Chapter 3: What Emma said

Somewhere after we had crossed into the state of California I had fallen asleep. Abby sang softly along with the radio lulling us all to sleep along with the motion of the car. We had all been awake for more than thirty six hours and our bodies had finally given out. It didn't take much.

I remember how it all happened. About a month before Abby received her trust account and put her money into an off shore account that her mother couldn't touch.

"Gotta keep her from digging her nasty little fingers into it. If she had her way the courts would have the money tied up in red tape for years." She kept telling me. "She could make it to where I would never even see a dime!"

That night Emma suggested we all leave. We were all sitting at Tristan and Sam's apartment.

"You two had better start paying us to come over and clean! This place is beyond nasty!" Emma gagged as she loaded the boys dishwasher and threw a solidified bowl of cereal in the trash.

"We should just move man!" Sam got up and started collecting pizza boxes and soda cans from the tables.


"Sam," Tristan looked at Sam frowning. "You can't just pick up your shit and leave cause things are a little messy! You gotta just pick your shit up!"


All four of us burst into laughter at Tristan's insight into the situation.


"Ah shit Tristan!" Emma cried wiping the tears out of her eyes. "You are seriously funny!"

"And high as a kite..." I muttered to Abby who just smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

"Ya know what?" Sam was getting defensive. "I wish we could move! Go to California or something and live by the beach. That would be awesome!"

We were silence for a while. Each of us pondering what life would be like if we did just pack up our lives and move. I wondered if anyone besides my mom would miss me. Besides her all the people who would have missed me were in this very room.

"Why don't we?" Emma finally broke the silence. "I mean really! What is honestly keeping us here?"

"You are so right Em!" Sam jumped up in excitement. "Seriously! Lets go! Lets just leave all of this bullshit behind us and start over!"

"You make a good point, Sam." I began. "But how the hell are we supposed to afford that? I only have a few hundred saved up."

"Well, I do turn eighteen soon." Abby said. "I get daddy's trust fund he set up for me. We would have plenty of money and we can always get jobs when we are down there."

"I have a cousin in Venice Beach." Emma said.

"Clay is on the outskirts of Venice too. Remember that guy I met at Daddy's memorial in LA last summer?" Abby blushed and I rolled my eyes.

"I think if we decide to do this we need to wait until we are all legal that way we would have no issues with our age." I looked at all of them. "Meaning...if we do this lets do it right!"

"Are we really gonna do this?" Tristan asked.

"I'm in!" Abby, Emma, and Sam said in unison.

"Me too." I thought for a second. "You are right. There is nothing holding us here. My step father refuses to acknowledge me so it doesn't hurt his campaign. It's an election year so this would really piss him off!"

"Emma is on her own. Tristan and Sam...your parents are all assholes to you...and Abby..." I sighed. "You seriously need to get far away from your mother before she tries to kill you again."

Abby touched the scar on her neck remembering where her mother had held the knife to her throat. It had been an awful night. Abby never told us the whole story. I'm sure she didn't want to have to remember it.

So the five of us sat down in Tristan and Sam's smelly trash filled apartment and hatched a plan. We decided to that we would all take the next couple of months to tie up our loose ends and we would leave the night before I turned eighteen.