Love is Blind – Chapter 12

By MyNameIsCAL

Iggy woke me up a couple hours later. It was lunch time. I didn't realize how hungry I was until my stomach growled in protest of me saying that I wasn't really that hungry. They all laughed, even Ella. It was hard not to laugh with them.

We stopped at a drive-thru, parking so Max could eat before resuming driving. Tomorrow I was supposed to start driving. Ella would follow. Iggy had joked before that he would be next and crash us into a tree or something and send a picture home of what happened to the car.

"And we could fly the rest of our trip," he carried on with a smirk. "Suspend Ella between us or something."

"I'd kill all of you if you did that," but she was laughing too.

"Nah, you wouldn't cuz then we'd just drop you," he countered.

More laughter. Today felt like a good day. I was glad.


Still, I didn't sleep that night. As Iggy snored quietly into my ear, I lay awake staring at the ceiling. I thought about last night and what Max had said to me.

Stop feeling guilty, she had told me. As long as you're happy, I'm happy.

But here I was awake, feeling guiltier than ever. I couldn't convince myself that Max had meant that. Maybe all the jokes, all the laughter, it was just some kind of façade to cower away from how we really felt. I rolled on my side, facing away from Iggy, but towards Max's bed that she was sharing with Ella. Peacefully, she slept. Part of me wished she was awake so we could talk again.

I rolled to face Iggy. He had stopped snoring. In fact, he was staring right at me now.

"Something bothering you?" His hand rested on the side of my face.

"Just thinking," I told him.

"Then talk to me," he responded.

And so I did, late into the night, we talked. After a while, Iggy kept the conversation going, his voice coaxing me to sleep.

"I've told you before, and I'll tell you again," he said softly. "Things will be ok. I promise."

"I know." I closed my eyes, leaning my head against his shoulder.

"And Fang," he whispered in my ear. "I love you."

"I love you too."

It was that night that I finally let Iggy convince me that things would be ok.


Our first stop in San Francisco would be the pier. We made dinner reservations at a seafood restaurant and hopped on line to wait for the boat to Alcatraz. Ella was taking pictures as we stood in line.

"Nudge asked me to send pictures back," Ella said as she snapped one of a seagull. "I figured we could email them."

"What's she gonna wanna see a seagull for?" Iggy asked after I told him what Ella had just snapped a photo of.

"I don't know, we don't have seagulls where we live, Ig," Ella rolled her eyes.

The two of them began to argue, like brother and sister. It reminded me of how Gazzy and Angel could get, especially after getting stuck with each other for long periods of time, except Iggy and Ella only did it for the sake of trying to outdo the other with comebacks. Gazzy and Angel, well I guess they were really trying to get at each other and they rarely laughed it off in the end.

"I swear if they don't stop arguing, I'll never think of seagulls the same way," Max sighed.

"At this rate, I'll never want to see another seagull again," I remarked.

Max laughed, shaking her head.

We got on the boat leaned on the railing, watching the pier fade in the distance. Iggy leaned up against me, his hair blowing in the wind. It was casual, the way we were around each other when others were present. And it was different than it had been with Max.


"Jail cells," Iggy said as he walked out of one, "are like big cages."

"They're certainly roomier," I said, putting my hands around the bars.

Max frowned at me. Why we were at a jail escaped me. I guess we had just hopped on the boat, going where tourists went in the area. I moved out of the cell quickly, trying not to think about how claustrophobic Alcatraz really was.

We moved through the rest of Alcatraz quickly. Ella stopped at the gift shop and picked out some postcards to send home before we got back on the boat. We sat inside this time, avoiding the winds that were now picking up.

"We still got an hour before our reservation," Ella said, glancing at her watch. "I wanna go back to the hotel to change."

"What do you gotta change for?" Iggy made his annoyance overdramatic. "I'm sure you look fine. It's not like we've been running around or something."

"But it's going to get cold," Ella responded.

And there they went again with their sibling rivalry. Sometimes I wondered if Ella argued because it gave her a reason to give Iggy a hard time. Either he was putting up with it or he was actually amused by it.

"I'm glad we don't argue," Max muttered.

I gave her a small smile.


Is it really that easy to let go of something without looking back? Well, perhaps that'll be the question Iggy, Fang, Max, and Nudge will be asking themselves for a while. Of course I'll break away from all the guilt soon. Gotta get through this road trip, the reactions of the rest of the flock and Mom when they find out, and eventually college. Oh, I've got plans with this story.

Thanks for reading!