Tough Choices

Green is for the trees

The greens and browns of the trees blur together in the mountain skyline as we drive by. I try to focus on each individual tree for half a second before our car whizzes by and we leave the foliage behind. I play this game with myself, trying to get more detail than the last before I no longer can. It helps to distract me. My head fills with the sound of my parents in the front seat, but I try to push it out and focus on the trees. They are fighting about something but their words blend together like the colors of the trees. I try not to pay attention to their constant ear piercing squabbles, but every once in awhile a word or two stick in my head in such a distinct voice that I never forget it again. Thus my vocabulary expanded to more colorful words. I will never forget what they said a few years back. I can feel my five-year-old toes gripping onto the carpet, so tight the knuckles turned white. I sat in the shadows, safely out of sight and throwing distance from my parents' fights. But just because I could not be seen doesn't mean I couldn't vividly hear the words being used. After that night I will never listen to another fight again.
Back to the trees. I look at the skyline and the passing cars. I watch the wheels turn in a hypnotizing motion, a blur of hubcaps passing us by. My mind drifts from the car to a different place, a better place. Somewhere far away from the blinding greens of the trees. Somewhere I can be a grownup and not a teenager any more. Somewhere I can be respected and thought of as smart. Somewhere like my dreams.
Suddenly I am no longer in the car but on a bed made with the finest silk, in a giant room, much cleaner than the one waiting for me at home. The richness of the green carpet makes my eyes gleam. The phone calls and it is my agent. I imagine her with short jet black hair, straight as a pin. I imagine her eyes black and determined, good qualities for an agent. In this fantasy I am a writer, with ink all over my hands and a pencil in my messy updo. When I look around the room the serene room turns slowly from pristine to messy, with crumpled paper everywhere and messy dishes in the sink. Yet the air still smells clean. It smells like the forest on a summer day, slightly stale but with a real nature quality to it.
I answer the phone to my agent yelling at me, my draft was due at noon and it is nearly four. I scramble out of my silky sheets and roll into the desk right beside it. Quickly my fingers slide across the keys making words and then slowly deleting them. The thought of finishing this clouds my mind.
All the gears turning in my head, creating this alternate world, suddenly stops mid motion. Like a train screeching to a halt I forget all about my messy writers apartment and the agent I so carefully envisioned. My mind jumps back to reality at my mom's sharp voice from the front of the car. All of the sudden it is directed pointedly at me. Her light brown hair, a spitting image of mine, flips back as she turns her head to the back seat, "Honey we are here!" Her voice is sweet and sharp and her face is stained with tears from a few moments before. The light is gone from the sky and only the moon shines it's beams. But the bright moon is so bright I can see everything in grave detail. Everything is there, but it has this odd quality to it, as if this to is part of a dream world. My eyes gaze out the window to the hellish cabin.
I stare at the wooden logs stacked on top of eachother. A light blanket of pure white snow contrast the grime accumulated on the cabin. Rustic is a word for it. The house has a background of a placid lake, the water frigid, just from the sight. I immediately look around the camp for an escape route. I scan the area looking for a quiet place just big enough for my imagination and I to fit, and maybe my book.
We walk out of the car and I click on my phone as I walk. Trying to suck in the thin deep mountain air. It is the kind of air that is crisp and clean but a little too thin to really get a good waft. My phone pings a few times- no service. Without instagram or the sweet relief of texting, this trip will be the end of me. Family vacation, the words ring in my head.
Slowly I walk into the house, leaves and pine needles crinkle under my feet. My dad gets out of the car and reaches for my green duffle in the trunk. His classic, red, beat- up flannel sways open with the breeze but his raggedy white undershirt stays tight to his skin. The cuffs of his oversized jeans brush over the piney floor as he walks up behind me with my oversized duffel in hand, my mom following closely behind. She sinks into the ground as she walks, the squish of her heels sinking is a nasty sound. This will be torture. I think to myself as the wind is the only noise as it ruffles the trees. The tension in the air is palpable and my dad unlocks the cabin. I have no idea what they were thinking- oh yeah let's just pack up the fam and a few essentials, take a trip to the woods and fight the whole time, sounds like wholesome family fun to me! I keep eyeing the corner of the property where there is a huge gash in this gigantic oak, just large enough for a small teenage body to fit. I will either be hanging out over there with my book or my dead body will be hanging out of it shortly. TIme will tell how this trip goes.
My room is dark with the lovely smell of old and racoon. Honestly I do not know how I know what a racoon smells like. Just an inkling I guess. The bed is musty and the sheets are thin, nothing like the beautiful paisley sheets of the fantasy. Slowly my mind creeps back into a dream zone as I stare out the window.