Never Make A Promise

Never Make A Promise 17

LOL! I love my history class, just sayin'. There are some freaking AWESOME people in there, again just sayin'. Okay, let's get on with this then, shall we my dears?

Where were we going? I don't know. When would we come back? I don't know? I didn't know half of the safety w's for this trip. I didn't know when or where. I knew I was going with Damon, that's the who, and I knew that we were going because his stalker ex gang members were coming after him and now me, so that's the why. It was a silent trip to....where ever. Damon didn't really talk to me besides the occassional asking if I needed anything everytime we passed a gas station. Lovely. He tells me his guys found me and, judging by how long we've been driving, he is taking me out of town and doesn't talk to me. I'm starting to feel like I've been kidnapped. The only thing is I got in the car volunteeringly, I packed my stuff, and I knew.........okay, I LOVED my kidnapper. Was I going to tell him that? I side glanced over at him. He was staring straight ahead not even glancing over, as he did quite often, and his face showed no signs of emotions. I sighed. I just don't understand this guy. First, he's flirty, teasing and arrogant, next he's completely serious. I felt like...I felt like a little kindergardner trying to make sense of a college text book. I didn't make sense to me at all!

"Damon?" I said.

"Hmm?"

"Umm...." I started, trying to think of what I was going to say. Then it came to me. "When...Joyce is supposed to be coming home the night after tomorrow. What am I supposed to tell her if we don't get back in time?"

"Chances are we won't get back in time. Don't worry about it, I'll think of something," he said right away. I nodded and looked forward. He was going to take care of it. I wanted him to promise that he would and at the same time, I wanted to be able to trust him if he did promise anything. I slept until I woke up and found out we were somewhere in Kansas, and then Arkansas where we stayed in some motel- Damon rented two separate rooms, then somewhere north in Mississippi, and then I stayed up for most of Alabama. But somewhere near the end of the day, I must have dozed off for quite sometime because when I woke up again, we were just passing a sign that said "Welcome To Tallahasse." That made my heart drop. I stared at it until we passed it. We were here. In Tallahasse. Where mom died. Where Uncle Ed was rotting in a prison cell. Where my mom was buried.

"Damon.....are we staying here?"

"If you don't want to, we can always-"

"No, it's fine. We've been driving long enough and you've barely been sleeping this whole time."

"So this is okay?"

"It's fine. I'll be fine," I said with a confident voice. I could tell he didn't buy my lie, but put up with it anyway. He kept driving until he pulled up to a hotel that was supposed to be five stars. Hmm, this place looks familiar, I thought. I tried to place it in my memory while we parked the car and walked toward the entrance, but it wasn't until we got to the lobby when I finally remembered what this hotel was to me. This was the very hotel my mother was murdered in. Damon walked up to the front desk and I just stood, motionless, by the front doors, staring at the front desk. I pictured it in my head as I closed my eyes. A frightened ten year old girl running to the front desk, blinded by the tears filling her eyes, running right to the first person she saw behind that desk. Running behind it and telling him everything she had just witnessed, the same tears that had been blinding her sight now running down her cheeks. Then minutes later, the bright lights of the ambulance and police cruisers outside and officers and paramedics running up to the room and behind the desk to see if I was alright. The man who was behind the desk, the one the little girl talked to, telling the police everything she had told him. The stretcher with the black body bag containing her mother rolling outside along with the man who killed her following behind with his hands cuffed behind his back and two cops leading him out. The first time Joyce and the little girl met and finally the last hugs goodbye to the staff the little girl had grown close to over the years and the last look she had taken of the hotel before being driven away from it. And now, seven years later, she was back. She was back as a seventeen year old girl, lost in her horrid memories of the hotel.