I Was Meant for More novel · Chapter 8 of 16

Chapter 8: The Bus

"No," I said.

His smile stayed on a second too long.

"No, what?"

"No, I'm not going to call you every night."

I took my hand off the chain.

"I'm not going to call you at all."

He laughed.

"Come on. You're mad. I get it. You'll get over it."

"That's what Courtney said. At the fountain. 'She'll cry for a week, and then she'll get over it.'"

His face changed.

"You don't get to just leave me, Erica. Not after eighteen years."

"You left me at Cedar," I said. "I'm just going somewhere else."

I went inside and locked the screen door.

He stood on the porch for ten minutes.

Then his truck pulled away.

He came back the next night, and the one after that.

He sat in his truck across the street with the engine running.

He texted me forty times.

"Please."

"I'm sorry."

"You owe me a conversation."

"I'm the one who taught you to ride a bike."

On the fourth night my mother walked out in her scrubs and knocked on his window.

I couldn't hear what she said.

He drove away and didn't park there again.

On August eighteenth, my mother drove me to the Greyhound station in Columbus at six in the morning.

It was a twenty-hour ride to Colorado Springs.

Plane tickets cost too much.

I didn't care.

I had one big suitcase, a backpack, and a shoebox with my newest notebook taped inside.

My mother made me put on sunscreen in the parking lot.

We were in line at the bus door when I saw the truck.

Trent pulled up on the curb and jumped out without turning off the engine.

He pushed past the line and stood in the bus doorway.

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