The Perks of Loving Summer

02

After driving for about twenty-three hours and fifty-one minutes, (I only know this because Grace kept telling us how long we've been driving every two hours.) or what felt like forever, we made it to our destination. As we arrived there was a long bridge from island to island, and a sign welcoming us to 'Outer Banks, Paradise On Earth.' "Paradise on earth?!" Harper exclaimed. "Yeah, I guess we'll see about that." I muttered.

I rolled down my window, the wind blowing through my curly hair, the smell of summer breeze through my nostrils. It feels so free here, like nothing I've ever felt before. Originally, it was Oklahoma, then the states around it, all the way leading up to South Dakota, and now here. We drove through what seemed like the upper side of the island first.

Glancing at all the mansions and cool cars and happy families playing in there yards. Everyone dressed like they were big time business owners, or a job that didn't just pay good, but payed really well. I wish I could be like these people, rich and being able to afford food for their families. As the older sister, I should be able to provide for my sibling but it's just so straining. No one ever wants to hire the "weird, mysterious girl." Pick-pocketing does throw in a good buck or two every now and then, and I never finished high school, so school is completely out of the question at this point. I really do try my best to even make ends stretch far enough to even touch.

From what I could capture in the short time we were able to see the houses and people, was an older guy and what looked to be his daughter outside. The dad looked extremely angry to the point he was almost turning red. "Kiara! Do not go see those filthy pogues! I mean it!" The daughter looked at him and yelled right back, "They're not filthy, and those are my friends you're talking about!!" She turned around and for a moment caught my attention by looking straight at me. Even though, we past them, I stuck my head out the window to see her get into that truck. "Are we gonna be living here, Grace??" In reliance, she shook her head. "Just wait." So we waited, and waited until we reached the poorer side of the island.

No one was dressed like they had just stepped off a yacht. Here everyone was dressed like us. Torn clothes, and not enough money to buy new ones. The houses were beat and run down just like the people inside of them. Trash lined the streets, and signs fell. "This is the side of the island we're on. We'll be arriving any minute now." "I hate this, why can't we just live here freely. No CPS involved." Harper whispered to me and I agreed, of course I whispered my great plan back. "You know we can do that, just follow my lead okay?" Who was she to question my plan? So she followed.

"Grace, I don't- I don't feel so good, I think I'm gonna puke." I teared up to make it seem more believable. "Okay, uh hon, we'll pull over and you can step out." They began to slow the car and I jumped out as soon as I could. "C- Could Harper get out and hold my hair up?" She nodded. I could tell that John gave her a 'Are you sure?' look. When she got out of the car, she was about to hold my hair up when I suddenly looked at her and mouthed, "On three we run." Harper has always been a fast learner so of course she understood every bit of it. I slowly started to count one.. two.. Before I could say three, she cut my off and said it.

We both started sprinted the same way, which was the opposite direction from what the car was originally going. I bet she looked horrified seeing we were gone, when she's in fault, she let us get out, still knowing our past with them.

On our escape down the road, there were tons of buildings looking they were from a long time ago. There were little to no alleyways to be hidden in. CPS was almost right on our tail, for the first time in a while, I wasn't sure what to do. "Wait! Come on, this way!" Harper said and so I followed.

See there's pros and cons about being runaways, we have absolute no where to go and no one knows who we are, but on this flip side no one knowing who we are is like a pron? (pro/con) and we are really fast runners, we could be marathon runners or something. All we do is run, hence the term 'runaways'.

Us running sure did cause a lot of looks and commotion- let me rephrase that. Not me running, Harper running. I was fine, her on the other hand kept running into people and signs and other miscellaneous things. She needs glasses about ninety-ninety percent but why should we worry about small stuff like that when we can't even pay for glasses, let alone a prescription.

Because of my sister's eyesight, she was behind me in this moment. On this cat and mouse chase between me, Harper, and CPS, I saw another "CPS labeled car" and it wasn't ours, which I thought was weird. It looked like they were looking for someone too, someone like us.

I turned the corner into an alleyway when I slammed face-to-face against a tall, roughed up, dirty looking boy. His freckles were like splotches on his whole body, mainly his face. Wavy, salt water covered hair fell right above his eyes. A dirty, blue bandana wrapped around his neck. His eyes were that of an angel.

The force was so strong it knocked me back, leaving me with a bloody nose. "Shiit, sorry are you good.. um?" The unknown boy said. I was about to say that I'm fine when Harper butted in, "Summer. That's Summer, and I'm Harper!" Jesus, for being homeless, she has little to no common sense. "Harp! We don't know this kid, you can't be going away telling everyone everything about us!!" She gave a whimper. "It's alright, uh I'm John B, I wasn't planning on introducing myself but we're already here so.." "I could say the same thing myself." I said.

I wiped my bloody nose on my sleeve. "Hey so we should definitely go, I think their coming so uh, nice meeting you?" He looked confused until Harp said,  "CPS."

"Seriously, again?" Before any of us could say another word, the recognizable car pulled up in front of us. Shit. We couldn't go back the way we came, so Harper and I ran the opposite way, while John B skimmed through past the workers. As soon as we reached the end of the passageway the car pulled into the slot and now there was no where to go but with them.