[writer's block] day two
Hank giggled, burrowing closer to Joe as she grew quiet and thoughtful in the calm after the storm they'd created together on the shores of Lake Erie. Here, where the world ended and began, it was suddenly so easy to see how Hank had gone from having nothing to having everything, and all while still being able to go home again. Mom was the statistic Hank never wanted to be, but somewhere she started to realize there was a difference between being the girl who couldn't get out...and the girl who found something worth sticking around for. There was a difference between being trapped by circumstance and being held by strong arms in the coldest of nights, and it took a journey across the country to show her that. She had to go to Searchlight to find those arms, that perfect pair of big, callused hands with grease-stained fingernails and burn scars from too hot engines that were custom made to hold her heart. It was a lot of time and effort, but it paid off in a tryst under the dying summer sun burning red and warm on the horizon, wrapped in the arms of a boy who she could destroy, a boy she could hurt...a boy who wouldn't care what creatures came for her in the night, because he'd still die to protect her, to give her an extra second to run away to safety.