One Last Time

I had a criminal in my room. Sitting on my bed.

Worst of all, he was a boy. If my Mom found out I would be six feet under in seconds.

He looked at me with pleading eyes, and I looked away.

"Please, Laila? For the sake of our friendship?"

"What friendship? You made your choices, and I made mine," I retorted, pacing the room.

He ran his fingers through his hair. "I know, and I have a plan to fix it, I swear!"

I was tempted to ask him what it was, but I wasn't about to get roped into this again.

"Okay, here's what's going to happen," I said, making eye contact. "I will help you one last time, out of respect for our past years of friendship. But you being here endangers me, you, and my family. So if you ever show up here again asking for help, I will turn you away. Got it, Max?"

He nodded, a glint of fear in his eyes.

"Now how did you even get in here?"

Max looked at me, confused. "I used the drainpipe with the ivy. Remember, you convinced your parents to let it grow there as a cooler way to get to your room. And the window was cracked open."

I smacked my forehead. "I knew I should have taken the ivy down months ago," I muttered.

Oh well. A plan starts to formulate in my head. Pulling it off would be the hard part.

I grab a piece of paper and scribble some notes, careful to make it look like a story in case someone came snooping up here. It was my cover, and I had always liked writing anyway.

Actually, this wouldn't make a bad story...

I snapped back to the present. Focus.

"You made Pigeon my fake name! Out of all the options?" Max said, looking over my shoulder.

I snorted. "You deserve the name Pigeon. Also, this is a secret plan. Of course I was going to choose ridiculous names."

I did a few stick figure drawings to get the point across, and then I explained it to Max.

"Okay, the first step is to get you out of here. Hopefully out of the country. So I'll be sending along a note for my old friends, the Rubios."

Max gave me a wary look. "Didn't they try to kidnap you?"

"Oh, don't worry about it. That was a misunderstanding, they thought I was someone else," I told him, writing a note.

He rubbed his eyes. "That doesn't make it any better! They still intended to kidnap someone! I didn't know you would be sending me to the shadier side of your contacts!"

"Who better to hide you from the law?" I asked, and he got quiet.

"Actually, are the police going to get here anytime soon? I mean, I know this is a small town, but I'm pretty sure it should be crawling with officers by now?" I asked him, expecting sirens any minute.

He gave me a sheepish smile. "I may have planted a few fake witnesses to claim I was going to board a ship, right when about ten cruise ships were departing."

I frowned. "I mean, that's smart, but what if the witnesses sell you out?"

He smirked. "They didn't know they were planted."

I gave a sigh of relief. "That buys you some time."

I finished my note and stamped it with my personal seal, in case they didn't believe Max. But they should help. They owed me a few favors, and the Rubios didn't like being in debt.

I handed it to him, with one of my emergency backpacks. He opened it and looked inside, frowning. "What kind of thirteen year old packs healthy stuff in an survival backpack?"

"The kind who wants to survive," I told him, looking out the window.

My stomach lurched, but I knew that it was time. Waiting any longer would put him in more danger.

"Max, you'll have to go now. I've helped you best I can, and inside the backpack you'll find a few tokens which should get you help from any of my contacts, which are on a list inside."

He gave me a sad smile. "Well, I guess its family tradition, being on the run. Thanks for all your help, and I know it wasn't easy," he told me, looking at me in a way that pierced my soul.

I gave him a hug and slowly stepped away, memorizing his features in case this was the last time I ever saw him.

This will be the last time you ever see him, I told myself. If everything goes according to plan.

This was the one time part of me hoped it didn't.

"Goodbye," I choked out, gesturing towards the window.

"See you soon," he smiled, and hopped out the window, disappearing into the night.

Towards a new beginning.