I always complained about noise, even as a child.
I would hide under my bed in an attempt to smother the chaos that was happening outside my window. My mother would come home to find me under my bed; she would let me stay there, knowing that her efforts were futile.
I was never rich but we were never really struggling financially.
Both of my parents worked nights, sometimes day. I could go days without seeing them and when I did it was only a glimpse. They always took care of me, yes, but it was only the fundamentals. Food, clothes, a bed to sleep in. I began riding the subway to school at the age of seven. I would cling onto whatever motherly figure I could find onboard, usually an elderly lady or a mother and child. I knew my parents loved me, in their own odd way. They were there for birthdays and holidays, but I don't think they understood how much I craved their nurturing. I loved them too, a lot actually, but I just couldn't do it anymore. I felt trapped in a rut. I felt myself spiraling into a lost hole. That's when I decided to do this. I'm not a runaway, not at all. My parents know I'm doing this.
Telling them was tense. My mother cried, my father just crossed his arms and huffed like he always did when he was at a loss for words. I maintained a strong facade, constructed of false courage and masked fear. I promised them that I would be safe, explained that even if they didn't agree that I was already old enough. Nineteen years of self-taught survival were enough to keep me alive thus long, so why couldn't it now. Finally, they gave in, telling me to stay safe, asking if I needed money. I shook my head. I had been working since I was fourteen, scraping together a lump sum of cash. They asked where I was heading and I answered with hesitation.
My grandmother was always eccentric, it's a wonder how my father came out to be so stoic. My grandmother lives in a very secluded part of New Mexico, right on the outskirts of Las Cruces. She owns cats, sends postcards to us as if we're on vacation, and every thanksgiving she makes tacos instead of turkey. Out of my whole family, my grandma is probably the only person that understands me, maybe she's just senile enough to understand the mind of a confused teenage girl. Although she made me happy, the same couldn't be said for my parents. My grandmother never really liked the fact that my parents got married so young and moved so far away. She still holds a tad of resentment towards my parents for it, but not for me. I'm not her first grandchild but I am her favorite.
My brother, Sawyer, is a spitting image of my father. He's solid. Solid grades, solid job, solid family life. He has a daughter, three years old with winding, tousled caramel hair, and sapphire encrusted eyes. Her name is Marie, Marie Waverly Adams. He lives in Pittsburg, if you can even call it living, with his wife Esme. Sawyer is a truck driver, driving on long stretches of road consumes his life and he doesn't seem to mind. Like my parents, he's always there for the important dates, birthdays and holidays, but he likes being alone. Sometimes I think the only reason he ever married Esme was because of Marie. Sawyer and Esme were strained high school sweethearts, loving from afar but toxic whenever they got too close, so when Esme got pregnant with Marie at the young age of eighteen Sawyer shattered. He conformed to his new life in the same way vines grow on the side of a weathered house. He left New York to get away from the noise, like me, at the age of nineteen, like me. He bought a small, quaint home where he moved in with his very impregnated, banished girlfriend and started his life from the ground up. He took up a job with a truck driving company on the brink of Pittsburg and nothing has changed ever since. It's been three years since Sawyer moved out there and in that time I've only ever really talked to him on the phone and occasionally video chatted with Marie to see her wobble her way through her barely started life. I haven't told him about my plans. I haven't told him about how I want him to take me with him on his next trip, hopefully somewhere in New Mexico, but at this point, I'll take what I can get. I haven't even called to see that he's home.
I'm pulled away from my anxious thoughts by the sound of hollow tapping. For the first time in the forty-five minutes I've been in this taxi, I turn to look at Flynn. He looked so far away, not physically obviously since the only thing separating us from each other was the weathered down, leather middle console, but rather like his eyes were blank. He tapped his fingers with the precision of a musician and absentmindedness of a young child, and although it was mesmerizing in its own way, it was starting to become annoying. I kept staring at him hoping that he would eventually get the hint, but he was so lost in his own head that he didn't feel my burning gaze. In the most calm way I could, I lifted my hand up to the steering wheel, wrapped my small, frail fingers around his palm, and led it to his thigh where I let it fall limply on his jeans. The look I received afterwards was far from blank. He didn't look offended, more so astounded.
He cleared his throat with a raspy cough, "you could've just told me to stop."
I didn't say anything, just shrugged my shoulders in an uninterested manner.
"You don't like talking, do you?"
I turned to him, "not particularly."
He nodded.
"Why?"
"Don't know."
"Do you not like your own voice?"
"It's fine."
"Are you shy?"
"Not very."
"Do you ever speak in phrases that contain more than two words at a time?"
"Occasionally."
He chuckled in a sort of loose manner. He seemed like a loose person. His shirt clung to him like it was a size too big for his frame. His jeans weren't 'bell bottom' loose, but they also weren't 'I wanted to be in a rock band when I was sixteen and I still haven't let go' tight. Even the way he drove was loose. Thumb hooked at the bottom of the steering wheel in a form of non-challance that I envied. As I was scrutinzing him (noticicably, at that), a questioned dawned on me.
"Aren't you gonna get in trouble?"
He let his head fall and hit his shoulder in a pensive manner, "yeah."
"Then why would you take me?"
"I wanted to."
"Why?"
"I hated New York."
This was when I knew this ride wouldn't be as bad as I had assumed.
