank goodness none of it was lost) we went to California Pizza Kitchen in the airport. The food was amazing. Then again, I’m pretty sure everything would have tasted great at this point.

“Let’s get those tickets.” I said once we got our food. I took out the laptop and went to the same website that we got the tickets from before. I also ate at the same time.

A few seconds later and the page refreshed. I felt a pit in my stomach. There aren’t any tickets available.

“What?” I said out loud. Not that I really meant to.

“Oh no…”

“Wait…just…maybe for a different time?” Nope. Not for any time. I tried for every possible time tonight and tomorrow, and they were all booked.

“No way.” Harry took the laptop and began searching just as frantically as I had. But soon, just like me, the hope in his eyes quickly faded away.

“Maybe if I call them and let them know why we missed our train today.”

“Babe…they can’t just take someone else off the train because of us.”

“Yeah…but they can tell us the earliest possible day and time we can go.”

Luckily Harry agreed to call them. I hate making phone calls like that.

Once someone answered, Harry explained what happened. After a few seconds of silence, he began shaking his head. The look of disappointment on his face gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“Are you sure that’s the earliest one?” He even sounded disappointing. I don’t think he was even trying to hide it.

“No, it’s alright. I understand. Thanks. Yes, we’ll go with that date and time. Is there any way you can hold the tickets for us so we can pay with cash in person?”

I hope we can. The whole point in flying here and taking a train to Minneapolis was so no one could trace where we actually went. We had planned on reserving the tickets and paying for them in person the first time we got tickets, but we couldn’t. But because we had already booked the flight, we went ahead and got the train tickets as well.

“Are you sure? Okay. One second.” Harry moved the phone and covered it with his hand. “They can’t reserve the tickets, but they might still be available if we get there in time. We’ll have to rent a car to get there anyway, and it’ll be about two and a half hours…what do you think?”

I had been so nervous about not getting to pay for the train tickets with cash. It was a bit of a risk to not get them now, but the risk of my mother tracing our exact location seems like a bigger risk to me.

“I think we should pay for it in cash. What about you?”

“I agree.” He then told the person on the phone and hung up.

“How long are we going to have to wait?” I asked.

“Two weeks.” His face stayed solemn as he shut the laptop.

“What?” was all I could muster.

“Two. Weeks.” He began shaking his head again. “February 18th. It’s a Saturday, of course.”

Two weeks. Two weeks until we see Chloe. Two weeks until we could make any progress in
contacting my father. Two weeks wasted.

“It could be worse.” He told me. I’m not sure if he was trying to make me or himself feel better.

“I just want those tickets.” I replied as I looked around. So many people going to different places for different reasons. I wonder if anyone else here is running away from home. I’m sure there are some doing the opposite.

“Speaking of which” he said as he opened the laptop again. “we need to leave. I’ll have to find the nearest car rental place first.”

About a minute later he exclaimed, “Thank God!”

“Some good news finally?”

“Yes! There’s a rental place four minutes away.”

After looking up the number and calling them, they told us they would have a car ready in about twenty five minutes. That gave us just enough time to go to Starbucks.

By the time we got our coffee and walked to the rental place, we were there just in time.
As we walked into the building, I suddenly got paranoid. Does it look weird for us to be renting a car? Sure, Harry is old enough, but what if they suspect something?

There was a family in front of us, so we waited a few minutes. In that time I managed to calm myself down a bit.

Slowly my fear went away completely as we went through the process to get the car. We signed some stuff and gave them cash. I guess people pay in cash a lot here because they didn’t find it odd.

“Alright, it’s yours until the 18th. Just make sure you get it back in the same condition.” Thankfully you can drop off the car at another location. We’ll have to do it the same day we get on the train. Of course we’ll be walking there so we’ll have to do that early.

“This is so weird.” Harry said when he sat down in the drivers seat. “How can people drive like this?”

“Pretty sure they want to ask you guys the same thing.” I laughed at how uncomfortable and awkward he looked as he tried adjusting to being on the “wrong side” of the car.

“Ya know, I could drive since I’m use to driving on both sides…”

“Awww.” he whined excessively. “But I wanted to drive!” He crossed his arms and pouted.

“Harry…” I walked over to him and held my hand out. “come on, babe. We need to get there in one piece. And fast. You can drive later.”

Despite the disappointment still evident on his face, he took my hand in his and got out of the car. He kissed me quickly before smiling and going to the trunk of the car to put our luggage in it.

I got in the car and began messing with the different features. By the time Harry got back in the car I had turned on the heat, found a good music station, and uncovered the sunroof.

“Look!” I squealed as I pointed excitedly to the window on the roof of the car.

“I know! So cool.” he replied. Yeah…we’re a bit too excited.

With the combination of jet lag and the fact we hadn’t really had much time to just sit down and breathe, we both took a moment to lean back in our seat and just…breathe.

And then, I don’t know how, but it’s like reality hit us both at the same time.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Harry?”

I opened my eyes again and turned my head to see him doing the same as me. “Megan?”

“We did it.” I said. “Well, partially.”

“Isn’t it crazy how we were just in London, and now we’re here in North Carolina…how did we do it?”

We both laughed and for a moment, forgot all about how awful we feel.

“We really need to go.” I said after a while.

“Yeah…let’s go. If we don’t, I’m pretty sure someone is going to come out here and ask us why we’re still here.”

I put the car in drive and began to move my foot to the gas pedal. But then I stopped.

“Do you really think we’re going to be able to do this?” I asked. “I mean, what if something else goes wrong? Something worse…”

I felt Harry’s hand brush my hair behind my ear before caressing my face. I turned so I could look at him.

His piercing green eyes gazed deeply into mine as he smiled warmly. “We can, and are going to do this. We have each other, and that’s all we need to make this work.”

“We made it this far. We’ll make it to Minneapolis.” I said.

“Don’t even look at it like that.” he replied. “What we’ve done…that’s step one. Step one is over. All we have to do next is get to that train station. That’s all. Just focus on that. We can deal with worrying about everything that comes after that when it gets here.”

I put the car back in park and gently caressed his face and pulled him towards me. Our lips seemed to meet in the most perfect and beautiful way.

“I love you.” I whispered out of fear of crying. I’m really emotional right now.

“I love you.” he replied before kissing my forehead.

We both sat back down in our seats and buckled up again. I once again put the car in drive and took another deep breath.

“Are you ready for step two?” he asked with a grin.

“More than even you know.”

Notes