Codie POV
“Louis?” I was checking that he wasn’t here. That none of the boys had decided to stay back from their concert tonight. Why did I think they would? That was fairly dumb. I had to show my hair colour sometime didn’t I? Good, Monday night all to myself, that meant no annoying boys, and no-
*door opening from downstairs*
“Hey hun, were home early!”
-parents. Well, there goes that plan! I get up and go downstairs to greet my mother and attack my father. Instead of having a girl’s night in, I was having a family night out. Well, that’s what they thought was going to happen. My plans were still different. The rule in the household was: when parents get home from getaway, use their money for food at fancy restaurant. If child has boyfriend/girlfriend, bring them as well.
Say that rule in a robotic voice, and you’ll get what I’m on about. It happens no matter what, if they have jetlag, one of them is sick, me is sick, one of us could be in hospital and we would still have to go. The main reason I don’t want to go is because it’s boring. The second reason is because I have to wear a dress and have my hair up, and put make-up on. My parents made up these rules, don’t ask me why. But rules are meant to be broken, and tonight was the night… hopefully…
“I don’t want to go tonight.” I announced, getting a look of pure death from both of my parents.
“Why not?” my mother asked. She was carefree until it came to stuff that didn’t matter.
“Because I don’t wanna go” I could tell this wasn’t going to end well.
“You will be going missy” my dad said. He was usually on my side, but as I’ve said before, it goes work, each other, the house, then me. Maybe I should add ‘crazy family dinner’ on the list before me as well. I imagined it being on the news. The news reporter sitting behind her table spinning to face the camera on her chair, this is what she would say. ‘Breaking news. Codie Badress just realised that she is further down on the importance list of her parents. Instead off the list just involving work, marriage and the house, a new contender for attention has entered the mix! Now her family dinner is above their own child…’
“Why should I go dad? There’s no reason behind it, apart from you spending a whole heap of money on food that tastes shit anyway. The only other reason is so that you can have a glimpse of the daughter you always wanted. The girly girl who’s beautiful and always wears dresses, loves high heels and kittens. I’m not that girl, instead you got the ugly, tomboy chick who you wish you could change.”
“That’s not true.” Dad tried to spin it around.
“Why else would you do it, huh?”
“The truth behind it is the fact that we were never there for you. You barely got any time with us, and so we would try and make up for that by spending money on you.” Dad said calmly.
“Yeah right. You just want me to be the perfect child, when I am really the opposite. I’m the weirdo who has the worst luck with friends and one of the worst track records with boyfriends.”
“We don’t care who you are, as long as you don’t change yourself. We just wanted you to have our full attention, instead of being fifth on the list.” Don’t start the list dad, you’ll regret it, very muchly in a minute.
“Aren’t I already? I mean, work comes first, then it’s each other, then it’s the house and now it’s family dinners as well. Look I don’t want to argue anymore, I’m not going tonight. I don’t want to, I’m freaking 21, no, 22 now. Did you even know I had my birthday on Thursday? Probably not, why would you know, work is more important than me, not the other way ‘round.”
“Look, Codie. Why do you think we gave you that name? Because we wanted the perfect little girl? No. We wanted a girl, and we wanted her to be different and be who she wanted to be, not who we pushed her to be. That’s who you’ve become. I mean, you didn’t even ask if it would be alright to go out with a guy who’s living with us, against the Governments rules.” Mum pointed out the obvious.
“I know mum, but I really like him, and he likes me.” I said, unsure about it.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt, again. After everything you’ve been through, your friends, your other boyfriends. How can you be so sure that he just doesn’t want you for-”
“MUM! STOP ALREADY! If you really disapprove of my boyfriend, tell someone who cares!” I was true, I didn’t care. I knew dad approved of Louis, but I never knew mum would get so touchy feely about him. I stormed up to my room, grabbed a small backpack, shoved some basics in there like pyjama’s, a change of clothes, deodorant, money and went downstairs. I grabbed my leather jacket and my keys and ran to my car.
I got in and drove off, my eyes full of tears and my breath shuddering. Normally when this happened I would go to one of my friend’s houses, but I don’t think I could today. Not when mum brought up the ones who died. That did it. I had to pull over. So I did. And I let my eyes run dry. It wasn’t in her right to say I was emotionally unstable. I know she didn’t necessarily say that, but that’s what she was trying to say without saying it.
It worked. She would always point out my flaws, never seeing my strengths, that’s what really made me cry. No matter what I did, I would never be good enough. Ever. She didn’t even like my career in racing! Why did Louis have to be singing his little heart out right now? Instead of being here with me? He would probably say stuff like, ‘don’t let her judge you’ or ‘I love you for who you are’. I wiped away the tears and kept thinking about Louis. I didn’t have any cry worthy memories with him yet, so I wouldn’t cry.
I started the car again and started driving into Adelaide again. Should I go further than Adelaide? Yes, Mount Barker. Down the freeway I will go. I turned to go to Mount Barker when I made the brave decision to turn my phone off. I didn’t want any calls or texts from anyone apart from Louis. Unfortunately, I couldn’t set my phone to do that, one day in the near future I would though, but that’s not today.
I drive to Mount Barker and go to the caravan park. Hotels reminded me too much of home. Too perfect, more than one storey. Home. Caravan parks have cabins and overnight caravans. Even this was too close to home. Back in the car I got, Murray Bridge will have to cut it. Not the best rated town in SA, but it would do. Back on the freeway I got with the car.
Finally I made it to Murray Bridge, to the caravan park. I got out, paid for the overnight stay and went into my cabin for the night. I was planning on running away again. Not just for one night, but for a while (I have successfully run away for two months when I was fifteen. Jumping from house to house, caravan park to caravan park). But, it would mean leaving the boys at my house alone when my parents were gone. Nup, I was going back. If they were at my house alone, all hell would break loose. Louis with his broken wrist wasn’t helping either. Even though it was healing properly. He had his check up on the weekend. Four more weeks and the cast would be off.
I sat on the old, small couch and turned the T.V. on. Nothing much was on, maybe Blockbuster was still open. 7:15pm. I could make this. I got out of the cabin, locked the door on it, got in my car and drove to Blockbuster. I ran inside with 2 minutes ‘till closing time. I searched through all of the movies and decided to find out more about Louis with a One Direction movie, to find out more about Logan Lerman in Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters and more about Chris Pine in Star Trek. Weird mix I know, but it suited me.
I got back to the cabin and watched the movies back to back. I had nothing else to do, so why bother with anything else. Instead of using the double bed, I decided that it was too far away and tried to sleep on the couch, instead I checked my phone. I had so many texts saying ‘where are you? I am so worried’ etcetera. The one that stood out to me was from Louis. It said ‘Hey babe. Something bad must have happened for you to leave for tonight. Could you tell me where you are? Or when you’ll be back? Hope I wasn’t the reason you left. Come back soon, please. XOXO’.
I sent one back.
To; Louis ‘Bond’:
Hey love. I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t worry, you weren’t the reason I left. It was my mother… again. She is so… argh! Don’t worry, I wasn’t kidnapped, chill babe. XOXO
Hopefully he understood. From the info I got from the movie, he had a good relationship with his mum, maybe he wouldn’t understand. I got a text back. Saying ‘okay, see you then.’ I loved my boyfriend right now. Always seeing my side of the argument, and we haven’t even been going out for a week yet. If I counted Thursday as going out with Louis, this would be my longest relationship, five days. This was a great start.
Louis’ POV (1 hour ago)
I got home from our concert and walked through the front door of Codie’s house to have both of her parents panicking like all shit. “What’s wrong?” Zayn asks, as I look around the room for Codie.
“Where’s Codie?” I asked. When we get back, she always comes downstairs unless she’s already in bed.
“She ran out of the house after we had an argument. We rang her friends, she’s not at any of their houses, and we have no idea where she is.” Adrian explained while Codie’s mum rang someone else and told them to keep an eye out for her.
“Did it occur to you that she might want you to not know where she is?” I offered the idea. Adrian shrugged it off but that blew up her mum even more.
“If you are the one who told her to do this… I’ll kick you out of here. If you decided that she should disappear into thin air, I’ll kill you” she seemed very serious.
“Why would I say that she should run away when she is perfectly fine here? She is a 22 year old woman and you give her the trust of a five year old. You can’t find her for a few hours and you act like she’s dead? She can take care of herself, so stop your worthless panicking. No offence Mrs Badress” I said regretting it immediately. She huffed and puffed and walked out of the room. Did she have a problem with me or something? I wasn’t sure.
It had to be said, whether it did offend her or not. “Thank you Louis. I have always tried to say that to her, she’s just afraid that she’s lost her little girl.” Before he followed the woman I stopped him.
“What does she have against me?” I asked, the reason behind it unsure. I didn’t know if she did or anything, but the way she snapped at me showed some reason I should believe she hated me.
“She feels like your taking Codie away from her. At least I think that’s why. She needs to learn that one day Codie will leave the house, one day she will get married. To whom it may be is a different story.” With that he walked out the door to follow his wife. I turned to look at the rest of the guys.
“I never knew she hated me.” When I said it, it felt weird.
“She doesn’t hate you” Harry started.
“I hate him!” I hear Codie’s mum scream through the wall, I probably wasn’t meant to hear that. I snapped my eyes back to Harry and raised my eyebrows.
“Okay, maybe she does a little bit. But no one could possibly hate you, at least not after they get to know you. Give her a chance, she’ll come to, eventually, maybe, hopefully… hopefully she will.” He said.
“Thanks, that makes it a whole lot better… not, it doesn’t help Harry, thanks for trying though.” I said it all in a sarcastic tone. This is a great start, my girlfriend has run away and her mother hates me. Great, just great.
“Guys, it’s like eleven in the evening. I am going to bed, see you all tomorrow morning, or afternoon.”
“Night Liam” we all say in sync.
“I’m going to bed too.”
“Night Zayn” the rest of us say again in sync.
“Bye lads, see you in the morning”
“Night Niall” Me and Harry say.
“Good night Louis, don’t stay up too late worrying, will you?”
“Nah, I won’t. Night Harry”
“Night Louis.” Now I stand alone in the bottom floor lounge, I’m not waiting for Angry Mum to come back into the room, so I run upstairs to my bedroom. I grab out my phone and send Codie a text. Giving her the freedom to respond or ignore me.
She responds and says she’ll be back tomorrow etc. I send one back saying okay, see you then when I realised I wanted to see her now. I send another one saying do you want any company, and I got one back saying yeah. Oh jeez.
To; Tink:
Where are you then? Would I be able to find you without help?
I get one back.
From; Tink:
Don’t think you would be able to get here without help. Wait. Do you have a GPS in your car?
Instead of texting back and forth, just call her Louis. Okay, I will. I will call her number, I will do this. Okay. I get up the contacts and ring her number.
“Hey babe” I get as my hello.
“Hey love” I say in response.
“Could you answer my question in the text? Do you have a GPS?”
“I think we do, not absolutely sure. If we don’t you can tell me the directions, and that’s what Google Maps is for anyway.”
“Louis, you know it’ll be like, midnight by the time you get here. It’s not going to be worth it Lou.”
“Yeah it will. If it means you’re not alone to do weird and probably dangerous things.”
“Coming from you that’s pretty rich.”
“It proves my point though. Look, I’m going to find you Codie, even if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Alright, but it will be the last thing you do if you don’t bring movies. I can’t sleep and I’ve run out of borrowed movies. Be proud of me, I watched a One Direction movie.”
“You watched one of my movies?”
“Yeah”
“Okay, I definitely need to get to you… now.”

Notes