The Way In Which Things Work

Chapter One: Too Early

"Can you come pick me up?" I hear a breath being taken on the other end of the phone. He tells me he'll get me in 10 minutes which is 10 too many for me right now. I tell him I'm down the road from my mom's apartment and sit in the bitter wind outside, very far down the street from her building.

I feel the pack of Camels in my pocket, they're comforting sitting there, so comforting that I take one out, even if I risk subjecting my hands to frostbite. My jeans are made of unrealistically thin fabric, allowing me to feel the freezing curbside underneath me. I have a jacket on although it's not doing too much to protect me from Mother Nature.

My fingers twirl the blue lighter I hold in my hand before lighting the end of a cigarette and sticking it between my lips. I reach up to hold my hat onto my head which barely covers my ears, I can't afford a new one. The obnoxious sound of an car sounds down the road and I know it's Daniel. In a matter of seconds, headlights peer around the corner and come to a halt when they see my figure stand up. Billowing smoke covers my figure as I wait for him to unlock the door to his car that sputters every time the gas pedal is touched.

"Jacki, what the hell are you doing outside? You trying to catch hypothermia or something?" Danny muses from the driver's seat of his car.

"Just shut up and drive, we can go anywhere, I don't care where as long as we don't come back here tonight." He scoffs in the seat next to me.

I inhale more smoke and in a second it's ripped from my fingers. "Hey, what did I say about doing this shit in my car? Smoking is disgusting, don't do it around me. I'm not gonna keep doing you favors if you ignore what I tell you to do."

"The smoke would probably do the smell of your car a favor, it smells like shit anyways." He ignores my comment and keeps driving me further away from my apartment which loosens the tight grip that anxiety holds on me whenever I stay there. I can't keep going back there.

Deadly silence fills the car and I know he wants to say something. "Tell me what you wanna say, I know it ain't nice so just spit it out."

More silence. I notice his hands gripping the steering wheel extra tightly, one of his knuckles is twitching and his eyebrows are pulled together tightly. We lurch forwards slightly as he presses down harder on the accelerator. Slightly nervous, I grab the handle that's dangling from the ceiling and grip it harder as the seconds go by. "Say it Danny."

A loud sigh escapes his mouth, "Alright, you wanna know what I'm thinking?" He asks me rather aggressively.

"That's what I've been asking for the past 5 minutes. So, yeah." I roll my eyes, why I even bother wasting my time with him is a mystery.

His hand hits the steering wheel, making me jump in my seat from the sound. "I wanna know when you're gonna get your shit together. You're always calling me when you get in a fight with your mom. Well guess what princess, everyone fights with their moms, you ain't special." The pissed off tone he uses me only makes my emotions run high with irritation. I try to ignore him but he keeps going. "I can't just jump in my car and run you off to wherever you please because you don't like your mom. That's not how it works."

I turn to look at him with fury behind the brown in my eyes, hoping it's enough to get him to back down. "Then why do you keep doing it?! You can say no." I yell at him, shouting louder than necessary.

He slams on his breaks and we come to a screeching halt on the pavement of a deserted road from the dead of night. "I do it because I keep thinking 'maybe this will be the last time' but it never is. All you do is push and push and ask for favors. I am not anyone's puppet!" His nostrils flare and the volume of his voice is equal to mine.