The List: One Year, One Adventure ✔️

Chapter 16: Always

Ari

Road trips were simply amazing. They were amazing because they allowed a person to sit and reflect, while viewing the wonders of Mother Nature all around. Road trips allowed you to connect with the people you traveled with, sharing stories, and singing along to the radio.

Road trips weren't amazing when you were hungover and pulling massive third wheel duty, while two totally in love people threw googly eyes at each other, squeezing each other's hands, and making lovey dovey inside jokes. 

I pressed my face up against the window in the back, the cool nature of the window caressed my tired and massively uncomfortable cheeks. My glasses were pressed up on my face in a really uncomfortable and weird position, and I looked as if I was straight out of that one scene in that Cameron Diaz movie Bad Teacher, where she tried to sleep off a hangover behind her desk, glasses askew. 

Someone kill me now or pull over to let me unload everything I had eaten in the last day.

The whole lovey dovey action in the front seat only made the nausea worse. Don't get me wrong, it was amazing that my best friend in the whole world had reconnected with the love of her life. I was happy that Patrick was here with us, taking time off his busy schedule to actually have a little bit of fun for once. He was different since he arrived from L.A., there was a calm and fun loving nature in his eyes that I hadn't seen since college. 

The real world post graduation, hit Patrick hard and in an attempt to grow up, he assumed the role of wise, stern dad, more than the fun loving and creative Patrick who stole Venise's heart and her locker key her Freshman Year, so he could secretly place a white rose in it each day for weeks. 

The only thing I could stomach right now, as the car bounced a tad on the long highway headed to Miami, was old memories. The thought of thinking about what awaited me in Miami, only made my desire to void my stomach even greater. New Orleans had been amazing and I felt like I had started to really like myself, enough so, that I could enter a new phase of my life where I actually loved and cared for who I was. 

I had made a friend for life, someone who when I said my hungover goodbyes while hugging, I had totally ugly cried. Sassy was headed back home to Dallas for some charity event that her dad was putting on. In between the hugs, were promises of meeting up either in Miami or the following destination. 

I made it a point to try and avoid Ace and any lengthy goodbye, at any cost. Last night, he made a declaration that he wasn't done fighting, for me nonetheless. For me, could you believe that? I wasn't anything special. I wasn't rich. I wasn't a Dallas debutant who made a life of pageants and posing with sick kids at the local children's hospital. I wasn't the girl who was from a distinguished family that celebrated vacations in the Caymans or Hamptons. I was the ordinary girl who didn't know if I could live a life that revolved and was controlled by money. 

Ace was everything that any girl could want, but with that came a lot of expectations tied to his money. While Dean came from money, he was modest with the way he lived, the only exception was his addiction to designer suits and electronic equipment. 

Dean was the guy who preferred feeding the ducks at the park over charity events.

He was the guy who went grocery shopping for the elderly couple downstairs on Wednesdays after work.

He was the guy, that knew I was uncomfortable with flashy restaurants, so he chose hole in the wall pizza joints and taco trucks, over 5-star French cuisine.

He was also the guy who never said out loud that he wanted to fight for me and only me. 

When we reached Mississippi, I was so over the whole we could make babies in this front seat thing, that I had been watching for the last several hours, that I requested we stop and actually try to eat. Of course Venise picked some roadside dinner looking place, with an outdoor picnic bench and ordering window. That signaled two things: greasy food and impending sickness to follow. I was about to complain about the choice in post hangover food, until I saw the words World's Best Curley Fries in bold print across their outside menu.