Closing Time: 11 PM

29. On Unfamiliar Places

I'll find you in the morning sun

And when the night is new.

I'll be looking at the moon,

But I'll be seeing you.

-I'll Be Seeing You, Andrea Corr

#

He gave a sigh of relief as soon as he got inside his car. Dealing with his mom has been hard enough for him for the past days that he has been in Florida. Sure the weather was great for him to go surfing on some beaches but his mother was already calling him to go home after being out for three hours.

He turned on his engine and drove his way back home. He missed the quiet road heading home where he could spend a lot of time by himself. It would be at least an hour drive more but he would get by. He turned on his car's music player and started singing along with it.

He dropped by the nearest convenience store he saw along the way and got himself some drinks. He went back to his car and started heading the lonely road going to his home. It was past five in the afternoon.

"Follow me and everything is alright... I'll be the one to..." he sang along with his music and was tapping his steering wheel.

Chad knew he looked crazy right that moment but he knows that no one can see him and he doesn't really care anyway.

"You won't find nobody else like me!" he screamed the last part of the song. His window was rolled down and it was the fine breeze of the season kissing his face. He laughed after he sang the last part and stopped. It is stupid and painful enough to cry over the same old reasons but he does not know what he can do to take even a pinch of the pain away.

"Fuck it."

He took a left turn and turned his engine a little faster than usual. He wanted to fly and drown himself again with drinks to put him into some temporary amnesia. He was about to run into full speed when his eyes were too quick to notice someone he knew well.

He found a woman limping while walking into an empty path going to the city.

He knew her.

He loves her and he knows that it is indeed her even if he might be driving too fast. Even if he might be travelling lightspeed, he would always see her. An eye would always know where to lay its sight on.

He had his car go on break and stepped out of his car. His heart was beating wildly and though he was only driving, his chest felt so heavy.

"KARA!"

He called her like a person finally meeting what he's been dying to have all his life.

#

She looked around when she heard someone call her name. Her knees hurt and she doesn't know how long it would take for her to get to the city to finally go home. All her efforts went to nothing.

That's what she thought.

Even without looking, she knows who owns the voice that sang her name. She had been longing for that voice since forever and she knew that all the pain would go away now that he's here.

She turned around and saw the man she's been dying to see. No, it's not an apparition like what she usually sees when she's at school or at home.

It's him. The real one, the physical one, the loved one.

She waited for this for four months and seeing him for a few seconds felt as if all those times were slowly filled in.

She didn't say anything. She smiled. With her teary eyes.