Till Next Time | completed | currently under re-edit

27

27
There are things you see on a road trip.

You see how there exists a world, far off from the skyscrapers playing tonsil tennis with the horizon where the actual out-of-a-Byron-poetry sky exists.
You see ordinary people, sitting still like alabaster figurines at ordinary gas-stations, the long lost lustre in their eyes somehow hinting at a never ending wait.
You see the dull grey dust accumulated at the foot of your fuel dispenser, a wild sight in New York.
You see love when the father passes the bigger portion of his dinner to his daughter and the quiet humility with which the mother wipes the splashed ketchup from her white shirt with a smile on her face when the disobedient and persistent son insists on tearing the ketchup sachet open by himself.

I understand why I jail myself up in my room, committing myself to the everyday monotone and autopilot.

I cannot stand change.

When you step out of your familiarities, you experience new things and History stands witness, that more often that not it has proved fatal to me.
I am used to the gray walls of my rooms and locking myself in them for days at end.
I am used to listening to the creaks on the floorboards and my heart catapulting to my mouth in fear.
I am used to being reduced to a call to dinner on a nightly basis.
I have practiced and accepted my fate and decided to coexist with this until better opportunities show up. I have mastered the art of having to dehumanize myself.

But then you meet someone who changes your mind, you make a decision in a split second, thinking, "This is going to work out. This time will be different" and you forget about what you must go through in between. You suddenly start to feel, to feel human. Nothing good has ever come from feeling too much.

I once read somewhere that it is the journey that matters, not the destination.
But for the sake of my palpitating heart, I wish I could just snap my fingers and reach my destination. Because the sky looks bluer away from home and I do not yet have the choice to stay.

We stop at a gas-station in the middle of nowhere, maybe hours away from Atlanta. The sun being an absolute terror today, we had already run out of drinking water into two hours of driving and made the rest of the three based purely on sheer will because you always crave for the things you no longer possess.

When I come back out with a carton of water bottles, Anastasia pushes her phone in my direction.
"You had a call."
I put the box down and look at her, confused. She beckons me to check her phone. I take the phone from her and the screen flashes a caller ID.

Charlotte from Brooklyn's Dinner.

"What the fuck."
My chest starts to burn again, like something trying to claw its way free from within my flesh.
"Why is she calling you?"
"I asked her if she couldn't reach you and if she wanted to talk to you but she said no. She was calling to 'get to know her ex's best friend', to make sure that he is with good company because 'you guys are different'," she says, with a hint of spite.
"I'm going to call her."
"That would be an extremely bad idea," she says.
I look around, frustrated, as if my solution and a quick one way ticket to The-Fuck-Away from Charlotte would come running at me from the side of the highway and greet me animatedly.

"How did she get my number?", Anastasia asks.
"I'm guessing a source. Rich people have their ways."
"So that's the difference?"
"It's bullshit."
"No, it's true," she says, "She is correct. We are vividly different people, Brooklyn."
"We are not. Our situations are. If my father kicks me out for acting up, I would be seen working at Starbucks too."

I get in and snap the seatbelt in place.
I decide it's time to tell her.

"Charlotte came to Tampa."
"What?"
I nod softly. "She came to Tampa. Found out where I am and came to see me. She has been trying for some time to get back together. And my being alone with you is not helping her cause."
She crinkles her nose. "So she's jealous?"
I shrug. "Or insecure. I can't say."
"Man, you got these girls going mad for you!" She lightly punches my arm. Her touch leaves a lingering warmth and my cheeks grow hot. I laugh nervously.
"Do not let her get to you. She is known to be very persistent." I wipe some sweat away from my eyebrows.
She gives a slight smile. "All of it's fine. She can do whatever she wants to me, I don't have much to lose." Her voice dramatically drops. "But if she comes close to my family, as much of it I have left, I will cut the bitch."