Author's Note: Yay! I'm so glad you guys like this! I was hesitant at first but now I am confident! I might be able to update every day, but don't count on it. Darn educational and social obligations.

Eli's POV

I was rushing to throw some clothes into a bag. I needed to pick Clare up in ten minutes, and she would kill me if I was late. I had enough clothes for a few days, but I'm sure that we could do laundry. The only thing that I was still thinking about was money. Would Clare want to go shopping, and if she did, would she bring anything? I decided to play it safe and bring some cash. I went to my closet and felt around in the back until I found the little bag that Savannah had made for me. If she knew that I still had it, she would never let me forget it. There should still be my money from working at the library for three summers straight. God I hated working there, but this was the payoff, getting to blow around a thousand dollars in Michigan. After I took out enough cash to last the summer, there was still a lot of money left. I think the head librarian may have had a thing for me, because there was no way this was minimum wage. But now I only had five minutes to get to Clare's house.

Clare's POV

Of course Eli is late. He probably didn't start packing until this morning. He was the one who orchestrated this little excursion, and now he was going to be late. How predictable. I had gotten about four days' worth of clothes into a small suitcase, along with around a thousand dollars that my mother insisted that I take. I guess it was smart. I didn't know how much I planned to spend, but with conversions and whatnot, I had better play it safe. Eli pulled up to my house in Morty.

"Hey. Are you ready?" he asked.

"Yeah, are we going to go to the bank first?"

"Only if you want to Clare-bear."

"Well I do. I would rather convert money here than well, there."

"Afraid someone will steal our fancy Canadian money?"

God, he was so irritating sometimes. I got into Morty and waited for him to start it up. Once it was started a song came blaring on. Eli was about to turn it off, but I stopped him.

"I like this. Who is it by?"

He looked at me, shocked.

"Well Saint Clare, this is The End. by My Chemical Romance. (1).Who knew you would like something so alternative."

"I'm a mysterious woman Mr. Goldsworthy."

We laughed for a while, but then listened to the rest of the album. I had to say, they were a lot better than I expected. Once we got to the bank, we were talking and laughing over noting. It took about twenty minutes to get everything straightened out. After it was all over, we both had about $990 in American currency. Now we could hit the road and get ourselves to Detroit.

Eli's POV

We had been driving for about a half hour before we had run out of things to talk about. The silence was awkward, almost suffocating. I was thinking about how much I missed seeing Savannah when Clare finally said something.

"How old is your cousin?"

"Geez, I don't know. Probably fourteen."

Clare looked stunned.

"Eli, if she's fourteen, then why do we need to watch her?"

How could I explain Savannah to Clare without emotionally scarring her?

"Savannah has had a lot of issues in the past couple years. My Aunt just found all of her old suicide notes. She also noticed that she was cutting herself again."

"Again? When did she start?"

This was getting touchy, and I guess Clare could tell because she said, "If you don't want to talk about it you don't have to."

"No, it's fine. It's just that a while ago, she kind of had a crush on me."

"Eli! You guys are cousins! Does she understand how disgusting that is?"

I couldn't help but laugh at what Clare just said.

"Relax blue eyes, my aunt isn't her mom. We're only related through marriage."

Clare still looked concerned.

"Even so, what does her liking you have to do with her issues?"

This was getting really in depth.

"Clare, when she was in grade six, she would only talk to me. I was the only one who could calm her down when she was having an anxiety attack. When she would get suspended from school, her dad would call me first, so I could get her to talk about what happened. Now she's doing a lot better, but for some reason, she's cutting again, and my aunt is really worried."

"You never told me why she started in the first place."

I sighed and didn't answer for a while. I really did love Savannah, but it was hard to think about how destructive she was.

"Her mom, not my aunt, was using a lot of drugs since Savannah was six, and when her parents got divorced when she was eight, she was living with her mom. All of the bullshit around her really messed her up. Now she lives with her dad, and she can only see her mom for two hours a week during supervised visits."

Clare was silent, but what could she say.

"Eli, oh Eli, that poor girl!"

"Yeah. She was worst when she was in grade six. For a while I was the only one who would even talk to her. She's Jewish, and when she had her bat mitzvah last fall, I was so proud to see how many people came to support her, but mostly, it was amazing to see how beautiful she looked."

I was starting to tear up, so I turned the soft music up. We sat in silence for the rest of the ride. Clare just looked ahead, and occasionally grabbed my hand and squeezed, as if to say "Hey." Sometimes I would squeeze back, replying with an equally awkward "Hey."

Author's Note: AWWW! I'm glad I ended it there, but fear not, for I might be able to update tomorrow afternoon. I got a little emotional when I wrote that, since it's loosely based on my life. I didn't cut, but I was pretty messed up. I'm all good now, but sometimes it's good to remember the past.

(1) My Chemical Romance: The best thing that happened to the entire universe.