Ride Home To Me

Chapter 18

I run down the sidewalk after Letty.

"Letty!"

"Leave me alone Gabi," I hear her call back.

"Come on hermana," I catch up to her and quickly put myself in her path. "I get it you absolutely don't wanna stay at the Toretto's house today, but I know you wanna stay at your dad's even less."

Letty clenches her jaw, and I can tell she's fighting tears. "Gabi I can't stay there tonight."

I sigh and take her hand. "I wasn't telling you to. Come on. I did laundry earlier so I've got extra stuff you can sleep in."

Letty and I walk back to my house and as we pass by the Toretto's home I wave to Tony and silently gesture, letting him know we'd be heading back. My ma makes popcorn when we put a movie on, and we just let Letty cry and chat until the movie's over. We then head upstairs and start getting ready for bed.

When Letty gets back from the bathroom I toss her a t-shirt and some sweatpants.

"Thanks," she says as she catches them.

"Yeah no problem," I say, turning to grab some clothes for myself.

"No I mean like-" Letty clears her throat. "Thanks for coming after me. I honestly thought you were gonna just stay behind with Dom and Tony and Mia."

I go and sit next to her on the bed. "Of course I came after you. Dom's one of my best friends too but he's got his dad and Mia there with him. I'm sorry for yelling at you guys. I really did not see that coming."

Letty shrugged. "Yeah, I don't think I really saw it coming either." She chuckles. "Then you said all that stuff and...I don't know, I just realized that I'm so over it. I think Dom and I really are better off as friends. I ain't got the patience to deal with him if he isn't gonna mature enough to actually be in a relationship."

"You don't deserve to deal with it if that's not what you want, Letty," I say, taking her hand and squeezing it. I sigh. "Look, there's no doubt that Dom cares about you a lot. You don't owe him anything though. Maybe...maybe in the future if it works out."

Letty looks at me and a look crosses her face that I can't quite place. It's gone in a second, though, and she just nods her head.

"Maybe."

•-•-•-•-•

I stand up in my seat and drape my arms over the windshield, screaming at the top of my lungs, relishing the feeling of the wind rushing onto my face. Dom, Letty, Vince, Leon, and I are on an open road with no other cars around in a beautiful convertible with the top down. Their encouraging cheers only egg on Letty, who carefully stands up right behind me and suddenly wraps her arms around my waist. I get butterflies as I lean against her and feel her face right next to mine, resting on my shoulder from behind me.

"We're done with high school bitches!" Letty yells into the wind. I laugh and whoop alongside the boys.

Senior finals week breezed by and to celebrate Letty and I graduating high school today, Tony and my ma let the five of us go free for the rest of the day with the promise to meet them at our favorite restaurant for dinner.

The four of us pull up to this lookout on the side of the highway. Letty loosens her grip on my waist and I immediately find myself wishing she hadn't. I sigh and climb out of the car. You can't be doing that Gabi, I tell myself. There's no way.

But those thoughts are quickly tossed right out the window as soon as I see her standing on the edge. The breeze from the ocean below tosses her hair about and she stands with her graduation robes swinging behind her. The sun shines right on her face, illuminating her beautifully dark eyes. I'm snapped out of my thoughts by Leon nudging me.

"The hell are you looking at Gabi?" Shit.

"Uh the-the ocean," I clear my throat. "Ocean looks beautiful."

I let out a sigh of relief when he just mutters in agreement before squeezing my shoulder and leading me to join our three companions. There's a bit of tension in the air, considering it's only been about a week since Letty broke up with Dom, but actually less than I expected at this point. I was right about them. They're best friends at the core, and it doesn't seem like they're going to let their relationship problems get in the way of that. Dom goes over to Vince and Leon and they start chatting about some party happening tomorrow.

"You ready for the adult world?" Letty sighs, leaning on the rail next to me.

I shake my head, staring out over the vast ocean. "I don't really know."

"You know," Letty says. "Sometimes I like thinking about what I might look like in the future. If I've got a family or not. You ever think about that? How would you wanna do that anyway?"

"I've never really thought that far ahead," I admit. I look down. "I don't think I ever actually let myself. There's a part of me that wants all of that, but part of me tells me it's never gonna happen. Better to have low expectations, right? Besides," I smirk and nudge her, "it's more fun to live a quarter-mile at a time."

Letty looks at me before putting her hand over mine and squeezing it. It's a small gesture, a simple gesture, but it sends a huge feeling of relief through my chest. I give her a small smile before moving my hand away and clapping her shoulder.

"Come on boys," I call out. "Time to go."

That night Mia, Letty, and I spend the night at my house talking about anything and everything. When Mia falls asleep, Letty climbs into the spot next to me on my bed. I chuckle, looking at Mia.

"She always fall asleep by midnight?" I ask.

"Ever since middle school," Letty smiles. Then she flips over and looks at me. "Hey can I ask you something? You don't gotta answer if you don't want to though."

I prop myself up on my elbow. "Yeah shoot."

"How did you figure out that you liked girls? Like was it just one day you were all like 'yeah these guys ain't really doin' it for me' and then boom you're a lesbian?"

I snort and we both try to laugh as quietly as we can so we don't wake Mia.

"As much as that kinda certainty would've been nice, no," I giggle. "I don't know, it's kinda hard to explain. It's different for everybody. Some people just know by themselves, some people figure it out when they're young and some don't know until they're adults. Think I really realized it in middle school. There was this girl I just... I don't know. It was real corny little kid romance stuff. I wanted to hold her hand and kiss her cheek, and dance with her at our little school dances, and I was so confused because I should've been feeling that about boys, you know? But once I figured out that's what I was actually feeling, I realized I'd never really felt that way about boys before. And it just kinda clicked."

Letty frowns, looking deep in thought.

"You good Let?"

She shakes herself and nods, grinning. "Yeah I'm good hermana. Hey by the way we're both invited to the party tomorrow. Mr. T's out of town so Dom's hosting."

"Is that what they were talking about earlier? Damn I didn't think Tony would actually let him."

"Yeah long as we help him clean up afterward," Letty scoffs.

I smile, then let out a huge yawn. "Shit, I'm gonna crash," I chuckle. I lay down and pull the blankets over the both of us. "You can stay here if you want to or sleep on the floor, doesn't matter. Night Letty."

"Goodnight Gabi."

Letty turns off the light, hesitates, then makes herself comfortable next to me under the blankets, and I smile.