adrenaline was gone, leaving my system shaken and disorientated, I had no choice but to slow my haste and really concentration on what I was doing. “Just calm down and think.”
He had no idea where I was, or how to find me. If I did some backtracking and switched directions, I could probably lose him for good.
I threw a panicked glance out my rearview mirror. No motorcycle.
Why are you running? There was that voice again inside my head, and, now that I was as familiar with Isaiah’s voice as I was with my own, I was bowled over with how much it sounded like him.
Are you kidding? I wanted to yell at it. Why do you think I’m running? In truth, I had no idea why.
Maybe because I didn’t trust him. Maybe because I didn’t trust anything right then. Maybe because I needed to run, needed to just get away from everything. I’d probably run from myself if I could. My own skin felt alien to me, felt wrong. I would have gladly peeled it all away, skinned myself alive, just to make it all stop.
“Oh God, I’ve gone completely crazy!” I hadn’t realized I was uncontrollably sobbing until I could no longer breathe properly and had to pull into a shopping center parking lot to keep from killing myself or someone else.
I lay my forehead against the steering wheel and closed my eyes. My bones rattled violently with every ragged breath I sucked into my lungs, fighting to control the raw madness, raising its ugly head, inside me.
“Why is this happening to me?” I screamed at the empty car, slamming both fists against the steering wheel. The horn blared beneath the attack. “Why me? What did I do to deserve this?”
Absolute silence reverberated around me, broken only by the thundering of my heart in my ears and the irregular wheezing of my lungs. I dropped back in my seat and stared up at the roof. Hot tears fell like rain off my chin, dampening the front of my t-shirt, but I didn’t bother wiping them away; I scarcely had the strength to flex my fingers let alone raise an entire arm.
A beam of light fluttered through the passenger window, splintering against the tin box resting in the seat beside me. The spark caught the corner of my eye. I rolled my head towards it.
The box was simple, four smooth walls, a bottom and a lid. No designs, no lettering, nothing to indicate that the ashes of a grown person lay inside. But my mom was in there. All of her five-foot-five-inches, one hundred and thirty pounds were somehow now resting at the bottom of a tiny, metal box.
I wanted to laugh at the irony, but all I could do was sit there and stare.
She would have known what to do. If she had been here, she would have had a plan; she always did. She would have taken my hand and said something like; don’t worry, baby girl. I’m here. Everything will be okay.
“You’re not here anymore,” I whispered quietly. “Will everything still be okay?”
Yes.
I had a hard time believing the incorporeal voice. But what other choice did I have? No amount of crying, or self-pitying, was going to bring her back, nor was it going to help me now. If my mom had taught me anything, it was to always keep moving, and that’s what I was going to do. I had to pull together, regroup and figure out what to do next.
There was still no sign of a motorcycle when I pulled out of the shopping center and started west. The traffic had lightened up, allowing me to reach Highway 17 in record time. I kept to the speed limit, hoping to avoid unwanted attention.
I didn’t officially have my driver’s license and cops tended to frown on that. We just never stayed anywhere long enough to get it, not to mention you needed an actual address to have the license mailed to you. So it never happened, but I knew how to drive and if I didn’t do anything stupid, I would make it out of Ontario without incident.
I stopped for the night in a shabby motel just outside of Kenora. The greasy, half-asleep, half-drunk man behind the counter didn’t even bother
He had no idea where I was, or how to find me. If I did some backtracking and switched directions, I could probably lose him for good.
I threw a panicked glance out my rearview mirror. No motorcycle.
Why are you running? There was that voice again inside my head, and, now that I was as familiar with Isaiah’s voice as I was with my own, I was bowled over with how much it sounded like him.
Are you kidding? I wanted to yell at it. Why do you think I’m running? In truth, I had no idea why.
Maybe because I didn’t trust him. Maybe because I didn’t trust anything right then. Maybe because I needed to run, needed to just get away from everything. I’d probably run from myself if I could. My own skin felt alien to me, felt wrong. I would have gladly peeled it all away, skinned myself alive, just to make it all stop.
“Oh God, I’ve gone completely crazy!” I hadn’t realized I was uncontrollably sobbing until I could no longer breathe properly and had to pull into a shopping center parking lot to keep from killing myself or someone else.
I lay my forehead against the steering wheel and closed my eyes. My bones rattled violently with every ragged breath I sucked into my lungs, fighting to control the raw madness, raising its ugly head, inside me.
“Why is this happening to me?” I screamed at the empty car, slamming both fists against the steering wheel. The horn blared beneath the attack. “Why me? What did I do to deserve this?”
Absolute silence reverberated around me, broken only by the thundering of my heart in my ears and the irregular wheezing of my lungs. I dropped back in my seat and stared up at the roof. Hot tears fell like rain off my chin, dampening the front of my t-shirt, but I didn’t bother wiping them away; I scarcely had the strength to flex my fingers let alone raise an entire arm.
A beam of light fluttered through the passenger window, splintering against the tin box resting in the seat beside me. The spark caught the corner of my eye. I rolled my head towards it.
The box was simple, four smooth walls, a bottom and a lid. No designs, no lettering, nothing to indicate that the ashes of a grown person lay inside. But my mom was in there. All of her five-foot-five-inches, one hundred and thirty pounds were somehow now resting at the bottom of a tiny, metal box.
I wanted to laugh at the irony, but all I could do was sit there and stare.
She would have known what to do. If she had been here, she would have had a plan; she always did. She would have taken my hand and said something like; don’t worry, baby girl. I’m here. Everything will be okay.
“You’re not here anymore,” I whispered quietly. “Will everything still be okay?”
Yes.
I had a hard time believing the incorporeal voice. But what other choice did I have? No amount of crying, or self-pitying, was going to bring her back, nor was it going to help me now. If my mom had taught me anything, it was to always keep moving, and that’s what I was going to do. I had to pull together, regroup and figure out what to do next.
There was still no sign of a motorcycle when I pulled out of the shopping center and started west. The traffic had lightened up, allowing me to reach Highway 17 in record time. I kept to the speed limit, hoping to avoid unwanted attention.
I didn’t officially have my driver’s license and cops tended to frown on that. We just never stayed anywhere long enough to get it, not to mention you needed an actual address to have the license mailed to you. So it never happened, but I knew how to drive and if I didn’t do anything stupid, I would make it out of Ontario without incident.
I stopped for the night in a shabby motel just outside of Kenora. The greasy, half-asleep, half-drunk man behind the counter didn’t even bother
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