Page 2 of His Little Stowaway

Mom pounds on the door, demanding me to open it and let her in, but I can hardly make her out through the rivers pouring from my eyes when she manages to open the door.

I thought I was just sick, but I can hear myself bawling real tears now.

“Now you pull yourself together, you little bitch,” she hisses, blocking the door as I try to walk past her, trying to get out.

Try to run.

“Steve’s a good man and he can give me more of a future than some lard ass know-it-all kid who doesn’t even work and does nothing but fucking mope all day. Hell, I probably stand a better chance with any man without you tethered around my neck,” she adds, digging her long nails into my arm for good measure.

As if my heart wasn’t hurt enough. My own mother is turning on me now.

She shakes me by both arms, making me cry out in much more than physical pain.

I try telling her. Try to make her understand, but the words just don’t come.

It’s like all the times I tried to tell her about what was happening at school, about what Brad and his jock pals were doing to me. She always just shrugged and said it was nothing compared to what she’d been through.

Steve appears behind my mom, shouting at me to leave my mom alone.

“Haven’t you caused enough heartache for your mom? Now, acting like a selfish lunatic on her special day. Jesus Christ,” he roars.

“Let her through, Jen. Let her go. If she can’t be happy for us, I don’t know if I even want her in my house,” he sneers. His eyes narrowed as he shook his head in disbelief.

Reminding me of the only other person in the world who could look and sound like that. Make that face. Convey so much hatred with one look.

Brad Riggs is a chip off the old block alright, and living with his dad, having Brad as a stepbrother?

Never.

I won’t.

I push past both of them and charge for the door, somehow having the sense to grab my bag at least as I go.

I almost trip on the steps outside, skidding instead as I tumble forward on the wet pavement.

Trying to run, just trying to get away from it all.

Trying to get away from them.

This shitty life.

The sky is darker and the rain is pouring down now, making my tears feel hot as my face starts to freeze.

The wind billows from the alleyways, tossing wet garbage and grit into the air, stinging my eyes.

My feet and legs go numb in less than a block. I’m no athlete, that’s for sure, but nobody’s chasing me.

Nobody’s following me or even trying to get me to go back.

My mom said it all in one sentence. She stands a much better chance with a man, any man who’d support her without a kid tied ‘round her neck’.

My urge to run is downgraded to a sharp walk, pain shooting up the front of my shins until I’m sure I’m falling but it’s just one leg flopping itself in front of the other.

The closer I get to downtown, the harder it starts to rain.

Cabs honk and slow, but I know I can’t afford it, let alone know where I’m even going.

When it feels like I can’t go on, I stagger to get on a bus just before it closes its doors. Pretending to fish for change for about a dozen blocks until the driver shrugs.

“Sorry, miss. Nobody rides for free. Not even in the rain.”

With more narrowed eyes scanning me as I’m let off, I feel all the tears and hurt inside suddenly dry up.

Like a shell forming over me. A thick armor that nobody is gonna get through ever again.

The kind I used to imagine when I was being bullied in school.

It’s totally dark by the time my emotional armor reminds me it’s not waterproof. I shiver with hunger and cold, my own eyes wide now as I start to feel very real fear and dread.

The city at night isn’t the best place for anyone. But an eighteen year old runaway girl?

I may as well have a neon sign above my head that reads Fresh meat.

The skidding of car tires and the raised voices of males, whistling, and cat-calling send a ripple of fear through me.

I start to run again, this time blindly down an alley, gripping the first door handle I see, I swing it open.

Relieved when I hear it snapping locked behind me.

The sound of the rain is blocked out, all the city gone in a second.

I’m in a parking garage, dimly lit.

The kind I figure gets used by people with money by the looks of the cars inside.

Planning on just cutting through, maybe coming out on the other side of the building, I realize I have no real plans.

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