GIRL, UNPLUGGED
YA Novel Chapter 29 | 6 Minute Read
This is Chapter 29 of a YA novel. To see where the story began, check out the GIRL, UNPLUGGED table of contents post, or head to the GIRL, UNPLUGGED section of the Story Hoarder Substack page to see all the chapters.
This chapter is a 6 minute read.
CHAPTER 29: Free to Go
Written in Natalie’s Notebook
Ferry Terminal 10/7
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting
…And this time I don’t care! I can taste home. There are no ferries, but there are volunteer boats taking people across the water back to Staten Island.
Look to the helpers. There really is hope everywhere.
At the Ferry Terminal, where I could all but touch the singular waterway between myself and my home, I allowed myself to finally believe that it was very possible I would be sleeping in my own bed very soon. Many New Yorkers owned boats and saw this as a way to help. I had never been on any boat besides a ferry, so I wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to get seasick on a much smaller vessel like a sailboat with the wind and the waves as our guides, but that price was well worth the reward. I just hoped the poor volunteers running the boat could put up with my weakness.
A line was pointed out to us to stand on to wait for passage to Staten Island. As we stumbled along, getting ready for another long wait, I spotted Murph looking a little lost. “Russ, I’ll meet you on the line, okay?”
“You okay?” he asked as I let go of his hand.
“I’m the best,” I said. Then I stood up on my tippy toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I just see a place to help. I promise I’ll be right back.”
He was smiling from the moment I kissed him and I’m not sure he heard anything else I said because he turned around and hooked his arms around Rainbow and Colin’s necks as he pulled them toward the line saying, “So let’s talk about who’s really taking forever to make his move…”
Matthew Murphy was a good guy, my Captain Distraction, but my whole perspective of the relationship unfolding between Murphy and I changed. Before I imagined it as some romantic interlude with kisses, embraces and the mystical previously unattainable “love,” but, there at the Ferry Terminal, where we were now something else, I recognized the opportunity to redefine for both of us. Murphy wasn’t someone for me to adore, he was someone for me to care for, to appreciate and to be good to. I still felt a great admiration for the artist and person he was. It somehow felt even more exciting and intimate. It also felt more realistic and doable.
Where there was fear of the unknown before, now there was a feeling of excitement for what was to come.
Murph didn’t even see me coming. He was trailing the group with his head down and his hands jammed in his pockets. I stepped next to him and matched his stride. I elbowed him as we walked side by side with hands in our pockets, looking at the ground. He looked at me and flinched. I smiled. “So I was thinking,” I said as I stopped moving once I had his attention. “You know what I think you need to do?” I poked him right in the chest when I said “you.”
He looked at me blankly.
“Matthew Murphy, you sir, need to sketch something.”
It may have only been a day since Murphy had sketched anything in his book, but it felt like weeks. When he opened up the book and we looked at the figures beneath the dinosaur skeleton, I felt like I was looking in on the lifetime of another Natalie. The pictures were familiar, but like I had watched them on TV, not that I lived them.
Murph walked over to be by himself sitting down, leaning up against the side of the building we were all lined up next to. He sketched the line of people waiting and some memories from the previous day. Then, when he found a discarded mirror (there were tons of things left behind by people who didn’t want to overfill the sailboats) he asked me to come sit with him in the sun. “If you don’t mind leaving Russ for a little bit.”
Russ was having too much fun tormenting Colin and Rainbow anyway, so I joined Murph, away from the group, sitting up against that wall. We were both looking at the group when Murph said, “So I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry, like, officially or something.”
“It’s okay, Murph. It kind of all worked out.” I looked over to where Russ was laughing with Rainbow again and wondered if I ever would have noticed him, if I ever would have realized that he wasn’t into Rainbow, if I had my phone in my hand. Which made me realize how much of my tie with Murph the day before had been spent that exact way — not noticing, with my eyes on the screen. “And I guess I’m sorry too, if I think about it. I was on my phone a lot all day before everything happened. That couldn’t have been fun.”
He laughed. “I tried to find you,” he smirked. “Do you mind if I do a quick sketch of the two of us just for the memories?” He held up the mirror he found. “I’m trying to capture as much of this trip as I can in this book.”
“Sure,” I said and I sat still as he set up the mirror and fumbled through his bag for something.
“What’s this?” he said as he pulled out the box of pencils I had put in there for him from the gift shop.
“Oh wow,” I said. “I completely forgot. I picked those up for you when you were gone. I thought you could use them.”
Then he came out of nowhere and hugged me. “I messed up, Nat. Thank you for always thinking of me. Forget the sketch for now. It’ll take too long anyway.”
“You sure?” I asked, stealing a glance over to where Russ and Rainbow were online and Rainbow was looking over her shoulder at me looking concerned.
“I’m sure.” He looked over to me and put his two hands in between our faces making a rectangle with his thumbs and forefingers. “There you go. Snapped in place. I’ve got that face in my mind’s eye. You are free to go.”
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