Road trip

20- Its so cold here

We slept apart that night. Truth be told I didn't want to see him after he blatantly flirted with whoever she was.

As I laid in the darkness of the room I couldn't help but notice the irony of the whole situation. I had protested this whole thing from the beginning, and then when I finally did cave in, it was going to end.

It hadn't even been a full twenty four hours since I gave him one of the most precious pieces of me, the piece that no one else would ever get, just for him to turn around and find bimbo Barbie as if it all meant absolutely nothing.

Willing myself not to cry I wrapped up in the blanket and went to sleep. I vaguely remember hearing yelling from downstairs but I was too drained to care anymore, too hurt to give a damn about whatever was taking place.

The next morning I sat down for breakfast between Austin's aunt and Uncle. We were leaving after we packed and I was ready to get away from here. Maybe I could even persuade Austin to drop me off somewhere and I could just fly home.

It's not like he would notice.

The silent stares around the table were unnerving as my fork clattered on the plate and I scooped some eggs into my mouth. I refused to look up, refused to even glance at the three guys opposite us.

I practically sprinted from the table when I was done, eager to pack up and leave. As soon as I was packed I pulled my suitcase out of the bedroom and took a glance back at the bed that would forever hold one of the most important, and now tainted, memories of my life.

After we said goodbye we got into his truck, a stiff awkwardness falling around us as he began driving away from the rich suburbs of Los Angeles. I absentmindedly decided to just play on my phone to pass the time as we made our way out of the city and towards Las Vegas.

We made it all the way into Nevada and back into Arizona when he silently pulled off into the grand canyon park so I could take some pictures. We still hadn't really spoken to each other and while I was still upset with him, I couldn't figure out why he hadn't tried to talk to me yet?

Once I had a few pictures I climbed back into the truck and we continued driving, stopping about an hour later to get gas. The silence in the cab of the truck was laced with unspoken frustrations and pent up emotions that I was honestly too afraid to bring up while he was driving.

"I'm not doing this Anna?" He sighed as we passed through Utah into Colorado. "We still have a lot of this trip left and I don't even know what I did to make you mad." His fingers gripped the steering wheel as I sat quietly.

When I didn't respond he reached over to grab my hand, which I allowed even though I didn't want to talk about it.

"Please just tell me what it is?" He said as the truck began to beep, a yellow light on the dash indicating that a tire was loosing air.

He pulled off in Copper Mountain and managed to get us to a nearby resort before he got out of the truck and went to look at the damage.

"So bad news, we need a new tire. Good news, we are at a resort and aren't in the middle of no where." He said as the ache I had been trying to ignore intensified.

When he acted all adorable like this it made him so hard to stay mad at, especially when we had just spent several hours in complete silence.

Thankfully the resort had a room for us for the night because we had been driving for hours and I would seriously lose my mind if we had to sleep in his truck.

Once he had called a company to come repair the tire, the bellboy escorted us to our room, conveniently with only one bed.

Fantastic.

I put my bags down and sat on the end of the bed pondering how long I could ignore him when I noticed he was about to walk back out again.

"Why were you flirting?" I asked in a quiet tone.

"What!" He turned around obviously surprised I was speaking to him.

"At the party, you were flirting with that girl. I had literally just slept with you the night before and then there you were, letting some random girl hang all over you as you laughed with her." I looked down at my hands as I spoke.

"Anna, it wasn't like that. She was literally talking my head off about how much she wanted me to hook her up with Tyler." He shook his head. "Is this what you've been so upset about? I thought something had happened to you at the party and you just didn't want to talk about it." He took a seat beside me and took my hand in his.

"I'm sorry." I whispered "I guess I just thought that maybe you had changed your mind about us trying something and .."

"Don't ever think that. Unless we talk about it and I tell you directly, don't jump to conclusions Anna. You're my best friend, my sorta-maybe-a-little-girlfriend, I'll always be honest with you." He pulled me into a hug and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"Thanks." I said feeling more than a little relieved. We had never had a fight before, but I guess not speaking for almost twenty four hours was considered a fight of sorts.

"Now wait here, I'm going to ask for a few more blankets for tonight, I mean we are barely out of the desert and it's so cold here." He leaned forward to kiss my forehead before exiting the room.

That left me alone to my thoughts again, but this time something new was brewing inside of me. Our quarrel was over, even if it was mostly my messed up imagination, and in its place was A pin prick of light at the end of a dark tunnel that blinded me from everything else.

A small mixture of hope, longing, gratitude, need, and most of all love, all of which was leading me in the same direction.

Him.