Quiet, part 9

Coming home was something I had been looking forward to the entire semester in Dallas; not because I could see Daisy, but because I genuinely missed home. Of course, seeing Daisy would be a bonus, and I knew that she had already been home for a week or so as she and my mother had had a few visits. From what my mother said, Daisy had ridden her bike to my parent's home a few times and waited on the front porch until my she got home for lunch and then she'd eat with her and just talk about her semester and how much she loved Austin, but how she couldn't wait to see the world, and to become involved in something she felt was more important than just classes and midterms. She also told my mother that she couldn't wait to see me and that she was excited that we'd have a full summer of spending time together.

The first day I saw her was May 14th, the morning of my mother's birthday. I had woke early that morning to run and ride my bike before the Texas heat set in for the day. Sometime after nine that morning, after I had showered and prepared peanut butter toast and sweet tea, I found her on the porch, sitting silently. Her hair was cut a little shorter than I had ever seen it and she had on a camouflage tee shirt with Hughes written in the back in pink and she was wearing a really large hemp necklace that was unlike any piece of jewelry she ever wore (usually it was silver or gold or full of diamonds). As I walked out of the front door and onto the porch, she turned and smiled and then motioned for me to sit beside her.

"Jeez Louis you're skinny," she spoke quietly, joking lightly, "Well it's now May the 14th, your lovely mother's birthday," she spoke like an excited child, "you should give her this for me," she paused from speaking and placed a sealed envelope into my lap, "so where have you been?"

"Dallas," I laughed to her, taking the envelope out of my lap and placing it on the steps next to me, "and you're looking well."

She put her arm around me and hugged tightly; it had been the night of her birthday since I last had contact with her. Nothing had changed, and I was beginning to wonder if I had fallen in love with her.

"Seriously Will, Dallas and Austin," she sighed and stood, walking away from where we had been sitting, "now we're trapped in Hull for an entire summer?"

"I actually want to be here," I responded, following her out into my parent's lawn.

"But this is our first summer that we're really, you know, not bound to anything. No huge preparations for this big life change that was college, no having to work our asses off to pay for school, we've just got a full summer and nothing to do," she spun around under the sun, much like she had that night in December when she spun in my jacket under the stars.

"What do you want to do?"

"Adventure," she answered back wildly, "that's exactly what we need."

"Well," I started to speak before running to catch her from falling dizzily to the ground, "what do you suggest," I asked as I caught her from falling, holding her in my arms.

"I want to see the Grand Canyon," she whispered into my ear as if it were secret I couldn't share with anyone, "it's in Arizona, and one night I had a dream that I drove into Flagstaff, had a bagel and juice, and then drove straight into the Grand Canyon National Park and had this, you know, Sidhartha type of experience," she finished, still whispering, and then pulled away from me and made her way back to the shade of the porch.

"Let's go then," I said, before fully thinking through what I was committing to.

Her eyes lit up and she motioned for me to sit beside her again. I did, hoping that we could stay sitting for more than two minutes. We ended up sitting for two hours, just talking and thinking if we could really go to Arizona and if at nineteen my parents would actually allow a trip of that magnitude. It would after all, be two teenagers, from a small, country town, driving half way across the country and back. And that's not even considering that my parents were extremely old fashioned and generally strict, which meant they would never let me go on this adventure, with this girl.

But after an entire afternoon of mapping our course and contacting hotels in which we would stay along the way, and then figuring out how much the trip would cost us and how long it would take, Daisy convinced my parents to let us go. It wasn't even hard; she presented the maps, all of the hotel information and then swore she would take care of me. My parents loved her and trusted her and after hearing her we were going to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon.

After eating dinner with my parents I walked her outside to her car and she hugged me, excited at our new opportunity and adventure and then whispered into my ear 'Thank you Will,' before driving home for the night. Six days later we had packed my car, hugged my parents goodbye and ventured out on our own. It was the morning of my nineteenth birthday.