Where Are You Going Lindee?

Part 1 - Run

"Fuuuuuuckkkkk!"

"Thats a pretty strong word for a 13 year old, don't you think"

"Fuck you." 

That's how it went as I jumped off our fence and landed onto the roof of a car which belonged to a guy I barely knew. His name was Jake. He was a friend of a friend of a friend that I met through a chat room some weeks ago. 

He seemed decent enough and had a car so I sent him a message to come get me when things started to go bad earlier in the day.

"Just get me away from here” I muttered under my breath.

"But what about your finger? Shouldn't I take you to the emergency room?" 

I stared down at my ring finger where the skin had peeled off. It was flapping around loosely surrounded by a mixture of blood and a mysterious gel-like substance. "Shit, I cut it against the broken glass…"

"What broken glass?" 

"There's broken glass built into the cement to stop thiefs from coming in. Nevermind that, let's just go, it'll heal by itself sooner or later." I rolled down the window and lit a cigarette, inhaling the smoke while enjoying the cool evening air against my face. Freedom. I could almost taste it.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve been running away. Life wasn't quite the same for me as it was for my old friends. 

Where they had regular Sunday lunches and family days, I was left to mostly fend for myself. Growing up in a home surrounded by troubled relatives, alcoholic uncles and a single mom who didn't understand me and could barely make ends meet often led me to seek refuge elsewhere with people whom I felt understood me better.  

Jake was one of those. Part nice guy, part asshole. He was nice enough not to try anything with an underaged girl but not decent enough to stop me from partying with his friends all night.

What was supposed to be a one-off thing turned into a weekly occurrence and before I knew it, I was spending most of my free time with them. 

Hanging out with a bunch of older guys suited my needs better. They had cars and freedom. 

I didn’t have time to waste on boys my age who were content with their video games and spent most of their days masturbating to naked women’s photos stolen from their dad’s magazines. I had no place there. 

And don’t even get me started on the girls. They are far worse. I’d rather kill myself than spend an afternoon with them  exchanging mindless gossip about Mary and her ghastly hair or how Jen’s backpack was in a print produced two years ago. I don’t care and no thank you, I don’t feel the need to paint my nails in various pastel shades every other day. 

That about summed up my immediate options. 

Older girls wouldn’t have given me the time of day but for some reason, these guys did. They probably saw me as a lost puppy and decided to take me under their wing. It still puzzles me to this day, but that’s how it happened and that’s how it all began.

That first evening with Jake opened up my world to a whole new realm of possibilities. It made me realize that I didn’t have to waste another minute of my time cooped up in my room all alone pissed off at the world. There were others like me and they knew how to cope better. We were a cult of misfits banded together by the same sorry cause. Being together allowed us to be pissed off together and that paved the way for some of the most memorable experiences in my life…not saying all was good, just saying they were “memorable”. You get the picture.

But don’t feel bad for us just yet. We more than made up for it with our fair share of parties and the level of havoc we unleashed unto our previously quiet suburban neighborhoods. We spent most of our nights (and some of our days) “sticking it up to the man.”

Cutting school was the norm, drinks in the middle of the day were expected, joints were passed around like candy, and vandalism was a way of life.

We were living the fast life and loving every minute of it. 

 I spent the next couple of years in a blur with each night melting into the next. Life was made slightly more tolerable knowing that I had somewhere to escape every time the sun went down. I looked forward to those drunken nights as if they were the only thing keeping me alive.

It was at one of those crazy parties that I first met Mike. It was at one of these crazy parties that I first met  Mike.