GROWING PAINS, Applyfic

3. Play the guitar in the back of your car

This chapter touches on some of Virgil's past and has some topics that are a little heavy! Don't read the parts about Vera if they're hard for you.

Sitting on towels back in the car. It's afternoon now and the sun is bright. Virgil pulls out a pair of purple sunglasses and slides them on, keeping a careful hand on the steering wheel. 

The music has shifted, now a calm sort of groovy soul-filled saxophone pop. Virgil wiggles her shoulders to the beat. Tommy is asleep in the backseat. Bea is scribbling in a little notebook, strands of blond hair falling into her face. Everyone is lost in their own little worlds. 

"Lottie?"

The dark haired girl looks at her friend. "Yeah?"

"I'm really glad you came on the trip."

A small smile flickers across Lottie's face. "I think I am too."

As Don't Go Dark by Bleachers plays softly, Lottie leans her head against the window. It's not hot in the van, but she still welcomes the cold glass. 

"Virgil?"

"Yeah?"

"It's June nine."

"Yeah."

Lottie turns her head to look at Virgil who is staring directly at the road. Her hands have tensed on the wheel. She's biting her cheek.

"Vee, I've known you since kindergarten. You think I don't remember the day you ran into my house cry-"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Virgil, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Have you talked to either of your parents today?" Lottie twists around even more in her seat so that her entire body is facing Virgil's. Virgil still stares straight out the front window. Her left knee bounces. 

Virgil says nothing in reply to Lottie except for "How about some more upbeat music?"

Lottie sighs. As good as Virgil is at talking about other peoples emotions, she's horrible at talking about her own.

It was morning. June ninth. Five years ago. 

Virgil had gone straight from a slumber party to summer track camp. It was sunny but not overwhelmingly hot, a perfect day. The sky was blue with whispy little clouds as she walked home from school, only a five minute walk. She was tired, having been up until midnight talking and watching "Legally Blonde" with her friends. Her shin hurt from the 400 meter repeats they had run at track camp. 

When she stepped inside the house she hadn't expected to find her father sitting at the old round kitchen table with a police officer, a piece of distressed, wrinkled paper placed on the table between them. When the two men saw 13-year-old Virgil standing there, cinch sack in one hand and duffel bag in the other, Virgil's father swept the paper off the table and pocketed it. 

Virgil looked at the two of them, eyes flicking back and forth. Her hair was still dark then. She had bangs that were held back by a thick white headband. 

"Why is there a police officer here?"

Virgil's father took a deep breath, a shaky breath that looked like it hurt. Virgil saw then that his eyes were puffy and red. 

"Baby...something happened."

Tommy rolls his neck around when he steps out of the van. It pops a couple times. They touch their toes, then right themselves and walk toward the gas station. After a couple hours in a car you sometimes have to go to the bathroom. Why did he say yes to a long road trip again?