A Chance To Break Me (UNDERGOING MAJOR EDITING)

29. Now What

~Anton ~

       I watched the large Boeing 909 American Airways take off from the ground and kept on speeding until it was way above the clouds and I  couldn't see it any more. And just like that, she was out of my sight, the girl I loved. I got into my metallic machine and drove blindly away from the airport my vision blurring every now and then. She was gone. She tried to make me see that two weeks wasn't long, but how was she to know that she was my refuge in times when things got bad at home and she was the only one who I could run to for comfort? Perhaps Hector was right. I had made it a habit to get away from home when I was trying to escape some situations and Donna was the only person I really went to. Even when we weren't a couple, talking to her always made me me feel better, it didn't matter where we were, in class, in the chemistry lab, at parties... She was my pillar, in away, I had come to rely on her without my even knowing it. What was I to do an entire half a month without her?

     They say that life is good when you are alone, it gets better when you meet someone you fall in love with and then it gets completely impossible to go on with life once that person leaves. I didn't believe it at first. How could I when I had always had everything I wanted for as long as I needed? Oh God, how do people cope with this. It was only fifteen minutes since the plane took off but it felt like days already. I was missing her. Her carefree ways, her easy to please nature, her ready smile and damn, her sarcastic mouth. I should have insisted on going to Kenya with her.

       I contemplated on whether to go to school as it was only ten in the morning but I changed my mind when I got to the school gate and the first person I saw was Ellery Stone. I swerved left to the tarmac just as our eyes met and drove away to go spend the rest of the day in my room. Mr Simmons saluted me like he always did at the gate  but this time I didn't wave back as I had a lot of things on my mind.

      I took the long way around the water fountain located in front of the house and parked my car in the garage behind it. Walking to the kitchen to get myself a cold Pepsi the last person I wanted/expected to see was my father. I walked in on him gulping down a whole bottle of beer with his hand on one of the counters to support himself. The kitchen was big and spacious like anyone's dream kitchen should be but it suddenly felt stuffed in there and I wanted as little communication as possible him. I went about searching the fridge for what I wanted ignoring my dad who had barely looked from his bottle. Seriously, who drinks beer at 10.00 in the morning?

    I smiled to myself once I found a Pepsi and started to leave when he spoke. "Why are you not in school son?"

Funny how he referred to me as 'son' but called Hector 'boy.'  "I had to drive my girlfriend to the airport, you remember she told you and mom she had to fly back to Kenya for her father's funeral."

"She couldn't get a cab?"

"I offered to drive her there. It's no big deal."

"It is when you are skipping school and driving half across the state on your own."

Oh I was not flattered by this sudden show of interest on what happens in my life.

"Skipping classes won't affect my grades, I lead in everything but Spanish" - but how would you know that- "Where driving is concerned, I got my driver's license and I'm responsible." - this you know-I said this pointing at the empty bottle in his hand to make him see the difference between the two of us.

" I don't want you skipping school for any reason no matter how good your grades are."

       And I don't want you showing your face here after five months telling me what to do when I have always been my own boss.