The Craters in the Moon

Chapter 5

A click signaled to me that the conversation was over. I shoved my phone back into my back pocket and surveyed my surroundings, in an attempt to spot a bench to sit on that was the nearest and the least occupied. "I wanted to read"- my life mantra.

Though it seemed all of them were pretty much taken, so I settled with sitting on the side of a curb. Cars roared by, and I flipped to the first page. I realized in an instant that the setting sun was entirely inadequate in providing sufficient light, so I closed the book in a huff and looked around for my mom's minivan.

Sure enough, there she came, speeding down the road like a maniac, easily exceeding the thirty miles per hour ratio. I stood up and waved my arm, and she pulled up just a few feet in front of me. I saw her face behind the steering wheel smiling widely, and I could already hear this abnormal Christian pop she somehow took a liking to in the past few months.

It got me thinking.

"Mom?" I asked without greeting, as I got in and buckled my seatbelt.

She steered back onto the main road and muttered a "what?" while she honked at this poor guy in front of us that was going only two miles below the speed limit. Drivers in northern Virginia were the worst, and sadly, my mom was a major part of that margin.

"I want to go somewhere," I said.

"Sure, sweetie. Where? You said you wanted to eat?" She maneuvered around the car in front of us and turned onto the highway.

I took a breath.

"Somewhere not here, like, out of this state. I don't know, maybe even out of this country. Just not here."

The vehicle stopped abruptly and I was thrust forward against the dashboard. The cars behind us honked in unison.

"Mom!" I shrieked.

"Sorry." She rubbed her eyes with the palm of her hand, and eased the car forward, a little more gently this time. "You know that can't happen," she said. "You have to find a job, raise money for college, and-"

"I know," I replied. "But that doesn't change how I feel. I-I, I wanna do something no one has ever done before."

Maybe not necessarily travelling, but something great. Revolutionary. Unparalleled. But she wouldn't understand. Parents aren't permitted to be anything but close-minded; it's in the job description.

"You can do that here," she reasoned.

"What is that, some kind of joke?"

DC wasn't capable of comparing to LA, or NYC, or London, let alone a measly suburb full of overweight people and fast food restaurant chains. Maybe it was wanderlust in the third degree, but I had to get away. The feeling burned in the pit of my chest; it had always been there, but now it was unavoidable and inescapable, impossible to purge.

"Why don't you sleep on it?" she concluded, but I knew that meant no.

I slumped back into the faux leather fabric of the seat and said, "I don't think I'm hungry anymore."

The rest of the night was spent in my room, squinting to read words on a page in the fading light. By the time sun beams had crawled across my bedroom floor, I flipped over the last page. There was that feeling of content in my chest, the kind of obsessive desire you sense as you finish an amazing story. There was a large advertisement for the next book the author had just published on the back cover, and I could hear my heart yearn for it.

The bookstore opened at nine.

There was no way Lucas; a cheeky, aggravating teenager; got up that early.

My eyes finally came together with the promise of closure. I would get my ending,

And then I slept.

The day started dreadfully normal. My alarm rang at the precise time it always did, I got out of the bed like I always did, I brushed my teeth and ate breakfast like I always did. I changed into a pair of jeans shorts that weren't short enough to be rejected by Mom, but long enough to be considered cool, and a graphic tee advertising a local band.

My parents came into the kitchen right as I was picking at an overflowing bowl of cereal.

They took no notice of me for a few minutes, which felt like a gracious gift, but they soon encompassed me at our round table from both sides. My mom and dad both held a freshly brewed cup of coffee. I chewed as fast as humanly possible.

And then, inevitably, my extroverted mom found the need to initiate conversation with her not-so-extroverted daughter. My dad flipped through the newspaper.

Mom: "Good morning, Arden."

Me: "Mom."

Mom: "Any reason for the rush?"

Me: "Yeah."

Pause.

Mom: "And?"

Me: "I'm heading off to the bookstore after I finish breakfast."

Mom: "Again?"

Pause.

I scooped out the final, lonely cheerio out of the bowl and threw it on the counter, making a dash for the front door before she could incase me in any further discussion.

"Honey?" I heard, but I was already gone. There's only so much mothering you can take before your head blows off.

It was a chillier morning, and I was glad that I had picked up a light sweatshirt before I left. It hung over my skinny shoulders and swallowed my stick-like arms. The sun was barely rising.

Something in my stomach didn't feel right; it was hard to distinguish. Kind of like you're about to die, but you don't know how or when or why.

I have days like this a lot, when all you want to do is sleep and sleep and sleep. The irony of it was the fact that it was coupled with my vicious insomnia. But I couldn't sleep now. I needed the book. The worst thing about my depression was that nothing really caused it.

There was no root to the problem, it was all in my head. No triggers, no death, no accidents. There was nothing to "fix." If I wanted to get rid of the problem, it would require making another me from scratch. I was the problem.

I walked down the long stretch of sidewalk that lead into town and shivered underneath the fleece fabric.

Who was I kidding. I sucked at personhood.