Page 76 of Expressionate
I leave a note– my first and last. Maybe someday, far in the future, I can come back and find something inside this house other than Anne’s shadow and the missing presence of someone who cares – someone other than Trish. I know she cares. She seems to be the only one. Not even I care as much as shedoes.
I can’t tell her, though. She’ll try to stop me, and I’m scared I might lether.
So, I leave the note detailing where I’ll be – far away from here, telling Trish that I love her and telling Dad that I wish…well, what I wish for doesn’t matter anymore. But it felt good to write it out, like cleaning out mysoul.
I take the backpack full of clothes and toiletries, and I leave the house. Maybe I’ll finish high school online. Maybe I’ll get my GED. I don’t really know what I’m going to do anymore. But I do know that I can’t stayhere.
As I move towards the front of the house, the backdoor creaks open and Anne steps through, holding a straw hat on her head and a basket of gardening supplies. When she catches sight of me, she stops and scowls. “What are you doing here?” she snaps. “You’re supposed to be atschool.”
She takes in my clothes, the layering, and the backpack as well as the smaller satchel at my side. I sigh and ignore her, continuing mypath.
“Excuse me, you will answer me when I speak to you, Love.” I hate the way she says my name – like it’s a curse. Coming from her, it sounds like the vilest ofinsults.
I keep walking. I’m so focused on leaving, on getting out, I don’t even notice that she’s followed me. When my hand touches the doorknob, Anne’s own hand closes around my shoulder, spinning me around as she slams me against the wood. My satchel falls to the floor. I feel a creeping coldness come over me as Anne hisses atme.
“Iaskedyou aquestion.”
“I’m leaving,” Isay.
Anne blinks at me, pulling back. She looks me over, glancing once more at my full bags. She chuckles and it quickly turns into full-blown laughter. Tears run down her cheeks as I lean down and pick up thesatchel.
“You’releaving?” Anne continues to laugh, wiping fresh tears from her eyes as they continue tofall.
I merely twist the handle on the door, swing it inward, and step out onto the porch. That makes her stop laughing. Anne follows me as I make my way to the street where the Uber I called iswaiting.
“Oh, this is rich,” she calls out. “You really think you’releaving.”
Stopping on the sidewalk, I turn on my heel nearly causing Anne to collide with me. She scowls and barely manages to stop herself in time, waving away the fuzzy hair hanging around her face in the sticky southern heat. I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. I look straight at her as I drop it on the ground and then open the Uber’s backdoor. There’s a dark-skinned man sitting up front, looking over his shoulder between Anne andme.
“You really think you’re leaving?” she says,shocked.
Anger bites at my mind. I whip my head in her direction and I glare. “I don’tthink,” I snap. “I know I’mleaving.”
“And just where do you think you’re going?” she challenges me, propping her hands on herhips.
“Any-fucking-placeyouaren’t.”
“Well, you’ll needmoney.”
“I have a job,” Isnap.
“What you need is a man,” shesays.
“That’s what you need,” Ireply.
Anne shakes her head at me as she leans into the interior of the car. “A man is the only thing that’ll protect you from the streets, little girl, remember that.” She steps back, and I slam the door. She lifts a brow, but I shake my head and motion for the driver to go. He knows where to go. I typed it in right before I left my phone behind. It’s the only place I can go. Anne watches with a gaping mouth as the light gray sedan pulls away from the curb. Even though it’s hot, dark clouds hover in the periphery of the sky. Rain is coming soon. Once it does, it’ll wash away the past and maybe me as well. One can onlyhope.
Hours later, I’m sitting outside of the convenience store where I used to work – I say used to because apparently Anne knew exactly how to get the last laugh. I had walked into work, fully expecting to pick up the extra shift I had agreed to today, and then asked a fellow coworker for a place to crash. It would have just been for the night. Just one night was all I needed. I would figure shit out – maybe convince them to let me work and pay half the rent if I could just stay on the couch. But that’s not what happened. The second I’d stepped into the store, I knew something was wrong. My manager had pulled me back into his office the moment he saw me. Anne. She always found a way to ruin me. This time, it had been the threat of calling their corporate office for supporting arunaway.
So, here I was, sitting on the corner, watching cars go by as the dark clouds grew ever closer. A sleek, red truck pulls up andparks.
“Need a lift somewhere, sweetheart?” he grins. His dark hair is shoved to the side to reveal empty, browneyes.
“Maybe,” I reply, feeling an idea sneaking into mymind.
“Hop on in,” he says, and I throw my bags into the bed of his truck as I pass around the back and open the passenger side door. The man turns the ignition once more and the truck cranks tolife.
“So, where to?” he asks as I slide into the coolinterior.
