Breaking Down

Chapter 53:

The car ride home was longer than I could have imagined.  We were in the mountains of Tennessee when Uncle Aiden tried to get us to all join in a Sing-a-long.  Of course, the first song he chose was my favorite princess song from when I was little. He turned it up and replayed it four times in a row until I agreed to sing it with him. 

"We still got it, Jess." He smiled out of breath after belting the harmonies with me. I was genuinely laughing from his excitement. He turned on another song and he took the lead.  It was a duet from one of the movie musicals I secretly loved to watch when no one was around.  It was a cheesy romance movie and I was ashamed of letting anyone know I enjoyed it.

"That song was terrible."  My Dad grumbled, changing the radio, which ruined our six minutes of fun.

"You're just jealous because you can't hit those notes anymore."  My Uncle Aiden poked at him.

"You were a little flat there at the end."  My Dad fumed back.

"Impossible. I'm never flat. Did you forget to put your hearing aid in this morning, old man?"  Uncle Aiden's body shook as he laughed at my Dad.

I couldn't contain my laughter as the two men went back and forth, picking at each other for the next half hour.  I was having a great time until I snuck a glance in Cam's direction.

Cameron sat stone-faced on his phone, not bothering to join in on any of the forced road trip fun. His brow was furrowed as he watched some video on Youtube. He hadn't spoken one word to me since we left the hotel.   I spent the next two hours of the car ride staring out the window, trying not to cry over the distance between us.

We started running low on gas around the Kentucky and Tennessee border.  My Dad and Uncle Aiden went to go restock their snack supplies after the gas tank was refueled. 

I closed my eyes and sunk back against the seat, trying to remember how to breathe. My head had started pounding over the last hour and I felt like I was going to get sick.  I hadn't had anything in my system for a few hours and I was coming down from my high.  I was in full detox mode.  I opened the car door and leaned out to vomit. The stomach acid burned my throat as it splashed down to the ground next to the pump.  

Cam snapped out of his important viral video watching long enough to rush to my side.  He began to run his hand along my spine. I leaned back out the door and retched again. This time nothing would come out. 

"Jessa, you can do this. Just try to relax. Everything will be ok, darling."  He said, trying to soothe my agonizing pain with his words and his comforting hands.

"It's not. It never will be." My body was shaking.

"Do you think you can keep going or do you want to stop for the night?" He asked softly. 

"I don't know." 

I wiped the corners of my mouth to make sure there were no remnants of my weakness left behind. Everything ached and I was growing more and more restless with each passing second. My skin was starting to itch; it felt like bugs were creeping across every inch of me. 

I was starting to lose my brief hold on reality.

"Jess, you're shaking. Come here." He pulled me back into his warm body and wrapped his arms around me.

"Please don't let me go." I said, clinging to him desperately.

"I never will." He whispered while kissing the top of my head.

My Dad and Uncle Aiden came back out to the SUV with their arms loaded with drinks and snacks. They looked like oversized teenage boys whose Mom sent them to the store for milk.  I would have laughed if I wasn't so busy trying to keep my limbs from falling off my body. 

"You hanging in back there?"  Uncle Aiden asked, climbing into the driver's seat.

"She's having a rough time.  I've got her, but we should get going. I don't know how much more she can take." Cam said, running his hand through my hair.

I looked up at my Dad and he was watching Cam tenderly stroke my head.  His eyes flashed and then lightened as he nodded like he was thinking through something. I was waiting for the 'don't touch my daughter' speech, but it never came.  Instead, he just climbed into the car silently and opened his bag of chips. He began crunching them way too loudly and then washed them down with an energy drink like everything was business as usual. 

Cam leaned over and placed his chin on the top of my head.  I closed my eyes, trying to get some rest.  We were still a long way from home and it was going to take all my strength to get there.

An hour later, I woke Cameron up when I tried to open the SUV door to jump out on the highway.  Cameron sprung into action and managed to hold the door closed while he pinned me down to the seat at the same time.  It took everything Cam had in him to keep me subdued. 

I couldn't sleep anymore. I couldn't even sit still. My heart was pounding and I had to go see the world before I was crushed to death in the car. I was in complete agony. 

Uncle Aiden swerved to the shoulder to stop the car so my Dad could jump out to help Cameron.  He had tried to climb back over the seat without any success while the car was in motion. Cameron shifted and wrapped his arms and legs around me, trying to keep me from running when my Dad opened the door. I clawed at Cam's face and tore into him with my nails.  He didn't even attempt to try to stop me from hurting him.  I was going for his eyeballs when my dad climbed in on the other side of me. 

Dad went to reach out for me and I bit down hard on his hand.

"Fuck."  He bellowed while he shook it out.  I had broken the skin and it was starting to bleed all over the seat. 

"Let me go." I screamed, kicking, scratching, and trying to do anything I could to be set free. Both men had me caged in.  I felt like a wild animal caught in a trap.  They were poachers lining up their shots and there was nothing I could do to get away.

Uncle Aiden reached down and flipped on the child locks on the doors and windows so I couldn't try to get out again.  He started the car again and pulled it into drive.  He looked back to make sure it was clear before merging in with the thick traffic. 

I laid there for a long time with Cam pinning my arms to my body and my Dad holding my legs so I couldn't kick him in the face.  I didn't understand why they wouldn't let me get out of the car.  I just wanted to see what the roads in Kentucky looked like. They looked so different than the ones I had seen before.

"Daddy, why are the roads blue and gold?"  I asked.

"Jessa, what are you talking about?"  My Dad said, looking out the window.

"The roads, Daddy, don't you see them? They are sky blue and have little flecks of gold dancing around in them.  They are beautiful, Daddy. They look like broken glass." I said excitedly. 

"No, I don't, Jessa.  I wish I could see what you see."  He said, gritting his teeth. 

"I want to stop so I can touch them. I want to know what they feel like."  I begged.

"We can't. We need to keep moving. Your mom is waiting for us, Sweet Pea. We have to go home now." He said, grabbing my hand to hold it.

I snuggled up in between my Dad and Cameron and closed my eyes again.