Attention

9

___

Last two hours

"Tell me about your family."

I look over at Carter, who was munching on pretzels we got from the gas station that we stopped at ten minutes ago. My snack of choice were skittles.

I pop a skittle into my mouth. "Tell you about my family?"

He nods. "Yeah, what are they like? What do they do? Do you have any siblings? All that stuff."

I chuckle. "All that stuff, alright. Well, my mom is a dance instructor and my dad is a swim coach. And no, I don't have any siblings. And there's no specific way to explain my parents. They love people and by what they do you already know they're very active people. They're just very interesting."

He smiles. "They sound...nice. What's your relationship with them? Are you close with them?"

I grin thinking about my parents. "Yes, I love them very much. My parents always support me whole-heartedly in the things I do and I can always talk to them when I need to talk."

And then I realize I'm talking so highly about my parents when his - well his mom - isn't around for him like mine is. I'm probably making him feel so bad about his mom talking about how mine is so great.

My eyes widen in realization and I quickly look at Carter. "I'm sorry, Carter, I'm not trying to make it seem like I'm bragging."

He frowns. "What? No, don't apologize. You're just telling me what I asked. And I like hearing about other people's happy family. It's stupid but it makes me feel like I'm apart of it for just a second."

My face softens and I say softly, "It's not stupid." I pause. "Tell me about your parents, you know, before..."

He nods in understanding. "Yeah, okay," he clears his throat. "well, my parents are deeply in love with each other. I've always told myself when I grow up I want to have a relationship like theirs. The amount of care my dad showed my mom in the time of her...episodes was very admirable. My dad and my mom always showed me unconditional love and they taught me to be kind to people. Always. No matter our differences."

I smile. "They sound like really great parents."

He breathes in. "Yeah, I...I miss my mom, a lot."

"I know." I whisper.

He continues to drive on and we sit in silence after that. I notice his hands gripping the steering wheel harder than usual, making his knuckles turn white.

My eyebrows scrunch and I place my hand on his arm and I can feel how tense he is, making him glance at me for a brief second. "We will find her, Carter."

"And what if we don't?" he says, the sadness taking over his voice. "Then this was all for nothing."

He's right but I can't let him think he's right. This was all my idea anyways. I should be blamed. I just want him to be happy.

I shake my head. "You can't think like that. You have to be positive about this."

His grip on the steering wheel loosens and I feel his muscles relax under my fingertips. So, I, very hesitantly, let go of his arm. He nods slowly. "Okay, I'll try." he says, quietly.

A minute later, Carter's phone makes a ding sound, indicating a text from someone. He glances at his phone then at me. "Can you see who that's from?"

I nod, picking up his phone and when I see who it's from my eyebrows raise. "It's a text from Joey."

His eyebrows scrunch in confusion. "What does it say?"

"What's your password?"

"0-0-0-0."

I give him an amused look. "Really?"

He lets out a sheepish laugh. "It's easy to remember."

I shake my head in amusement with a small smile on my face, unlocking his phone. Once I tap the message and Joey's text comes up, the smile drops. "Oh, no."

"What?"

My eyes widen. "It says, 'hey, can I come to your house to talk? This is getting ridiculous.' What do I say?"

"Shit, uh, tell him I don't feel like it because...because I'm sick." he says, frantically.

I nod and type out the text he told me to send. I send it and wait for a reply but instead get a phone call. From Joey.

With a panicked look on my face, I turn the phone towards Carter. "He's calling!"

"Well, don't answer it!"

"You have to answer it or he's gonna come to your house anyways!"

"Okay, okay, fine, put it on speaker."

I answer the call and put it on speaker, motioning for him to talk. He clears his throat and starts to speak. "Hello?" he says, making his voice raspy.

Which, was kinda hot but that's not what we're focused on here.

Joey voice booms through the phone. "Oh, shit, are you really sick man?"

He lets out a fake cough. "Uh, yeah, why are you calling?"

Joey sighs. "I wanted to say I'm sorry for saying what I said about your mom. It wasn't my place to say it and I'm sorry."

A smile appears on Carter's face and he speaks in his normal voice. "Well, I forgive you--" I cut him off by tapping his arm and pointing to my throat indicating for him to put back on his raspy voice and he nods in realization. "Uh, yeah, I forgive you and it's fine. I understand."

"Really? Good, I'm glad we got this figured out." he pauses. "Since, I'm on the phone with you right now, I was gonna ask about Ava."

My eyes widen and I perk up when he says my name.

Carter looks confused. "What about her?"

"Is there something going on between you two?" he asks, curiously.

A blush appears on my face and I look straight forward to make sure Carter doesn't notice my flusteredness.

"No, there's not, why?"

"I don't know, you guys have been being wierd lately. Like, when I walked in the library and saw you guys were whispering about something." he says, nonchalantly.

"Well, duh, we were whispering, it's a library. And anyways, we were only talking." he defends.

"About what? Your future kids?" he says, jokingly.

"Okay, I'm gonna hang up now."

"Wha- I was only kidding."

Carter mouths at me to hang up the phone and I'm reluctant.

"Carter? You still there?"

He lets out another fake cough, "Hanging up, I need to get some rest."

"Oh, come on--" and then I hang up the phone.

It gets quiet for a moment and Carter and I glance at each other before we both burst into laughter. I don't know why it was so funny to us but I think it's because all this serious stuff that's been going on with his mom, we had to find something to laugh about and this was the comic relief.

Carter's laugh settles down a little. "He can be ridiculous sometimes."

My laughter starts to die down at his statement. Maybe I was taking it the wrong way but it made me upset that us being together would be ridiculous to him. I let out a forced chuckle. "Yeah, totally ridiculous."

A/N:

Did you like this chapter? It was fun to write. Actually this whole book is fun to write ;))