Everything Sucks! • Toliver

Four

    With a sign, I sat down on the pavement, against the brick wall of an Arby's. What was I doing? Well, waiting.

    Yes, waiting for Tyler's stupid parents, who blackmailed me into coming back to Boring. Sort of. They threatened to call the police to come looking for me if I didn't agree to coming back with them, and honestly, the whole thing was bullshit. I was about to turn 18 soon anyway, and I already had a plan to get to Los Angeles.

    The New York thing was to throw them off. I didn't want people tracking me down after I ran away. Everyone knew Los Angeles was where the real celebrities and actors live, and Los Angeles was way closer, too. Realistically, getting there would be easier.

    I crossed my arms and let my head fall back onto the brick wall. I was such a fucking idiot for leaving the box in front of Tyler's door. I hadn't expected his parents to actually give a fuck whether I ran away or not, and maybe it was Tyler himself that convinced them to come looking for me. My only regret was just not giving him the jacket yesterday at school, and maybe leaving the shitty letter in a pocket or something instead. So now, I was fucked. Waiting until the end of my senior year to get out of Boring would be horrible, especially now that I don't have Emaline. Add Scott poking fun at Tyler and I every two seconds, and now joking about how I tried to run away... absolute hell.

    Tyler and his parents took a good while to show up, so I figured I'd just walk into the Arby's and buy a soft drink so I didn't freeze my ass off. According to SnapMaps, I was in Hopville, Oregon. I wasn't sure how Tyler's parents would even find me, but if they didn't, that meant they'd probably get the police involved.

    Which also meant my parents. And god knows what would happen if they heard I tried to run away.

    So basically, I waited a whole hour for Tyler's parents to come find me. I wasn't sure what their plan was, and I hoped it was to just drop me off in front of my house without any comment. But if Tyler's parents were anything like I expected, they'd probably try to figure out why I'd do such a thing and go on a whole spiel about why I should love my family.

Tyler: We're here!!!!!!!!!

Tyler: Red nisan

His misspelling of Nissan made me smile, but I was also dreading being taken back home.

And dreading sitting with Tyler Bowen and his parents in the same car. For an hour.

I stepped outside and, sure enough, there was a red Nissan Altima waiting. After shoving my phone in my pocket, I peered inside and opened one of the side doors and sat down. Tyler threw both of his arms around me before I could even put my seatbelt on.

"Oliver, hun- that's your name, right?" his mother asked as I weaseled out of Tyler's grip.

Tyler let go of me and watched as I put my seatbelt on. "I missed you," he pouted, staring at me as I took a breath and tried to think of how to answer these questions. Why did he miss me? He hated me up until that Weezer concert, and even then, we didn't get along all that great. Maybe it was because I stood up for him once or twice, but aside from that I couldn't imagine why.

"Yeah, I'm Oliver." I looked away from the woman and over at Tyler. "Why? I wasn't even away for that long."

It was only about 17 hours since we last talked- at school, probably. Not even twenty four hours. I left around ten the night before, after putting the box down...

Then I noticed Tyler was actually wearing the jacket. I smiled, not being able to help it. He was the only one I could think of that I'd care about after running off to LA. Sure, Scott and I were "friends," but he was annoying, and I knew I wouldn't miss him. Emaline and I were split, so he was the one that ended up with the jacket.

Tyler just stared at me, but his mom kept talking. "Next time you try and run away, make sure you actually have a car. Anything could've happened to you on the road, hun. You're lucky we found you."