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Celeste
My mother usedto tell me that I can’t run away from myself. At thirty-three, I still have no idea what the hell she meant. I only know that it wasn’t intended as a gentle warning. It was a slap in the face.
No matter how hard or how fast you run, dear daughter, you cannot escape yourself.
The last time I heard those words, they’d dripped with smug satisfaction. Twenty-one years old, and I’d literally just escaped from a nightmare. Found a damned pay phone—the only one in the county—and, fingers shaking, dropped in the coins and dialed a number that made tears stream down my face, buttons blurring until I had to blink them back to continue.
I-I got away, Mom. I finally got away from him. Can I come home? Please?
Those words ignited the last shreds of my dignity, burning them to ash at my feet. I remembered the girl I’d been five years before, furious at a world—and a family—who blamed me for a tragedy that had nothing to do with me. I’d made mistakes, endless mistakes, but I hadn’t done that.
He’d believed me. The boy I met online. He believed me. Sympathized with me when I needed it, and raged with me when I needed that.
Come stay with me. Start over. They don’t deserve you. They don’t understand you. I do.
At twenty-one, I cringed at the girl who’d fallen for such obvious bullshit. At thirty-three, my anger is aimed where it belongs: at the asshole who’d targeted a desperate teenage girl. And at the mother who picked up the phone five years later.
You can’t run away from yourself.
She said that and then hung up. I never contacted her again.
Today I am running. Not from myself. I’ve never been the problem. It’s the rest of the damned world that just keeps boxing me in. This particular box was supposed to be my den, my safe hideaway. Now, once again, the comforting barriers between me and the world threaten to harden into cage bars. The urge to flee is overwhelming, but this time, I recognize that the problem isn’t a place. As always, it’s a person. I’ve finally started to realize that the answer is not escape.
Don’t abandon my safe den. Deal with the person holding the damn keys.
Twelve years ago, I fled Aaron, and what did that get me? Twelve years of running.
Don’t run from the threat. End it.
First, though, I need to keep from getting killed myself, and today the threat comes in a package as ridiculous as rust-speckled pickup trucks. Two have already spit gravel at me, their drivers honking and yelling.
They see me. They’re just making a point: roads are for driving. Even when I jog on the shoulder, I swear they swerve toward me. At the last second, they veer and hit the gas to send black smoke billowing.
The worst, though, are the dogs. Around here, I’m jogging a gauntlet of snarling canines who’ve only ever seen a runner when someone’s making off with the family Xbox.
I pass my neighbor’s house. Kids race around the yard with toy tomahawks and six-guns. Even thirty years ago, born to parents who weren’t exactly models of liberal thinking, I knew better than to play this particular game. When the pop-pop-pop of gunfire sounds, I instinctively skid and drop to one knee, and the towheaded children erupt with laughter, pointing at the silly city slicker who doesn’t know the difference between a handgun and a cap gun.
When I can breathe again, I squint over at the kids. There are at least four of them, all in hand-me-downs, with scraggly hair. The oldest can’t be more than seven and totes an air rifle.
Dear Lord, I can hear the banjo music already.
The oldest kid—a girl, it seems—points that rifle straight at me. She fires, and the plastic pellet skids through the gravel beside me. I wheel, ready to march over and have a word with her parents. Then I see the girl’s father, beer in hand, lounging on the front porch, watching everything. He lifts a hand in mock greeting.
As if on cue, the roar of a pickup sounds behind me, and I am tempted—damn tempted—to stride into the middle of the road.
I won’t let you intimidate me. I’ll stand my ground, and I’ll make you pay... forced to clean my blood and bits from your front grille.
As much as I’d like to think my untimely demise would haunt my killer, there are people around here who’d only sue my estate for the vehicular damage. Not that it would do them much good. After a cheap burial, my estate would consist of a ramshackle house in rural central Florida. If someone does hit me, I almost hope they sue... and end up stuck with a money pit of a house, perched on land not even worth the cost of demolition.
That house might not be much, but it’s more than I have ever had. A respectable job. A place to live. A piece of land. A life that is actually worth fighting for.
I resume my jog. When gravel crunches, I turn, expecting to see an asshole driving on my shoulder. Instead, this one stays on his side as he slows to pass me. I brace for what will come next—some witticism about how he can help me get my exercise... in the back of his pickup. That’s when I recognize the vehicle and know no innuendo is forthcoming.
The truck is an antique Dodge, driven by the owner of the only business in Fort Exile—a combination gas station, automotive garage and convenience store.
As the pickup passes, I struggle to keep my gaze forward.
Don’t look. The view may be very nice, but don’t...
