We’d stopped several more times—most notably in Memphis (Elvis, come on we had to) and Nashville.
But now had come the time for us to reenter the real world.
I wasn’t very happy about that, but I refused to let my sadness about the end dull the journey.
It had been a great one.
We’d been gone for three weeks, but it felt infinitely longer. It seemed like years had passed. I half-expected to show up at home and find that my siblings were grown and my parent’s had turned my room into some kind of hedgehog playroom or something—I honestly wouldn’t put it past my dad to try that, but my mom would’ve intervened if he had.
I glanced over at Dean and saw that the muscle in his jaw ticked and his hands were clenched around the steering wheel.
He heard it too—the sound of the clock ticking down to our final minutes alone in this car.
We still had around four hours before we arrived home, but it felt like four minutes.
I’d told my dad yesterday that we’d be home today, and since seven in the morning he’d been sending me countless texts asking me when we were going to get there. He needed to take a chill pill. Or twelve.
“I don’t want it to be over,” I confessed into the silence around us.
Dean heaved a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. “Me either, but the real world isn’t going to wait forever for us. We have to rejoin it sometime.”
I knew he was right, but it didn’t make the fact any easier.
It seemed with each mile we got closer to Winchester my heart beat a bit faster.
Dean entwined our fingers, giving my hand a soft, reassuring squeeze. “I know it feels like everything is different, Willow, but it’s really not.”
“I know,” I said softly, glancing out the window at the blur of green and somewhere in front of us someone honked their horn. “I don’t know why I feel so weird about this,” I admitted with a shake of my head.
“We left one way and came back another,” He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a tender kiss to my knuckles. “Things are going to be different now, but not in a bad way. Our two families will just be even more merged than they were before.”
I laughed, imagining our huge families—because for both of us family wasn’t defined by blood, it was also the people that were always there for us. Like my Uncle Ezra and Uncle Hayes—both were members in my dad’s band, not related to us by blood (but Ezra was my dad’s foster brother) but they were family nonetheless. I knew that both of them, and their wives my Aunt Sadie and Aunt Arden, would be there for me in a heartbeat if I called upon them. Not to mention their kids as well—who were my unofficial cousins, much the way Liam was my unofficial big brother even if I still really wanted to throw a rock at his head.
“It’s one big ass crazy family,” I laughed.
He shook his head. “That’s for sure.”
When we had an hour and a half left for travel we stopped off to get gas and lunch. I went inside the building to pay for the gas and get our sandwiches while Dean stayed outside to pump the gas.
I grabbed a smorgasbord of other stuff—chips, candy, chocolate, gum, and yes, even lollipops. As our last stop, it only seemed fitting to get a little bit of everything, even if it was completely unnecessary. I carried everything out to the car, where Dean had parked off to the side, and nearly dropped everything. Dean darted forward to grab two of the bags from my hands.
“I figured we could just eat here. I have to go to the bathroom first, though.” He nodded at where he’d parked the car, off to the side of the building.
I shrugged and he sat our food and drinks on the trunk of the car before heading inside of the building. I grabbed my backpack from the car and sat on the trunk beside the food. I pulled out my journal and flipped to the first blank page I found. Not only did I want to scribble the final pieces of our trip, but there was a poem I was itching to write.
My pencil scratched across the page in my haste to finish before Dean returned. The tip of the pencil crumbled and I brushed away the pieces of lead before continuing.
Suddenly arms wound around my sides and Dean let out a mighty roar, scaring the crap out of me.
I would’ve fallen off the trunk of the car if his arms hadn’t held me so tightly.
“Did I scare you?” He grinned, clearly pleased with himself.
“Yes!” I swatted his arm with my journal, which turned out to be the worst idea ever when he snatched it.
“Hey! Give that back!” I tried to grab for it, but he held it above my head. The jerk. “Dean!” I pleaded. “That’s personal!”
He placed his hand on the side of my face and pushed me away playfully.