dmnbeautiful | polyphobiia
and so they ran —
It all goes to hell when her father finds her, half dressed and half out her window with her arms wrapped around Lucas’s neck and his lips on hers. She’s seventeen and she doesn't see what the big deal is. They've been best friends since she could walk and talk and in her eyes, they were always going to end up together. Perhaps being partially clothed wasn’t a good way to be caught but they should have seen it coming.
Malarie was certain that they had always been destined to be with one another. The first time she fell in love with him, they were four and six and he had his hand stretched out before him, a crushed bouquet of posies in his dirty fist. The small girl had dived forward and kissed him on the lips. But Malarie had always been a romantic. Her father, on the other hand, didn't seem so certain.
His shout startled them both, Malarie jumping back from the window and Lucas back into the tree. Realising it was his time to go, he took quickly scurried down the tree. If Malaire wasn't so certain that it was the best decision, she would have been pissed that he left her with the brunt of the trouble.
And it was trouble she got. His yelling lasted for two hours and was full of lectures about how Lucas was ‘trouble’ and a ‘player’, like it was news to Malarie. What disappointed her the most was that her daddy stood back and let the other yell. She wanted someone to stand up for her and see what was in front of them. So what if she was seventeen and he was nineteen or that he had been arrested twice since turning eighteen.
Apparently as the daughter of the police sheriff, it was a bad image for her to be seen with the town’s trouble maker. But they were more than boyfriend and girlfriend, they were best friends and nothing, not even her father’s opinion was going to change that. So when the fight came to a head, Malarie crying and her fathers threats, she didn’t know what to do.
“I forbid you from seeing him again, Mal. I mean it. This was the last time you’ll spend any time along with him. Am I clear?” He asked, his voice low and full of warning.
“Or what? What are you going to do papa? Arrest him? Kick me out?”
He was quiet for a long moment but it was clear that rage was bubbling under the surface like mercury, ready to explode.
“If I find you with him again, you’re no longer my daughter.”
There was no chance to react because he had already left, door slamming behind him. She fell on to her bed, tears pouring over her cheeks. If this was what he wanted, than she wouldn’t stay around to see the disappointment in his eyes. Lucas was the real deal and if her papa refused to see it, that was his problem, not hers.
Packing everything she could, Malarie filled her backpack with clothes and all the money she had before climbing down the tree by her window. The town was small and quiet enough that she could walk to the Finn’s house without running into anyone else. Her father would kill her if he knew what she was doing but he had already made it clear what his priorities were, his job and not her.
It was too risky to go to the front door, no matter how understanding Lucas’s father’s might be. So in her short skirt and flat shoes, she scales the tall oak that’s leaves brush against Lucas’s window and raps her knuckles against the glass. Lucas is there in a flash, the window open as he pulls her in, surveying her tear streaked cheeks before pulling her into his chest.
“I’m sorry, Mal. I got so distracted, I didn’t hear him coming.” He says, whispering against her hair.
It’s not his fault and she doesn’t blame him. Instead, when she trusts herself not to cry, she pulls back and meets his sparkling blue eyes.
“We have to leave.”
His look says it all, he thinks she’s being dramatic. But once she starts talking, she doesn’t stop, telling him everything that happened including how her father had ended their conversation.
“Well that’s bullshit. I’m not going to let that happen, Mal.”
“And neither am I, so I’m not going home.”
They both knew they couldn’t stay there. It was the first place they would come looking for them. So Lucas did what she had, he packed a bag full of clothes and took all the money he had. They left a note for Clary and Jameson, knowing that someone should find out they were leaving. It was vague but got their point across and Lucas placed it on his pillow before they climbed back down the tree. He had a car and they had cash so they made a plan.
They were going to drive as far away as they could. They had been stuck in that small town for far too long and it was time to break free. If it was anyone else, Mal knew that the adventure would end before it even started but with Lucas by her side, it would be exactly that. An adventure. They were breaking away and starting a life of their own without their parents dictating what they did.
They were free and they were together, what else could they want?
