Not In Love With Liam

10~ Getaway Car

⚓NOAH OQUAYE⚓

My parents would have called me irresponsible for getting into a car with a stranger. My friends would have said I was crazy for staying with him at his sister's.
But I called it free.

I ignored everyone's texts and calls. I blocked my parents' and sister's numbers completely.
I couldn't explain what was making me behave so irregularly, but I wasn't going to question it.
I wanted to see the world. So I was going to.

The night I went out on my own, I'd wondered away from the square and had fallen asleep on a park bench not far away. I was woken up by Brandon at about 5am. He told me he wasn't playing any games, but I couldn't stay out there. He'd take me to his sisters apartment at the square and go sleep at a friend's house.
He came back early in the morning to see if I was okay and ask how I was getting back to uni. So I told him. I wasn't.

He mentioned, in the morning, that two guys were looking for me. After describing them terribly, I concluded that it was probably Liam and someone else. I also concluded that I didn't want to see either of them so Brandon didn't tell them where I was.

Okay, so I was probably a little drunk when I exclaimed, 'I want to see the world!' At seven in the morning when Brandon and his sister asked what my next move was, but Brandon was a no-questions kind of guy so I guess we were doing it.
We went to a restaurant last night and I posted a picture on my Facebook because although I wanted nothing to do with my friends or family right then, I knew they'd be worrying so I needed to get across a subtle message to say I was okay.
I felt like after everything, I owed Liam some small explanation, so I just told him I was fine and he should stop looking for me, then I blocked him too.

My parents would kill me when I got home, and there'd definitely be questions asked at uni, so I decided not to think about going home at all for now.

"How you feeling?"
"I don't know."

I was sat opposite Brandon on a train to Lancaster. Destination number one on our worldwide tour.

I'll admit, it was stupid. I'd known the guy for a night, and I hadn't exactly gotten the best impression of him in that time either. But he was free. And I wanted to be free too.

I'd be lying if I said that one night out alone had driven me insane. It was everything. Hayden, Liam, Gabriel, Darcy, that stupid fight, the fact that I was alone, and the fact that it was all happening at once.

If you had the chance to get away from it all with a totally new person, no strings or problems attached, why wouldn't you?

🚈🚈🚈

At 6:28am, we arrived in Lancaster. I had no bags, no clothes, no nothing. Brandon's sister let me borrow a pair of jeans and a t shirt, along with some old trainers. Although it wasn't the designer stuff I usually would have worn, or the casual Nike trackies I would have been most comfortable in right then, it was all I needed.

"Okay, we haven't left England yet, there's still a chance to go home if you want to."
"I don't. Not yet anyway."
"Great!" He smiled. "Then we have to try the burgers down the highway."
"Sure!"
"I've got work tommorow, but you can come with if you want. I'm going down to the mountains in the Pennines, another outdoor shoot."
"As long as there are no planes or skydiving, I'm in."

We crossed the road and walked into a little restaurant called Phillie's.
"So I take it you've been here before?"
"Name a place, I've been there."
"Switzerland?"
"Yeah."
"Tanzania?"
"Uh-huh."
"Morocco?"
"Yup."
"Antarctica?"
He nodded.
"You really have been everywhere haven't you?"
He smiled again.
"How long have you been traveling?"
"Since I was fifteen, so.. four years. I've got something, if you want to see."
"Yeah, sure."
He pulled out a large brown photo album from his backpack. "Everywhere I've ever been, I took a picture to keep."
I opened the book. There were glossy cut outs of country flags, alongside dozens of pictures of Brandon at beaches, hills, forests, mountains, landmarks, deserts, at sea, in sea, in caves and canyons and coves, everywhere.