Desperately Obvious

I didn’t like where I was. I didn’t like how everything had ended up. I was at a standstill, but in all directions there was a choice. A decision had to be made. And making decisions scared the shit out of me.

For 17 years I had always done what I was told. 17 years of being the teachers pet, 17 years of living under a rock.

And then I had a choice. I had been so good for so long it was bad. I was ready to give up. For once I was about to make a bad decision. I smiled at the thought.

Steve stood outside on the curb, one hand dangling from an open door. It was 5 a.m. in the middle of June. I was standing in my driveway with a duffel bag around my shoulder and my purse tightly clenched in one hand.

“Are you coming or what?” Steve asked.

“She’s chickening out, just I like I told you she would.” I could hear Rachel’s voice carry from the car out of the open door. I swallowed hard and started making my way down the driveway.

“There we go. Come on now. I’ll take your bag. Is this it?”

I nodded weakly and clutched my purse with both hands. I slid into the open door and sat right behind Rachel. She smirked at me and went back to looking outside.

“Say goodbye, love.” Steve said as he pulled away from my house.

No one saw the tear that slowly slid down my cheek as I touched the window and silently said goodbye.


The car ride was silent. I sat up against the window; my sweatshirt tucked up underneath my neck and tried to get some sleep. Neither Steve nor Rachel knew why I had a sudden interest in their summer escapade. But I had my reasons, and Steve said he would respect my privacy as long as I agreed to help pay for gas.

Running away never was on the top of my list. But my life, my life had made it seem like it was the only way out. Steve knew that much by the tone of my voice the day I called him. He told me later that I sounded far away and scared for my life.

I wasn’t scared for my life; I was scared of where my life was going.

Rachel I knew by default. She wasn’t the kind of person I hung out with, but she was all right. Steve had certainly taken a liking to her.

Rachel turned around and hit my arm. We were driving down the freeway, just outside of town.

“I know you’re not sleeping,” she said as she popped her head over the headrest. “Carly, right? Didn’t I have a class with you or something?”

“Art, eighth grade.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

The silence started to creep in.

“So why did you decide to come last minute?”

I knew this question would come up.

“It sounded like fun.”

“Oh, and you like this type of ‘fun’, do you?”

“Leave her alone, Rach,” Steve gave me an apologetic look through the rear view mirror. Rachel scoffed and turned around, facing forward.

I sighed, knowing that if I had told them the truth, they would have thought I was lying.

I opened up my purse and pulled out my wallet. There it was. The only picture we had of us. I folded it back up and closed my purse. I didn’t want to be reminded of why I was running away.


I woke up, cigarette smoke burning my eyes and I coughed on reflex. It was near noon; Rachel’s hand was out of the window, a cigarette at the tip of two fingers.

The radio was on. Steve hummed along, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.

“Ah, she’s awake!” he smiled at me as I yawned. “Hungry?”

“Very,” Rachel answered for me. “Pull the hell over, Steve.”

I sat up, my legs tingling as I tried to move them. Steve pulled into the nearest place, a gas station.

“Pay up,” he turned around with an empty hand. I fumbled for my purse and quickly unsnapped my wallet. The picture fluttered down and onto the floor. I grabbed a twenty and shoved it into Steve’s hand and quickly reached down to get my picture. But Rachel had already done so, looking at the picture with a smug look on her face.

“Friend?”

“Yeah,” I stretched out my arm, patiently waiting for her to give it back. I didn’t want to fight for it, that picture was my life.

“Or maybe more?” she smirked at me.

“Can I have it, please?”

She threw it back over her shoulder and opened the car door to get out.

“Gas stations smell like shit,” she slammed the door. I jumped, but slid the picture back into my wallet and closed it. I heaved a big sigh as Steve came back and handed me the change, a quarter and some pennies.

“We’ll take turns paying. Where’d Rach go?” He stood back up and looked over the roof.

“Somewhere, I’m not sure.”

“Well you should get out, stretch. Go grab some food, we’ve got 300 miles until Mike’s,” Steve closed his door and walked off to the pay phones. I got out of the car slowly, allowing the blood to rush to my legs, and made my way into the convenience store. Just as I was opening the door, Rachel came up behind me.

“So let me take a guess. Get in a fight with mommy?” she turned on her heels and was face to face with me. “You’re ‘friend’?”

“It’s really none of you’re business,” I pushed her aside and went down the junk food isle. I grabbed a bag of chips and some donuts, wondering why Rachel seemed to hate me so much.

The next 300 miles were long and tedious. Rachel kept quiet and only talked to Steve. I kept to myself, listening to music and sleeping on and off.

I had no idea where we were going. Mike was a friend of a friend of Steve’s, but where Mike fit into the whole picture I still had yet to figure out. We were somewhere outside of Topeka, Kansas when Steve veered off the freeway and onto a small country road.

“We’re almost there,” Steve pushed one of the lights on the ceiling and unfolded a piece of paper that was neatly nestled in between the armrest. Looking around, he took an immediate right on a dirt road.

We slowed down to a stop and Steve put the car in park. Although I couldn’t see much, I could make out a crooked one-room house with a beat up car sitting out front.

“I know it’s no four star hotel, but it’s a place to stay and it’s free,” Steve glanced back at me and shrugged. I sighed and opened the door.

Rachel, who had been asleep for the past hour, grumbled and slowly opened her eyes. The interior lights of the car were a stark contrast to the dark world we had been in before.


*more to come*