Chapter Text
Everything is packed up, it is almost sad that all my earthly possessions fit inside this little backpack. A couple shirts, an extra pair of jeans, a bundle of Polaroids, and a wad of cash doesn’t take up much space. It is hard to imagine living off of the little I carry, but this is not permanent, and I have to keep that at the forefront of my mind. This won’t be a clean break, I’m leaving with bits and pieces of me askew on the floor, stuck between the cushions of his couch, and hidden in secret places. I hope he finds the remnants slowly, one at a time over the months, and treasures them in his own whole heart. At least I hope it’s whole, the thought of how much I might be hurting him is overwhelming.
I yearn to sit back down on my cot, mull this decision over and stay another week; maybe two. My eyes turn down at the well-made bed and over the floor, then roam to the walls and the posters I fall asleep gazing at every night. “Godzilla vs Tokyo”, “Carrie”, and a crooked Beatles poster return my stare. Staying here will only add to my pain. The only choice is to find my Aunt, stay with her for the remaining six months, and then this will all just be a bad dream.
He’s asleep on his couch, one leg falling off the side and the other haphazardly thrown over the back. Peter is peaceful when he sleeps and so amazingly still for such a busy boy. I don’t want to stop looking at him, truly I wish I could sit down and run my fingers through his silver hair. My heart yearns to stay with him, to love him, to tell him that I love him. But my heart is in for a shock; it will never be able to pour its contents out to my speedster.
I lift my backpack gently over my shoulders and quietly move up the stairs. My feet are kept to the sides where the steps don’t often creak, a trick Peter himself taught me when we snuck out of the house in the middle of the night. I don’t fear waking him, but Magda is up early to head to work during the week and my leaving is not something I want to discuss with anyone, especially not her. Although it is barely five in the morning I worry she may wake up at any moment and force me back to bed, to stay here in quiet suffering and longing. She doesn’t stir from her bedroom however and I leave my letter on the kitchen table in peace.
Outside it is horribly cold, there is a light mist in the air that chills my skin and soaks through my fringed leather jacket and into my bones. The heavy cold mimics the same chill emotions stirring with my chest and stomach. A very poetic setting, I think and plod down the front walk. When I’m a block away my feet can’t help but speed up to a jog, then into a sprint, and then just as fast as they can go. I’m speeding through the silent, lonely streets with tears streaming down my cheeks and my legs screaming to get far, far away. It’s sunrise and I’m still walking steadily even though my muscles are raging against the strain. My side aches like a knife has been plunged into my ribs and not even that detours me to slowing. My hands are tucked into the deep front pockets of the cowhide jacket and my fingertips gently run circles into my sore spots.
When Peter wakes he’ll find his mother and twin sister sitting at the kitchen table, looking pale and distressed. Lorna, the youngest Maximoff child, won’t be awake for another hour or so. He’ll ask what is wrong and when they don’t answer but instead push a wrinkled letter towards him his stomach will drop. Within an instant my depressing little note will have been read and he’ll be dressed. In a flash Peter will be after me, zooming through the streets yelling my name, shouting that this isn’t funny, that I should just come home. And if I see him again my stupid heart will speak “yes” louder than my mind can say “no” and I’ll go home with him. So I keep walking faster. There is no alternative. I can’t go back, not to the people I won’t allow myself to become attached to. There is no painless way this could ever work. When my time is up it will be as if I’m dead; I can’t handle putting them through that if we get any closer to one another. Especially not Peter, I can never do that to him.
I’m hidden in the bushes behind the bus shelter; the only bus leading out of Washington DC in the area will be here in forty five minutes. After this first bus I have seven more before I reach Minnesota. I have just got enough money for the fare and little will be left for meals. I gave most of it to Magda in a tepid attempt to make up for everything she’s done for me, well everything that I could spare that is. I’ll do anything to survive because no matter what I’m going to make it to Saint Paul. Aunt Georgia lives there, she told me when I was younger that in the early 1970’s to the mid 1980’s she ran a half-way house for abused women and other lost souls. Hopefully I fit the criteria, right now lost soul feels like a good description of how I feel.
I squat in the bushes for a full hour, my ankles click when I dare to move and my spine spasms from the position. The only reason I don’t leave the leafy lilac bush is that if Peter runs past the bus stop he’ll see me inside, but if he comes by he hopefully won’t think to inspect under the heaps of purple flowers. The bus is late. I plunk down on the damp ground and sit cross legged, my knees almost pushing out from under the heavy clumps of petals and leaves. I wait another twenty minutes. My hands start to sweat. Peter is already running everywhere he thinks I could be. Or is he? Maybe he doesn’t care, maybe he never did. That is more distressing than my previous ideas.
“Just a bad dream,” I whisper and shut my eyes while pulling my legs close to my chest. Through my breast I feel a steady heartbeat and remember that while I’m alive, everything is ok. Six more months and I’ll be home, in my own bed, with Mom in the next room and Dad coming home every day at five. Twenty Six weeks and I can see my friends again, play video games that aren’t Pong, go on the internet again. One hundred and eighty two days left before I can wear clothes that are not from the 1970’s, listen to the music I’ve missed so dearly, hold my best friend’s hand and braid her hair, be back in my own time.
I breathe deeply out. Existence has been exhausting as of late. Brakes squeak and my eyes open, the blasted bus is finally here. Its metal doors creak open and I climb out of the bush, my head is just breaching the leaves as I look both ways down the sidewalk. No odd gusts of winds whipping the tree branches and twirling litter up in little tornadoes, no sign of Peter anywhere. I slip between the clumps of lilac blooms like an escapee fairy leaving a secret garden. The Bus driver questions at me with a look of amused suspicion before flinching with widening eyes. His mouth forms loosely around a curse. My hair brushes over to one side and a sharp gust of wind shocks my cheek.
He’s found me.