Jenna Holloway's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

Jenna walked to the wall in the camper. She stood in front of the Polaroids and ticket stubs, the chalk from the caves hanging on its string. Every piece showed a night they'd conquered—the quarry, the glowing forest, the office building with GoldenEye running until dawn. Her chest loosened as she looked at it all. The Honda was still broken. Her friends were still scattered. But this wall proved they'd built something real. She needed more of that feeling—something to remind her why they'd started this summer in the first place. She grabbed her jacket and headed out into the night. The record store on Main Street had its lights on past eleven. Jenna pushed through the door and heard the bell jingle above her. Rows of vinyl records lined the walls, but she walked straight to the back corner where the CDs were kept. A three-ring binder sat open on the wooden counter, its plastic sleeves cloudy with age. She flipped through the pages—burned CDs with messy Sharpie labels, band names she'd forgotten about, mix titles that made her grin. Each disc was someone's attempt to capture something they couldn't explain with words. She pulled one out and read the track list written on the insert. The summer had felt stuck since the car broke down, but these CDs reminded her of what they were chasing—that raw, reckless freedom that lived in guitar riffs and late-night drives. She closed the binder and looked around the empty store. This place got it. The people who came here, who stayed late flipping through music—they understood. Jenna bought two CDs from the binder and walked back out into the warm night air. The Honda might be broken, but the summer wasn't over yet. She walked until she reached the stone overlook at the edge of town. The path through the trees opened up to flat rock that jutted out over the valley below. Forests stretched out in every direction, dark green under the night sky. Distant towns glowed like scattered embers. Jenna sat on the edge and let her legs dangle over the drop. The air was cooler up here, quiet except for the wind moving through the leaves behind her. She pulled out one of the CDs and turned it over in her hands. The summer had hit a wall, but sitting here reminded her that walls didn't matter as much as what you built before them. Her friends were still out there. The places they'd claimed were still waiting. The Honda would get fixed eventually. She looked out at the lights below and felt something settle in her chest. They'd started this summer chasing freedom, and one broken car wasn't going to end it. She stood up, slipped the CD into her pocket, and headed back down the path toward town. The houses on her street were dark when she got back. She walked past them until she spotted a driveway covered in thick chalk strokes—guitars in blue and pink, ocean waves in white, abstract symbols she couldn't name. The colors glowed under the streetlight, layered so thick the asphalt disappeared beneath them. Someone had spent hours on this, covering every inch with wild shapes and bright lines. Jenna stopped and stared at it. This was what they'd been doing all summer—leaving marks, claiming spaces, proving they existed. The art wouldn't last past the next rain, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that someone had made it anyway, without asking permission or worrying about tomorrow. She pulled out her phone and took a picture, then kept walking. When she got home, she'd text her friends. They'd figure out the car. They'd get back out there. The summer wasn't slipping away—it was just waiting for them to catch up.