Leaving the House Where We Grew Up

Latitudes

Dipper laid in his bed, swimming amongst the darkness, as immobile and stoic as terra cotta warrior, ready for the next battle. Tucked out of sight from any nightly voyeurs was a duffle, packed with basic clothing, his locator bracelet, the throw blanket from Mabel, and a fuzz-covered ring box. No ID, no wallet, no keys. Granted, he had a phone; just not his beloved iPhone, packed with games, memes, and pictures of Mabel.

'Thank God I put a difficult passcode on my lock screen,' he thought, knowing the pictures they had taken in the high points of their relationship.

Under his pillow, on silent, was his functional communication device. Almost an hour ago, Mabel had let Wendy and him know that it was going down tonight. Since then, Dipper soundlessly packed his luggage, emptied out his hiding spot, and made sure that he had remembered to enter Jon's number into the phone's address book at his most recent shift behind the cashier's stand that evening.

'My last shift,' he realized, before letting his mind drift onto the other 'lasts' he had already accrued.

'Last time hanging out with Marcus and Alec, last time seeing the family Christmas tree, last time sitting through another one of Mr. Carsten's lectures on the thrilling world of mitochondria in biology class, last time hugging mom, last time in Mabel's sleight bed...'

With the hoops both he and Mabel had to jump through in order to reunite being the primary focus, these parts of his life that had to be left on the side of the road played second fiddle. Only now, riddled with anticipation, and the waiting that came before, did he take a moment to leaf through the memories he had collected over the years as a happy, fully-functioning teen in northern California.

While there was a sense of melancholy that he permitted into his train of thought, he also knew he couldn't allow nostalgia to hold him back. He knew where his heart was and it wasn't in Piedmont; it wasn't in a geographical place whatsoever, but in a person. He could have a billion schmaltzy memories to surround himself with and they wouldn't even come close to the electricity he felt from Mabel's touch or the adorable look of frustration she gets when calculating the tip at the end of a meal. They would make memories together, ones that would last an eternity.

Letting his eyes roam around the darkened room, lit weakly by the small amount of moonlight filtering through the curtain, he silently bid each element a farewell. For the most part, Dipper had a great upbringing and could look back fondly on vacations, family dinners, and holiday parties. The time had come, though, to close out that chapter, and write the next act, one penned not in the ink of others, but in the handwriting of Mabel and Dipper.

Escaping from Mabel's room would have presented a number of unsightly challenges: no easy way to climb down, their parent's would hear the window open, it would put him in the backyard as opposed to the side-yard and so forth. As such, since the initial secretive conversation, Dipper had returned to the confines of his dank, frosty quarters and even started sleeping under a proper set of sheets. Part of him worried that this might draw unwanted attention to himself during the course of bed checks, but nothing seemed out of place in terms of his parent's reactions. Honestly, his dad probably saw the development as a sign of how successful his efforts had been at reforming his wayward children.

'You poor fool,' Dipper thought of his father, not necessarily in an antagonistic manner, but simply in the sense of knowing how surprised he'd be to find the bed empty and the window wide open.

Trying to stay relaxed, sensing the amount of energy he'd need to expend over the next who-knows-how-many hours, Dipper remained under the covers and waited. He was dressed for the occasion, sporting a grey, zip-up hoodie and jeans; he even had his tan Airwalks laced on and ready for action. While it wasn't a chilly night in the neighborhood, he also knew his destination was, and the chance for a wardrobe change between the two locales would likely be nonexistent.