Pathways // Gawsten [Book 2]

03 - Back To Houston

From the moment Jawn buys Grace and Awsten their plane tickets, Awsten is bouncing off the walls. And not in a good way. He's pretty sure he's bitten his nails as much as he possibly could with nerves, and the second Jawn tells them they're booked, he goes and starts packing his bag. He completely misses the worried glances between Jawn and Grace.

Awsten knew realistically they could only go to Houston for a few days, under the event they cant find Geoff or he wants nothing to do with them. Also, staying home for too long would make too many suspicious about everything, and that was the last thing they needed. It was one thing for the entire band to be essentially MIA and on hiatus, but this would complicate things.

Awsten began throwing everything he would need into his bag, changes of underwear, socks, changes of tshirt. He's about to throw his journal and phone charger in his bag too when a knock at his bedroom door distracts him. Looking over his shoulder to the open door, he saw Grace stood there timidly. He smiled at her and she took a few steps towards him as he moved to unplug his phone charger.

"Awsten, wait a minute..." Grace spoke softly, and touched his shoulder.

She lead him over to sit on the edge of his bed and took his hand in hers before she began to speak,

"I know you want to do this, but please be prepared. You haven't seen Geoff in a year, hell, you didn't even say goodbye..."

"I know what I'm doing, Grace. I'll be fine." Awsten shrugged, not understanding that she was trying to help.

"Just, please don't let yourself get hurt. Things might've changed, he might be different." Grace spoke cautiously and Awsten's eyebrows furrowed.

"It's only been a year, not much could've changed." Awsten went to stand back up but he was quickly tugged back down again by Grace,

"Awsten..."

"Okay, Okay... I know." She gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand, standing up and letting him get back to what he was doing. Just before the left the room, she turned around to face him again,

"One more thing?" She began and Awsten nodded,
"You can't tell anyone - no friends, no family - that we're going to Houston. Not a soul."

Awsten was confused, but agreed. He knew deep down that telling people would be a massive mistake and would raise too many questions, but he had a hard time keeping his mouth shut about a lot of things. This was going to be hard to hide, but it was so going to be worth it.

On the drive to the airport and the flight to Houston, Awsten was silent. He kept his headphones in, blaring music as loud as he could without damaging his hearing, and ignored everything around him. He kept his eyes to the ground and followed the pink glow Grace gave off, praying he didn't run into anything or anyone, or even get lost.

All three of them kept their hoods up to conceal their hair and identities as much as they good. Jawn also had his sun glasses on, and Grace and Awsten had their normal glasses on, hoping it would conceal their faces that little bit more. They knew that it was unlikely they were going to get recognised in the airport, but all three of them had brightly coloured hair and that alone was going to attract enough attention.

Grace and Jawn seemed to know to not pester Awsten on their travels, as the only time they spoke to him was when they desperately needed to. Awsten was grateful that his friends understood somewhat. He knew that he was still wrapping his head around it all, and his feelings on the topic of seeing Geoff again were still very ambiguous. But he also knew he had to do this, and he'd regret it if he didn't.

Awsten stayed silent all the way up until they got into Jawn's car at the airport in Houston. Jawn motioned for Awsten to take his ear phones out, and Awsten pulled them out slowly with a blank face. The nerves in his stomach were nearly too much to handle.