Till Next Time | completed | currently under re-edit

15

15
A sudden clawing at my knee startles me as my reflexes work against my will and I swat the hand away.

"Ow!" Ana pulls her hand back and holds it to her chest. "Dude, my house was not built to withstand your coping mechanism."
I realize that my leg has been tapping up a hurricane and I had already chewed my lower lip to raw flesh.
"I am sorry," I say.
She waves it off.

"Does he have the least bit of idea?" I ask.
"He knows that you will be coming to talk to him, that is all," she replies, without averting her eyes from her laptop.
"Oh Lord," I grunt and bury my face in my palms.
She laughs. "Hey, you threw me under the bus! Now you have to make it up to me."
I have to.
We both knew when we made the call that we eventually have to ask for permission to someone. Unlike others, some puppets like their strings.

Anastasia literally had me schedule a time with her father to persuade him on letting her go on a roadtrip with me because I am running away from my ex-girlfriend.
Pretty sure if I start with that, it will be a straight-no. Maybe even a fuck-off-to-your-rabbit-hole.

"You will be fine." She pats my shoulder. "My dad is nice. If I can wheel to your folks without weeing in my girl pants, you can fly with this!"
If I had to stand my folks on the daily and hourly, I would wee my boy-pants.

The front door opens and with a "I'm home" Mr. Collins announces himself to us.

Ana cranes her neck over the edge of the living room couch. "Hey Dad. Remember Brooklyn said he'll talk to you about something today?"

"Yes, it was an... interesting phone call."

I swallow against my sandpaper tongue to keep from throwing up all over the floor.

"Yeah. So he's here."
Mr. Collins walks into the living room and tosses his jacket on the comforter. "Hello, Brooklyn. Did not expect to see you this soon."

Are you already mildly suggesting that I get the fuck off of your property? "Yes. Change of plans." I try my best to smile back.
"Do you mind if I freshen up a little bit?", he says and I shake my head.
I look back at Ana when he leaves. "Just get straight to the point," she whispers softly.

Mr. Collins settles down on the comforter with a huff from stiff joints in his pyjamas and a night shirt, which seems to be missing a button. "I hope everything is all right?" he says.
Ana and I nod in unison.
"Yes, yes," I speak too quickly but at this point my tongue is barely under my control. "It is something else. I am here for your permission."
He cocks his head. "Permission for what?"
Just say it. I take a deep breath and instantly feel my head spin.
Just. Say. It.
"A roadtrip." I mumble the words out. "We want to go on a roadtrip."

Mr. Collins furrows his brows, tilting his face to a side.
I continue on. "It was my plan. I wanted to get out, experience a change of air for the summer break. I did not want to go alone. She's the only friend I have."
I look over in her direction. She was playing with a thread jutting out of the hem of the cushion cover.
"A roadtrip to where?" he asks.
"Lollapalooza." Anastasia says before I can answer.
"Why Lollapalooza?"
"It was my suggestion." She lets the thread be and joins the conversation. "I guess I always wanted to go to a music festival. It rolled off my lips."
"Okay. So where is this Lollapaloo-whatever?"
"In Chicago," Anastasia says and I let her. I have no idea whatsoever and have conducted no individual research to this.

"That's far," he says.
None of us had any answer to that.

Mr. Collins sighs, "Do you want to go?"
I nod. He waits for Anastasia to respond.
"Can we afford to go?" she asks, guilt in her eyes.
"Don't worry about that," I intervene. "Since it is my plan, it is on me."
"No, Brooklyn," Mr. Collins says, "We can't take your money!"
"No no, you are not taking it. It's just a trip."
Mr. Collins looks over at Anastasia again.
"Please, I insist," I persist.
I guess the subject reaches a quiet mitigation and Mr. Collins goes on, "Have you thought about it? Where will you stay? Sleep?"
"We will get Airbnbs or motels, anything."

He nods and slumps back on his chair. A silence prevails for some time. I listen to my own beating heart slow down and the frothing ocean in me calms.
"Anastasia," Mr. Collins speaks, " Do you want to go?"
The love in his eyes makes me look away. Lest it cuts through the concrete and steel and accidentally finds out something about me I do not intend the world to know.
No one looks at me like that.

Ana nods, so softly anyone can hardly spot any movement.
Mr. Collins smiles. He gets up from his comforter and leaves us alone in the buzzing silence of the living room.

"Brooklyn."
"Ana."
She gives me a look of profound sincerity. "There are a lot of things about me that you should know."
"Okay?"
"I cannot walk. I am paralyzed from the waist down, right?"
"Right." Something in her tone makes me turn and sit to face her.
"I cannot feel anything just below my pelvis. I need help sitting up and cannot for too long before I start feeling a strange discomfort. I need help going to the bathroom, having a shower, everything. Literally everything. I get tired easily but you'll have to put me to sleep. My sense of equilibrium is fucked up, you have to help keep my head up and in a straight line. There are a million different things that are wrong with me, you have to help me with that. You have to tolerate and swallow all of that. You are signing up for this willingly. Do you still want to? Now that you know my truth." She finishes to catch her breath.
I open my mouth to say something but fail.
"I need an answer now, Brooklyn. I really need one."
I quietly nod.

"I should be going home." I get up. She presses her lip into a thin line and nods away.

You are an idiot, Brooklyn.

I log into the official Lollapalooza website before I can take my shoes off, my anchoring anxiety taunting me that tickets will sell out before I can make a decision. I open another tab and obsessively watch every Lollapalooza vlog I could find. If we are to go, I need to have every last detail planned out. I cannot afford to wing it, at least not with Anastasia.

My mind drift backs to her. I froze when she told me her truth. I froze at the one single moment she required me to not. At that moment I wanted to dig a pit and crawl in there. Just like I always wish when I see a homeless man with his scraggly beard. Or a woman with a mutated limb going about with her life. Or Anastasia when she tried to crawl on her belly to her wheelchair.

I do not do well with tragedies.

I fetch my journal and note down all the information I can. This one will be tagging along with me.
The Stonehenge font in white announces the dates of the festival. 1st to 4th August.
We are almost at June. Yet, this is way later.
I lean back in my chair, the canvas in my plain sight, and feet automatically pushing me into a somber spin.

I do not recall for how long I was lost to the world and lost in my own visions but when I get up and ask myself what I want, a thought had already begun to build itself, letter by letter and alphabet by alphabet.

I type East Coast Roadtrip in Google Search and as promised, she throws up a multiple exotic options.
I lose count of the number of articles I go through. I lose count over the hours I spend peering into the road map of the East.
I finally shut my computer off and reach for the phone to make a call.

"You are joking, right?" A groggy Anastasia answers.
"Do you know that Lollapalooza starts in August?"
"Yes, why?" It ends in a yawn.
"It is safe to say your dad is okay with you going."
"Yes. I can disembowel you right now."
"Why?" I laugh.
"Do you not have a clock? It is 5 am."

I look towards my window and find the icy blue hue cascading warmly onto my floor. Meaning I missed dinner all together.

"I lost track of time. Listen-"
"Do I have a choice?" She yawns again.
"We are doing the whole East Coast."
Quiet. "What?"
"I figured if we are doing this, we are doing this the way it needs to be done. If I am on the road, I will be there for as long as I can."
"Are you sure? I told you about my-"
"Yes. I know. I know what is at stake and I know what it requires of me. And I am in this. I am willingly signing up for this."
I feel her smile from the other end. "Okay then," she says, her voice cracking a little, "What now?"
I smile. "Start packing. We leave in three weeks."

A/N: Glad to announce that the story has finally started to take shape and I may be updating twice a week.
It will definitely take some getting used to, but I am willing to commit.

Also, new cover.
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