Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

13ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                                   13ᵀᴴ CHAPTER               

               “Photography is all about secrets. The secrets we all have and will never tell” 

By the time Harry shuts the boot it’s somewhere past 10pm, the night chilly and silent.

Elisha’s not sure when exactly he retrieved his car (since apparently he’d had one in his old flatmate’s hands), but after two minutes of discussion the three of them decided it was better and bigger than PJ’s car anyway, so it would only help with how they’d have to carry a huge equipment for both camping and photographing. Mostly camping, though.

Leesh could feel the ache in her back already, the feeling of tiredness consuming her brain enough. The past fortnight hadn’t been easy at the least, the café monotone as the expected, but the evenings busy with research and writing, long hours spent in front of a computer screen with at least five tabs open at a time.

Patrick had bribed her with much coffee and biscuits through the hours they spent awake trying to make the freaking article presentable, and brilliant, too, if they could manage.

The thing is, it had exhausted her. By now Elisha probably knows more about stupid birds than her own life, if she’s honest. Plus, there’s still two full hours inside of a car until they reach Rutland and that only for them to sleep in the car until 9am the next day, when they’ll finally be allowed in. She had seriously considered only leaving on Friday morning, getting to sleep on her own bed rather than uncomfortable seats, but Patrick had insisted they’d gone the night before so they could be there by the time the gates opened, settled themselves straight away into the camping area.

It really made no sense at all, but Leesh wasn’t going to listen to PJ’s whimpers all night long all the while he bothered her to get more things solved. Which was the most likely to happen if they got into the car only hours before the actual Birdfair thing.

“You’ve got the tickets, right?” she turns her head a bit so it’s enough for her to glance at Patrick on the backseat, his socked feet up on the leather as he rests against the pillow on the door, sprawled out as much as possible. Then why again she took the passenger seat?

PJ rolls his eyes, pulling out his wallet. “Right here, Dalton. It’s the third time you ask.”

She glares at him, shuffling back to her previous position whilst muttering ‘just checking’, right on time for Harry to open the door and clamber onto his own seat. He’s got his hair damp from the drizzle, and his cheeks are slightly reddened from the effort he’d been putting onto shoving the tents into the boot, careful with the boxes he’d stocked all the breakable things they’d need.

“Okay, so,” he says, buckling his seatbelt and sighing overdramatically when leaning against the back of his seat, his fingers gripping loosely the wheel. “I’ve never been to Rutland before and I have no idea where I should be driving. I hope you two are good at giving directions.”

Patrick just laughs quietly to himself as if the situation is actually amusing, but stays silent after, sinking further down on his seat, the bastard.

“Well, I have print screened Google Maps and that’s as far of a help I can offer,” warns Elisha, unfolding a crumpled paper from her front pocket, handing it to Harry, who just waves it off, motioning for her to keep it.

“It’s gotta be enough.”

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