Fast Car

Eight

I am sure this is not a life...

I dedicated 8 years of my life for a father who doesn't ask me how I am doing on a fine day.. I was 15 years old when I quit school for someone who just asks about my paycheck at the end of every month... I am a 22 years old living with a man who has never felt my forehead to check if I have fever when I am sick in bed.. Not one day he made a conversation with me... I don't think he knows what my favorite color is or if I am a dog or a cat person.

People talk about how everything changes when they become parents, I read about those changes how mothers develop a love they never experienced before and how they would put the well-being and safety of their children way ahead of theirs. I saw mothers compromising and settling in, mothers working hard and giving up to provide the fruit of their loin with the best they can offer. I read how fathers instantly become more responsible as they feel the responsibility of fatherhood hitting them. I saw fathers working days and nights, two and three jobs to provide their kids with the best life and the best education.

Then there are my own kind of parents... The rebels who do not want to follow other parents' good steps, they want to create their own and they decided to become the worst they can be.

I remember the first time I went to a bar, I wasn't sneaking in with a fake ID with my friends to go get wasted, dance and have fun. It wasn't even with a guy, to drink, relax and break the ice on our first date. It was to pick up my drunk father, who was attacking, bashing and shaming the people there.

I think out of everything that happened in my life, the way people look at me is what hurts me most. The pity looks, the sad looks, the snickering looks and the insulting ones are what I cannot handle anymore. And no matter what I do with my life and whoever I become I will still get those looks.

And now that man outside, he just got himself a girlfriend and he wakes up for her, she gets to see him in daylight; a privilege I never got lucky to have. He makes conversations with her and laughs with her. He takes my money away from me to spend it on her.

This is beyond sad I know...

Today I learned, I finally learned I have had enough!

Today I decided that I am no longer the one who will have to wake up at dawn to walk him home when he is drunk and lonely. I will no longer be the one who shuts the black outs for him to sleep his sorrows away when the sun is outside shining bright. I refuse to be working my ass off to provide him with a decent life and he is just making a fool of me and of himself. Today I will no longer live my life for anyone, I will live my life for me. I need to learn how to live and then live!

Today I decided to be as selfish as my mother was and I decided to do something about whatever this I call a life.

I may understand why she left him but I will never understand why she left me and I will never forgive her for leaving me alone with him. I will never forgive her for wanting to have a life by taking mine away!

So I walked out of the house, my legs took me to Adam's, they are used to routing me there I guess.

I look at him, he is burying his face in the hood of a black 2000 E-class, which means it was not one of his best days.

He was topless, I could see the muscles of his back clenched. He had a well fit figure, no bulky muscles just the shades of them. His fingers were dirty and his cheeks had black oil spots on them that just contrasted the color of his eyes more.

He just lifted his eyes to look at me, small sparkles of sweat were tracing the side of his forehead, I don't know something that disgusting can look that good on him. When he lifted his head to meet my sight I forgot why I came here in the first place, I forgot that i want to escape my life and my sorrows, he has that effect on me I don't know what to call it, but I just seem to forget all my troubles around him.

I was afraid to ask him to leave here because of all the memories with mama, but I don't want to go alone he deserves a shot of life as well. It's true I decided to be selfish but not with him, not with the guy who gave up on his heart to mend mine.

"What's wrong?" he asked me as he saw me struggling with my thoughts

"Do you like it here?" I asked choking on my own words

"Let's take the car and move the hell out of here..." I continued without giving him a chance to talk because I was too scared he would turn me down and crush my dream.

"I know you don't want to leave the house, and I wouldn't want you to... But I can't live like this anymore! We don't have to drive too far, just across the border and into the city... I stopped giving my father all my earnings so I managed to save a little bit, we can use them... You can find a nice place and you will open a workshop there, with your talent you will get gazillion customers... I will find a job... any job... We can rent an apartment together and Aisha can move in with us.. We will live the dream... We will simply live! It will not be easy but we will work hard... We will get a chance to live and see more of this life... I am starting to feel like this place is a hellhole, we need to leave the soonest or we live and even die this way... Please think of it, promise you will! I can just take the bus and go alone but I don't want to begin to imagine a life without you" I blabbed not giving him time to breathe, I was so mad at my father and my life that I let it out on him.

"Ok!" He replied without winking

"You will think of it?" I asked innocently with eyes full of hope

"No! Go pack your bags we will leave tonight..."

And with those words, Adam gave life to feelings I have never felt before... Happiness? Maybe, but different... Hope? The rebirth of me? I suddenly felt like I can conquer the world, as if I am rich, as if I have never been sad and tired and hopeless.. I am finally flipping the page on an ugly chapter and starting a completely new beautiful blank one.

Without any hesitation, without even putting thoughts into my mind, I threw myself in Adam's arms!

As I buried my face into his neck, his smell went through my nostrils giving my head a kind of euphoria I only experience when this man in involved; his voice, his looks, his words, his smell, his touch...

It was the first time I get that physically close to him; my chest was so close to his and his heart was beating so fast that I could feel it with mine. The touch of his skin makes my body feel a million different things, he was standing there so close and I was seeing a manifestation of dreams sculpted into perfection.

He slid his hands, wrapped them around my waist, and squeezed me in the temple of his arms so I tightened the squeeze around his neck... and that place right there is where I can live the rest of my life. I brushed my fingers through his dark hair, so he pulled his head a little to the back, looked into my eyes with those hypnotizing green eyes of his and whispered,

"I would drive a lifetime just to see you smile!"

That is when I felt things are getting too real to handle, because at this very moment nothing can ever stop me from wanting more of him. His smell is so appealing that nothing can hold me back from wanting to kiss him then fall into the trap of confessing my deepest secret to the one person who should not know about it. So I pulled myself back and I think told him awkwardly "I will go pack my bags and meet you here in 2 hours" or maybe I just walked away not saying a word.

I don't know why I panic when I get close to him, I get so afraid. I just don't want to wake up to a day where he is not part of it. I have struggled all my life to find that thing that makes everything right, it was Adam... He came to my life like an angel and fixed everything. And if I give in to my emotions, what can assure me that he loves me in return? And if he does what if one day we run out of love? What if when we run out of money to pay the bills... will we start fighting? Will we hate each other?

What will I do if my heart stops producing love for the thing that consumes my love the most?

It's a risk I am not willing to take...

And so I walked back to the place I will call home for the last time tonight...