"How are we going to get out of this town?" Sleep filled Maple's voice. Her head lay in Staton's lap; slowly his fingers laced every red strand cascading down his thigh. A shallow sigh and a couple breaths later she sat up sitting on his lap leaning...
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"Maple Baker!" The pause of the wicked woman only made things worse. Her rage built in her chest, boiling up until the smoke was coming out of her ears. "Get back in the house this minute!" But it didn't matter. I was already halfway down the street. Running. My legs burned as they carried me further away from that house. The house that I wished I'd never had to go back to.
"I swear to God if you are not back here in the next five minutes, you are not welcome back in this home!" The woman shouted again. My mother was evil, her world revolving around designer things, and God forbid you wore the same outfit twice. Her hair was cut into a beautiful red bob that hung from her head, the very one she had trimmed once a week and colored just the same.
Image was everything.
Social status was even more.
But that wasn't what I wanted in my life.
I travel down the road a little bit further, only stopping when my lungs feel like exploding and my heart threatens to beat out of my chest. My old home is just a mere speck behind me. The muscles aching in my legs, barely holding me upright.
My phone started to ring. Pulling it out of my pocket to check the screen, I squinted at the name in bold white lettering.
"What Julia?" My words were harsher than I meant them to be, but Julia always seemed to have the worst timing.
"Maple!" Julia shouted from the bed of the truck, her voice pulled me from my thoughts. The sliding window opens so we can hear our friends. Breygan turned to glance at her, then turned his attention back to the road.
"What?" I muttered, the night stars passing by us as the truck flies down a back highway. A single stream of lamp posts stood on the other side of the road, shining the way out of our little town with weak yellowish light.
"Can I have another bag of chips?" The girl asked, her hair whipping in the wind as she leaned up. The others all cuddled together in one corner of the truck bed; each wrapped in their blanket as if there wasn't a care in the world. But there obviously was.
"Here," I handed her yet another bag of Doritos, before settling back into my spot in the front. Breygan's hand switched from his leg to the stick shift of the truck. As he shifted it down a gear, the vehicle lurched forward, causing Julia to stumble slightly before settling back down onto the hard metal seat.
"Everyone okay back there?" Breygan questioned, glancing at the rearview mirror before shifting down another gear. We were slowing down, why were we slowing down?
"All good!"
"Yep!"
"Just dandy!"
The three of them all shouted at once, holding their thumbs high in the air. As if we would be able to see them clearly. The sky was nearly black, a small streak of the sun holding on for dear life before it sets behind the mountain.
