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Nicole
One
Ava
“Miss? Miss, can you hear me?”
The voice sounded so far away. It was hard to hear past the torrential downpouring of rain and the running rivers in the middle of the mountains. All I wanted was to get away. To step out of my car in the middle of somewhere untainted with my unhappiness and take a breath. It was stifling, being around my family. And I was done with all of it.
“Come here. I’ve got you.”
Strong arms wrapped around me and lifted me up, while rain battered down on my shaking body. I was so damn cold. Where was my car? How did I get here? Where in the world was I?
“Holy fuck, you’re freezing.”
The voice was low. Rumbling. Like tires over a gravel driveway or the thunder off in the distance. I could see a mass of dark hair, soaked to an angular face that I couldn’t quite make out. I wanted to answer the man. To tell him I was fine and that I just needed to get back to my car.
But the only thing I could do was tremble with the cold.
I didn’t know how long we walked and I had no idea where I was. I tried to lift my hand and cling to the body that carried me, but instead I laid there. Limp in his arms. My entire body hurt. My skin was cold. My head was heavy, and my heart was alone, and my future seemed bleak. Running away from home wasn’t supposed to end this way. I was supposed to make it to California. I was supposed to start my new life. I was supposed to travel long enough to get away from my family’s traditional grasp, so I could dictate whatever it was I wanted from my life.
I didn’t want to live off their money and sit like a pretty little peach. I wanted to live.
I wanted to thrive in my life. Not survive. I didn’t want to wear the dresses and put on the makeup and live in the heels. I didn’t care about business transactions and marrying young and filling a house with children. All I wanted was to live my life on my terms, to wake up in the morning and have an actual smile on my face.
But instead, I was stifled. I was expected to smile for the cameras and act a certain way. My father dictated every moment of my life in order to be the daughter he always envisioned he would have. It was sickening, and I hated it. He dictated my fashion sense, my schedule, and my future. I was to woo a well-to-do man, marry young, bear him children, and keep his house. I was to bring honor to the family name by allowing the money my father had garnered over the years to take care of me.
Like living off my father’s bank accounts was somehow honorable.
And every time I fought back, I was called selfish. Ungrateful. Unforgivable. Every time I voiced a different opinion or picked out a different outfit, I was called unruly. Every time I denied a blind date or intentionally screwed one up or refused to go to whatever formal function my father had roped me into, I was the wild one. I couldn’t be myself unless it was the image my father had painted for me from the time he found out I was a girl.
And I hated every second of it.
“We gotta get you warmed up.”
That voice peeled me from my thoughts. Pulled me from my memories and reminded me of the present. My body shook uncontrollably as my back descended onto something. It was warm and soft, like a couch, or possibly a massive chair. I curled up into a ball as my teeth began to chatter, and I grunted with the pain in my stomach. It felt like my muscles were on fire even though they were encased in ice. It was as if someone was stabbing me with eight-inch icicles in every pressure point of my body
Tears filled to my eyes as a swelling heat began to beat down against my face.
“What the hell were you doing out in this kind of storm?”
It was a good question, and one I felt needed to be answered. The rain whomped the structure I was in. The fine hairs along my skin stood on end as lightning crackled across the sky. The windows rattled as the thunder cracked right above our heads.
The storm was getting worse, and I had no idea how the hell I was going to get out of it.
I saw a shadowy figure bent over an orange flame. The heat grew, warming the icy droplets of water on my skin. My body slowly uncurled, like a flower being released to the morning sun. My bones ached, and the tears wouldn’t stop falling, but somehow, I was alive.
Even though I had skidded off the road, I was somehow alive.
I could still remember the argument with my parents that morning. How angry they were that I wasn’t going on a date tonight. I told them I was done with their antics. That I had no reason to marry and that I wasn’t going to until I fell in love with someone. They chastised me and called me names. Told me that I needed to be grateful for the life they had provided me like my brothers were. I told them that my brothers were happy because they got to dictate their lives. They got to do what they wanted and work in whatever fields they wanted and make money for themselves.
My father told me that was what men got to do. Women, on the other hand, needed to be grateful that someone was willing to provide for them.
I’d had enough of that talk. My father’s words were like a slap to my face. He told me that I wasn’t able to rule my own life and run by my own rules simply because I was a woman. Because somehow, in my father’s mind, I was feeble. Unable to take care of myself. Incapable of surviving in the harsh world he went into everyday, so my mother wouldn’t have to. And maybe that was fine for some women. Maybe my mother was just fine with keeping a house, staying beautiful, and always keeping her makeup perfect.
