Summer

Leaving

Once I drove away and the town I had lived in faded behind me, it felt like there was a weight lifted off my shoulders. I felt like I could finally relax and not worry about everyone watching me every second. But I had also never felt more alone because Brent wasn't sitting next to me. Though before his memory could haunt me once more, I pushed him to the back corner of my mind. Instead I focused my attention on the road and where I wanted to go next, ready to go where ever the road was going to take me.

And so I drove. The only time I stopped was at a gas station where I used mobile pay on my phone that had my debit card saved on it. If it wasn't for that then I wasn't sure how I was going to eat or get gas. Days and nights blurred together as I drove farther and farther away from everything I had ever known into a new world of freedom that brushed over my face when the windows were rolled down. The radio and the breeze were the only sounds I'd ever heard anymore because the ringer of my phone stayed off. Every time I checked it would just be a few people asking if I wanted to go to a party or Brent asking me where I was. And I left all on them unread because there was no point to answering texts when I was living life to the fullest.

At night when I stopped to sleep I would sit on the roof on my car to stare at the stars, feeling like I wanted to float away forever. In my mind I was always wondering what it would be like to do nothing but sit for millions of years and never feel the sting of being hurt by people you thought you loved. Then I'd push it out of my mind to shove whatever the gas station had been serving into my mouth and lay down in the backseat to sleep until the morning. During the day I'd stop sometimes to swim in a lake so that I could take a bath with the soaps I bought at the gas station.

That was my life for a few weeks until one day my mobile pay stopped working. After that I called the bank to check on my card, and they told me it had been canceled by my father. Which angered me because he was never around nor did he ever care what I did before. So once I got off the phone with bank I called my father who to no one's surprise didn't bother to pick up. So I called and called until finally I decided to call his office. And then the receptionist put me on hold even though I explained that I was his daughter.  After being on hold for what seemed like hours, his voice finally came through the phone.

"Hello. This Dan Smith of Smith industries." He answered his voice polite and yet somehow impatient at the same time. I couldn't remember the last time I had heard him actually talk so for a moment I couldn't seem to find my voice. And a moment passed where everything was dead silent until he spoke again. "Hello? Is this a prank call?"

"No father." I spoke my voice coming out raspy from not speaking. "It's me, Summer." On the other side of the phone I could hear him sigh before he spoke to me again.

"What do you want?" His tone completely changed from polite, to annoyed in an instant and I couldn't say that didn't sting. He was supposed to be my father. Fathers were supposed to love their daughters but mine couldn't seem to want to be done with me fast enough. But I ignored the lump in my throat and the tears I was trying to blink back to answer him once more.

"My card. It was canceled." I told him, hoping he would resolve it so that I could hang up and be done with him.

"I know. I did it." I wanted to tell him that I already knew that but I didn't because he continued to talk. "You left home without a word." I was in shock. Did my father actually care about me and where I was? "You know how that looks to the neighborhood, to the people I work with everyday. I mean, fuck Summer these people talk and when they talk it gets back to my boss. Do you want me to get fired for looking like a bad father?!" My state of shock was over and it was back to my father doesn't give a shit about me. He just cares about his image. "Also I have some big news so you need to get home right away."