pack ur bags i’ll b there in 10

It takes a while before she registers the text message because it’s four thirty in the morning and normal people are asleep at this time of the day but once she’s conscious enough to understand the message, she hears a thunk on her window. She gets up to open her curtains and sees Henry outside with a handful of stones and a grin.

“What are you doing?” She hisses as she opens her window.

“Picking you up. Have you packed?” He smiles at her innocently, the kind that makes him get away with everything and the kind that she finds hard to say no to.

“Where are we going?”

“Everywhere.”

When Amber settles into the passenger seat of Henry’s second hand car, he’s still grinning and she can only hope that the small note she left for her family would be enough to get her out of trouble when she gets back. She doubts it.

“Do we even have a destination?”

“Nope.” Henry answers almost immediately. “Just driving straight and see where it takes us.”

Amber sighs. Of course there’s no destination. Why did she even ask. “I’m gonna regret this.”

“You always say that but you never do.” He smiles cheekily as he shifts the gear into drive and Amber just rolls her eyes, not bothering to come up with a retort because it’s true. She doesn’t mind being in trouble as long as she’s with him and they could have fun without caring about anything else. He’s her best friend, her partner in crime. Being with him is freeing.

They drive well into the morning with the windows down, the wind biting on her cheeks and the sunrise kissing their skins. She watches as their town gets smaller and smaller until she can’t see it anymore.

“Are you regretting it so far?” Henry asks.

Amber turns to him and watches the sunrise reflect on his eyes. “No.”

They eat breakfast on a deli just outside their town where Henry takes a picture of her with his instant camera in the middle of inhaling her food. She glares at his grin and takes his sausage as a revenge. Henry just lets her, chuckling as he watches her gobble up her breakfast.

Amber notices his stare, just like she noticed how he’s been sneaking glances at her while he’s driving. “What?”

Henry only smiles and shakes his head. “Smile!”

He takes another picture.

They stop for gas after that and while Henry’s filling up the tank, Amber hauls the gas station snacks. Henry tells her how unhealthy they were but takes two ice cream sandwiches anyways. Amber excitedly opens a bag of hot cheetos and makes a mess on the passenger’s seat.

Henry doesn’t get mad. He takes another picture.

“Hey, you want to sleep?” Amber asks when Henry yawns for the fifth time for the past minute. Henry has been driving for hours now and he looks like he’s going to collapse soon.

“No, it’s okay.” Henry answers, trying to keep another yawn from coming out.

Amber rolls her eyes and slaps him on the shoulder. “Seriously, you need to sleep. You look exhausted and I still want to make it out alive for college.”

She had been friends with Henry ever since they were kids and she knows him like the back of her hand. She knows the face he makes when he’s incredibly happy (eyes disappearing into slits, grin so wide it almost splits his face); the face he makes when he’s scared (furrowed eyebrows, lips quivering and cold fingers tightly grabbing hers); the face he makes when he’s nervous (eyes blinking rapidly as he tries to laugh it off, his dry lips, and hand scratching the back of his neck). She can read him like no one else can so the sudden change of mood when she mentioned college doesn’t go unnoticed. She was about to ask him but he pulls over and gets out the driver’s seat without a word. For the first time, she fails to read him. It makes her uncomfortable and worried. Very worried.

“Are you okay?” she asks warily, climbing up the driver’s seat.

Henry gives her a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah.”

She knows that he isn’t but she lets it go and drives silently.

All is forgotten when they stop at a small town and Amber rushes to a souvenir shop while Henry takes pictures of everything.

“What should we get Amy and Eric?” Amber wonders as she looks around the shop.

Henry shrugs. “Eric would be happy as long as it’s food.”

Amber chuckles. “Right. What about this thing for Amy?” She picks up a dainty daisy hair pin, laughing as she puts it on. Henry smiles and holds up his camera and Amber makes a face as he snaps the picture.

“It looks prettier on you but I guess it’ll work for Amy, too.” He teases and Amber laughs again, slapping his arm before paying for the hair pin.

“Tell her to wear it on our graduation.”

Amber gets a phone call from her mom when they were eating lunch and she winces as her mother screams about being irresponsible for taking off in the middle of the night and scaring the hell out of them because they thought she was kidnapped. Amber apologizes for almost a hundred times before the screaming stops and eventually, her mother tells her to have fun before hanging up.

“That went better than I expected.” She sighs in relief. Henry agrees, pulling out his camera but before he could take a picture of her, Amber grabs it from his hand.

“Why are you always taking a picture of me?” She pouts, pointing the camera to Henry this time.

Henry shrugs. “I want to remember this trip.”

“I’m not the only one in this trip so smile!” She snaps a picture before Henry could even react. His eyes are closed in the picture, completely unprepared and she laughs. “I’m gonna keep this.”

Henry’s eyes disappear into slits as he grins.

They order takeout for dinner and ate in the car, Henry telling her not to make a mess before accidentally knocking off his soda and spilling it all over himself. Amber laughs so hard, she almost chokes on her burger. Henry tells her it’s karma.

It’s 11 PM when Henry starts to drive again and he says he has a surprise. Amber eyes him warily because his surprises usually involves him scaring the crap out of her.  He assures her that it won’t be like that and keeps driving.

About ten minutes later, Henry pulls over and gets out of the car excitedly. Amber follows after him and raises an eyebrow as she sees a tall fence, a big red TOWN POOL sign hanging on it.

“Up for a swim?” Henry grins before taking a bobby pin out of his pocket (Amber doesn’t know where he got that) and fiddling with the lock. Amber can count with her two hands the times he successfully picks a lock out of the million times he tried so it comes as a surprise when she hears a click after a few seconds. Henry grins smugly at her raised eyebrow and opens the gate.

Four lamp posts from each side lights the pool, the faint light making the place a little bit hazy, a little bit dreamy. Behind her, Henry had already taken his shirt off, screaming cannonball as he jumps in the pool. She shakes her head but jumps in as well, laughing as she resurfaces before splashing water at him. Henry protests before doing the same and soon, they were playing like they were kids again, trying to dunk each other’s heads in the pool, their laughter echoing throughout the place. Amber challenges him to a race and Henry accepts with vigour only to end up losing. She sticks her tongue out at him, laughing through her victory. He insists that he let her win and she can’t believe how much of a sore loser he is. Henry swims to her from across the pool and grabs her waist, slinging her on his shoulder and she shrieks in surprise.

“Henry put me down!”

He spins around a couple of times before complying, earning a hard punch on his shoulder. Henry laughs at her pout and ruffles her hair. Then he manages to shift the mood again when his gaze softens and the hand on her hair falls to her cheek. Amber’s heartbeat quickens and she knows that it’s not from their playful fight earlier.

She doesn’t know where she stands in Henry’s life. She doesn’t know where he stands in hers, too. There’s always been a blurred line between the two of them - between late night conversations and inside jokes; between warm embraces and forehead kisses; between quick glances from across the room and those lingering stares that speaks volumes of his feelings and hers.

But now, he’s close. So close, she feels like she’s going to drown from the way he looks affectionately at her and she wants to melt. The air is thick and suffocating and she knows that she’ll only be able to breathe if she kisses him. So she crosses the line first.

She grabs the back of his neck and crashes their lips together in a searing kiss, closing her eyes as she breathes him in, pulling him closer. Henry groans against , tongue tangling with hers and her hand sliding down his chest. He steps forward and she stumbles back, water splashing around them, until her back hits the tiled wall. She takes in the shaky sighs against her lips and hopes that his fingertips would leave imprints on her skin. She doesn’t want to forget any second of this. Henry breaks the kiss with a breathless chuckle, pressing his forehead on the crook of her neck as they both catch their breaths. Amber smiles and kisses his hair.

After they dried themselves off and changed, they sit on the back seat, wrapped in a blanket and each other’s arms, talking and kissing (mostly kissing).

“Henry?” Amber calls and Henry hums against her neck.

“Yeah?”

“Why did we go on this trip?”

Henry stops placing butterfly kisses on her neck and looks up at her. “What do you mean?”

“You got mad when I mentioned something about college earlier.”

“I wasn’t mad.”

“Then what is it?”

He looks at her with furrowed eyebrows, hesitating. She grabs his hand as an encouragement. It was cold.

“I sold my violin.”

“….what?”

Amber knows how important his violin is to him. It’s the embodiment of his dreams, the sparkle in his eyes and like he told her once, his second best friend. Never in her life would she think he’d let go of something so precious to him.

“I won’t need it after high school anyways,” he shrugs and Amber could see past his nonchalance, “and we need the money. Whitney’s starting high school soon.”

“But what about your dream?” Dreams that they made together under the blanket of stars - he was going to be a musician and she was going to be a film director but reality had caught up with Henry.

“I can’t be selfish now. I can’t have my mom working two jobs for our sake.” he continues with a sigh. “It’s been tough since my dad passed. I need to be someone my family can rely on.” Amber squeezes his hand. “Would you still think I’m cool even if I become just a random office guy?”

“I’d still think you’re a dork.” Amber teases and they both chuckle before Henry leans down to kiss her.

He tastes like tears and broken dreams.

Amber wants to set up a camp somewhere so they spend almost the whole next day looking for a place, driving aimlessly while singing along to the radio, only stopping for food and gas (where they buy more food and Amber would steal a kiss from him while he fills up the tank).

When they finally found a place that Amber deems decent enough, it’s already dark out and Henry pulls over, grabbing a flashlight from the dashboard while Amber grabs the bag of snacks on the backseat.

They make a fire out of the firewood that they bought from a supermarket and make s'mores, a blanket thrown around Henry and his arms wrapped around Amber, both their fingers sticky from the marshmallows, stomachs full and hearts giddy as they kiss and kiss and kiss.

“I wish we could do this forever.” Amber sighs as Henry pulls away for a moment.

“What, kiss?” He chuckles.

Amber rolls her eyes. “No, this trip. Just me and you, driving somewhere where reality and responsibility and adulthood won’t catch up with us.”

Henry’s smile is gentle as he brushes her hair out of her eyes. “Hey, you’re still going to a film school. I’m the only one that they have to catch.”

She kind of hates how he’s already resigned to acceptance.

“I’m going to be trapped in a very dull world soon,” Henry continues, “but I still have you and that’s more than enough. You’re my freedom, Amber.”

He leans down to kiss her again, arms wrapped tightly around her and she responds accordingly, pressing herself closer to him.

They’re going to graduate high school in a few days, say goodbye to some friends but not their memories. They’d be thrown into a new world and everything is going to change but Henry will always be her freedom and she will be his and that’s all she ever needs.