Cherub

I gotta say, nothing compares to spending a night under a night sky full of stars. We had spent around an hour and a half tryin’ to put up the tent but in the end we just put our sleeping bags on top of a blanket and called it a night. It hadn’t taken long for Cherub to drift off beside me but I was having a lot more trouble. It just seemed as if there were too many thoughts and not enough space inside my head for all of ‘em. I had left home along with a strange girl to pursue my dream of owning my own record shop and now I was laying in a sleeping bag in the middle of a field. Sure, it didn’t seem so bad until I considered the fact that I had no experience in business, I had no idea where I would get the money and I hardly knew anything about the woman who had become my travel companion and worst of all, I was in love with her. I was in love with a total stranger. I was glad she had suggested that we go see Uncle Royal. If anyone could help my sorry cause right now, it was him and maybe he really would know where I could find Willow and Van. Maybe, just maybe, he would have all the answers. Mostly, I was grateful that for the time being, I knew what I was doing. Even though I obviously had a lot of bull shit goin’ on at once, despite expectations, I had never been happier. I had never felt more alive.

I turned on my side in my sleeping bag to look at the sleeping girl on my right. I remember every detail of her sleeping face. The light of the moon cast an ethereal glow over her soft features. I wondering if she would wake up if I kissed her slightly parted lips. Because I was unsure, I settled on counting all her freckles though I could have sworn she had more freckles than there were stars in the sky that we had been laying under. I had never believed in soul mates or love at first sight in my entire twenty years of life but there was something about the feeling I got in my stomach when I looked and her, something in the way heat rose off of my skin whenever it brushed against hers by chance or secretly on purpose. It wasn’t like I hadn’t known infatuation or lust. Oh, I had definitely experienced more than enough of those. I hoped if I got anything out of this crazy adventure in the end, anything at all, it would be her, but hell, I thought, if I’m going to leave behind absolutely everything I’ve ever known, my friends, my family, a shitty but ridiculously unbelievably steady job, I was going to make this happen because I just had to. For myself, for all of my friends who always asked why I was wastin’ my life away putting cans and boxes on shelves, for my younger siblings. They just had to know that there was more to life than working at dad’s stupid grocery store. Mostly, I had to do it for myself. For the past few years I felt like I had been on one of those shelves, curled and cramped, just like one a those cans.

I propped myself up on one of my elbows. “Little gal, what have you gotten me in to.” She didn’t stir, not even when a firefly landed on her sleeping face. I sighed, whatever she had gotten me in to, I was grateful. The next morning would mark the true beginning of my new life. I didn’t dare think about all the possibilities. Any more ideas would set my head alight. Whatever they were, they were out there and that was enough and maybe I’d worry about them in the mornin’ after I got some sleep, if that was even possible. It was definitely worth a try when I thought of the journey ahead. I took a chance and grabbed the hand of my sleeping companion that had been laid on top of the blanket just beneath us as if it had been waiting there for me to take it in mine and finally, I closed my eyes.