Not Long At All

Chapter Thirty Four

Sarah's POV:

      I leaned my head against the headrest, the wind whipping my hair around me as it rushed through the broken truck windows. David sat beside me, driving in silence. Too much had happened in too little time, and neither of us were ready to talk about it. So we drove in silence.

      Trees blurred slowly past us and occasionally I would hold one with my eyes, letting it go as it moved too far out of sight. The absence of stress felt strange, and it left me more tired now than when I'd been at the height of my fear. A numbing sense of peace had rolled over me the moment we'd left the arena and I had yet to roll it out. My eyes flicked between the passing trees and I thought back to Middleground.

      We had walked out of the arena, David supporting himself against me, the tremble of weakness subtle as he held himself to me. The sky had been something between morning and night, and I wondered now how long I'd been in the ballroom. How long I had sat with David on the hard stone floor as we held each other in silence, lost in different worlds. Walking out of that arena, the details of the sky were all I had seen. I'd seen the door opening out of the arena, and then I saw sky.

      I remembered the sky behind everyone as they had stood, Hoggle, Didymus, and Ziggy, the urgency as they'd rushed towards us. The exchange of words had been rapid, questions asked, observations let into the air, joking and laughter. I couldn't remember for the life of me what had been said, but I remembered the smiles and the tears, Hoggle's surprised suspicion as he had regarded David. Didymus dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. 

      The trees gave way to concrete as we turned onto the main road, the change of scenery strange to me. Around us, signs harshly planted themselves into the ground. We passed a Seven Eleven on our left, a Burger King on our right. People stood at crosswalks, heads craned down into their phones, waiting at bus stops. We slowed at the red light, pulling up beside an unbattered Toyota. Inside, a woman shouted at her sons as they played some sort of game in the backseat. Life hadn't stopped moving, and it made everything feel out of place.

      I looked to David as he stared up at the red light, his hands tight on the steering wheel. It would take us awhile to adjust. I rested my hand on his leg, turning to look out the fractured window as I did. We sat, barely connected, before his hand grabbed mine. He squeezed it, letting go when the light turned green. 

      I watched the roads and buildings become familiar, dreading the moment we pulled up to the pressure washed walls of my home. Karen had the cleaners come every month. 

      David and I had spoken briefly about what I would tell them. I remembered barely searching for an excuse, "I'll say I wanted to run away, but that when I got to the airport, I changed my mind."

      It didn't matter if it was unbelievable, I knew they wouldn't ask many questions anyway. In this moment, I was actually glad for their apathy. Even if my Dad checked the credit card payments, there would be no return flight- Ziggy had showed us the way to the Aboveground, smiling, "It's crazy how little they care about transportation regulations." 

     I remembered the moment after the arena, when the words had died and we were left in silence. Our smiles had faded as we watched each other, realizing that everything was over- we had come to the end. Sir Didymus had glanced between us, "And what comes next?"

      The silence had turned heavy, an emptiness settling in my stomach. Hoggle'd scraped his foot across the ground, "I don't s'ppose anyone knows how to get home?"

      My eyes had turned immediately to David, stopping when they found his face. David was not Jareth. My discomfort had been bittersweet as I'd realized the simplicity in him. It had been comforting, seeing him for the first time as only himself, but I'd realized then that there were parts of Jareth that I would always miss. I couldn't know for sure that David no longer had magic, but I felt the loss just the same.