Wow, That Sucks

17. Death: the end of the life of a person or organism.

A/N: Aaaaand the epilogue.

* * *

Seven months later.

The day was uncharacteristically warm as I rolled into town. The sky was just beginning to lighten up for the day--soft oranges, yellows, and pinks covering up a starry canvas. From what I could tell, nothing was different about my hometown. The replication of the old fort still stood, guarding the Iowa side of the Mississippi River. Run-down pickup trucks trundled across the bridge, up the hill on the highway, and along the side streets.

The world was quiet. I rolled down my windows and cruised down the main street. I'd gotten here a couple hours before I had to be, but I wasn't quite ready to go home yet. Besides, I didn't want to wake up my family.

Birds sang in the limbs of roadside trees, and joggers with earbuds jammed in their ears blurred through my peripheral vision. Stars disappeared from the sky with each passing moment. Leaves rustled from the wind. There was absolutely nothing special at all about this day, yet it was a huge milestone.

It was the day of my high school graduation.

Sure, I was excited to shed my title as a high school student, but I was actually way over it. It'd been at least a half a year since I'd theoretically graduated. There were no fireworks or parties or cards with money in them for me. Just tears in my mother's eyes, and bone-crushing hug from my father, and a proud set to Mikasa's jaw once I was finished with my finals--all of which I passed with flying colors (as far as I knew, I was still one of the valedictorians. Armin, of course, was the other).

I left home the Sunday following my finals. Eren, Ymir, Sasha, Armin, Connie, and I got together for old time's sake the night before I left. We didn't invite Marco.

It was a bittersweet goodbye, to say the least, but it was nowhere near as bad as saying goodbye to my family. Mom was a puddle of tears, and Dad even looked close to crying too. Mikasa hugged me for a solid three minutes, and Levi even gave me a handshake and a, "Good luck kid. You know who to call."

Before I left, I downgraded my phone to a flip-phone. I know, I know. You're 17, Jean. Why do you need a Jitterbug? My parents agreed to keep me on their plan, but I wanted to try living a minimalist life. If I was on Facebook and Snapchat all the time, I wouldn't be focusing on myself and my personal growth. That's what I was hoping to do, after all. I wanted to discover myself, as lame as that sounded.

The first month and a half on my own were hard, I'm not gonna lie. I had straight up withdrawal symptoms from the lack of social media in my life. Keeping busy became my friend. I traveled in my truck anywhere I wanted, but it soon became apparent that gas was going to be an issue quickly.

When I left home, I took a tent, several sleeping bags, anything a boy scout could need, a select few outfits, and some other essentials of my own. The first night I ended up somewhere upstream on the Mississippi still in Iowa. It was the middle of the night when the tent collapsed on me and scared me to death . All the noises at night perturbed me, making it hard to sleep. For the first week, I basically didn't. Eventually, I got so tired during the day when I was driving that I almost drove myself off the road, so I pulled over and caught some Zs on the shoulder.

Most nights, I slept in the bed of my truck while parked in lots and openings in the woods. Thankfully, I never got caught or asked to leave. Some nights, I'd sit with other campers, and we'd share stories over the campfire. To them, I was Eren Jaeger, a college student taking a semester off the travel the country. It was liberating getting to be whoever I wanted.

I did all my hunting at night under the cover of the treetops. Sometimes, I'd hunt up to four or five times a week simply because I could. My fangs got easier to control and so did my urges. I hadn't even known I was anxious around others until I stopped worrying about how their pulse sounded and how fucking hungry I was half the time.