And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 41: Modern Day Bonnie And Clyde

       

It was still dark.

    I wasn't sure exactly what time it was but as we walked along the main road I saw the sun peeking out of the clouds, helping along with the lamps to illuminate the night view of modern London. We passed the houses on the way to the main road. I marveled at them, the houses I had grown up alongside, the neighbors I knew since I was small, but even more, the modern touch, the phone shops, the newness of the area. For some odd reason I felt like we had all the time in the world, just me and him in the stillness of early morning London. The calm before the storm.

    "Can hardly believe it," John said, his hand around my shoulders where it belonged. I reached up and touched his fingers slowly. "What is it?"

    "All this technology. This is what the future is like."

     "Lennon, you know this is a secret, right?"

    "What if I told the whole Liverpool?"

    "They would think you're crazy." He chuckled. The sound echoed in the empty night, and he finished the sentence, ducking his head and breathing into my ear. "What would you do to stop me from telling?"

    "Not if you ask like that," I laughed, grabbing him by the shirt collar, touching the red marks lightly. "I'll tell you I'll do much worse than that." He grabbed my hand and held it against the warmth of his chest and I couldn't help but let a grin appear on my face.

    John's footsteps stopped. "Hey."

    "What is it?" I asked, turning around.

    His voice was quiet. "Look at this."

    The sick feeling returned to my stomach as I glanced at the poster he had ripped off a nearby telephone pole. MISSING, it read, with a photograph of me underneath, my year twelve picture. Alongside my photo was a very blurry picture of John at Ryan's party; he had been standing with a crowd of people, posing for a picture. LAST SEEN WITH THIS MALE, TWENTY YEARS OF AGE. IF YOU HAVE INFO PLEASE CALL THIS NUMBER. My mother's number was circled in sharpie. I snatched the photo out of his hands and folded it up, my hands trembling, looking for something to do.

    "Cora."

    "John," I said, worry slipping into my voice.

    "We should go," he said, and gently took my hand, taking the paper out of it, dropping it on the sidewalk, where it fluttered by a drain before whooshing in with the water.

    "But—"

    "Come on." He stopped, rethinking. "Wait, are you okay?"

    "Of course not. I'm throwing away my whole life to be with you—" I could feel the incredulity of the situation come out of my mouth, twisting and squirming, a ridiculous statement, biting and hurtful as well, although I didn't mean for it to be.

    John chose to ignore this. "But you'll still live your life. In Liverpool, with me, same place, we can move to London if you want, we can get married—don't you want to see the sixties?"

    My heart dropped when he said married, and I'll admit it fluttered a little, in my romantic mind at that moment it seemed nothing could go wrong. What could go wrong? He was so kind, and fascinating—so, so, so interesting. I wanted to explore ever nook and cranny of him, inside and out, and—

    "Cora? Don't you want to see the sixties?"

    "Huh? Oh yes."

    "Of course you would. There's a whole world out there," he said, taking my arm and spreading out his to the still night. "So much more than this. I mean this is great, but wouldn't you like to live in the time where, well, I don't know what happens but it has to be interesting, right? And who else would I love to spend it with?"