Get busy living or get busy dying

I could hear it in Gerard's voice; he wished they'd done things differently, found a better way to get the money they needed. He was ashamed of their past and their possible future.
"So, Jade. You now have a choice: stay with us as we run, or stay in Pennsylvania; take the risk or play it safe. I'll understand though, if you just want to go home and never talk to me or see me again." Gerard told me, glancing back in the rear view mirror. "Please! Are you crazy? Of course I'm staying." I answered, nudging Mikey and Jamia with my elbows. He laughed and bit his lip. "Really?"
"Yepp."
We drove for four days until we reached a small town near Chicago. It was Jamia's old home town and the police didn't know know about her yet, so it was the perfect place to hide out. There was an abandoned building behind the town bakery, and that's where we decided to stay. There was a kitchen, a bathroom, two bedrooms, and an office space. Mikey and Jamia took the room towards the back and Gee and I took the one by the side door. We bought wood from a home depot just outside of town that we used to make our bed frames. Then, we bought mattresses from a garage sale a few streets over. After we had proper places to sleep, we unpack the clothes we'd brought and counted our money. Mikey and Jamia had enough clothes and together, a couple thousand dollars. I didn't have any of my own clothes, but I could wear some of Gerard's t-shirts as dresses and I bought some in town. Together, Gerard and I had six thousand dollars. We went to sleep that night with confidence in our ability to stay there. I slept on the left side of the bed and Gerard slept on the right, and that's the way it stayed for a while. I got a job at the local dress shop with Jamia and Gerard and Mikey got jobs at the home depot. We lived off of pizza and menthol's, but we didn't mind.
The police searched all through out Pennsylvania and New Jersey for a year with out any trace of where they'd gone. Eventually, they gave up. I found out two months after moving into Birdale with them that they weren't just being charged for trafficking drugs. They were also wanted for assault, housing a wanted felon, soliciting drugs and a few other things. Despite all that they'd done, they never scared me. Yepp, Gerard was my average everyday felon and I was beginning to fall in love with him. I was officially dating him, but it wasn't too serious. No hanky panky or horizontal hokey-pokey, just cuddles,holding hands and a bit of making out every so often. That's where it ended.

Notes