There was something she so inexplicably loved about watching highways. About the ideas of east and west. About photos with one unnatural thing.
She loved the way the colors worked and the way you could tell what time of year it was.
She loved the way it felt to go out and be free, at school, to be so close to the world, to freedom. How easy it would be to walk away. But she didn’t.
She thought of how much she longed for the day when someone would come pick her up and take her away.
I would get called out of class, gather my things, and walk down the hallways, quite alone, wondering what it could be. I would see him, back turned, chatting up a secretary. He would turn to me and grin widely, that smile I loved.
“Come on, honey,”, he’d say. And despite protests by the office aids, he’d sweep me up and kiss me, and we’d walk out hand in hand, down the same hallways, which seemed different now that I knew where I was going. Out the doors, through the grass, out to the parking lot. To his car.
“Hop in, honey.”
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I won’t. Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Rescuing me.”
“It’s really that bad?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s alright. Today was bad.”
“I love you.”
“Are you sure you can’t tell me where we’re going?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I love you.”
And he’d turn the key, the car would start, its engine rattling a bit like all good old cars. I remembered all the times we’d washed it, painted it, broke parts of it. All the times he’d had to take it in for repairs, and every time I’d tell him eventually it would be cheaper to get a new car. But I was always kidding.
We’d drive out, drive past that East West sign and something would go off in my mind, like some memory I couldn’t quite place.
I look out the cracked window at the school I was leaving behind in the exhaust. Smiled at the thought of all those people trapped in there for another two hours. I kicked my shoes off and put my feet up on the dashboard, turning up the radio.
“Honey?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Do you really want to know where we’re going?”
“I don’t care anymore. I trust you. This is nice.”
I look over. You’re smiling.
