Aarmau Short Stories ●A Purplla Publish●

|Story Three| Diary of a Runaway Teenager

After I ask her, she doesn't answer me but she stops her thumb from rubbing my head. She tenses up so I pull away, "I'm sorry that it's very sudden." 

"Why do you want to run away?" She starts rubbing my head with her entire hand. "What's wrong?"

"It's my father." I told her about how Dad enforced strict rules on me as a child, but I never told her why. I'm afraid of how she'd react if I were an Ultima. "I need a few days to clear my head and I don't want to do it alone." So who better than the person I can trust the most?

"Has he enrolled you into Military school?" That's what I told her instead of the Ultima thing.

"He's considering it." That wasn't an entire lie. When was I in high school, I was one suspension away from a plane ride to Maine. "Please come with me."

"It isn't that simple, Aaron. I have school and my mom and dad would be worried about me." My head is still buried into her neck. She smells like coconut and vanilla so I take her scent in as much as I can. 

She moves her hand from my head to my back and starts rubbing it, "We could go anywhere you'd like. Scaleswind, O'Khasis, Meteli, you name it. We can go wherever you'd like, whatever you'd like to do, anytime you'd like." Her rubbing becomes slower. 

"Why me?" She whispers, "Why do you choose me to go with you?"

I didn't know this was going to come out but it did. "Because I'm in love with you." And I don't regret telling her this. She stops rubbing my back and I pull away to look her in the eye. "I couldn't imagine doing this with someone else."

She puts her hand on my cheek and I lean into it. "Is that your only reason?"

"I know you aren't happy here. In this house." Her face softens, "I know you just got back from your dad's and you don't want to be here."

She purses her lips, "I don't."

"Three or four days at max. I'll return you home the second you tell me to." She walks over to her bed and sits down, crossing her legs.

"That doesn't mean I can just get up and leave at any time." I sit down next her. "I'm in high school. You might be able to make it, but I can't leave. Without some attention my way."

I sit down on the bed next to her. She continues on, "If I was a bit older, maybe I'd go with you. But I can't risk anything."

"Three or four days." I want to see how far I can go. "Anywhere you want to go, anything you want to do, anytime you want to do it."

"Aaron-"

"Please, Aphmau. I can't want to do this alone." She looks over at her phone then sighs.

"Anywhere I want to go?"

"Anywhere." She raises over to her nightstand and grabs her phone.

"Fine." She says, "I'll go with you."

•○●A Purplla Publish●○•

We're about an hour into the car drive. Aphmau's bundled up in a blanket while playing best fiends. "I'm bored." She breaks the silence. "Let's play a game."

"What kind of game?" She turns down the radio.

"21 questions." She says while turning off her phone. "You can go first."

"Okay umm why did your parents divorce?"

"Sometimes, love doesn't last forever. They only got married in the first place because my mom was pregnant with me." She answers. "But I'm glad they're divorced. Dad looks happier."