Run and Hide Page 3

  The man slowed to a stop and remained inside the gas station, shaking his head as though he didn’t know how to answer his son except to say, Mom’s not here now, son, just me.

  I wondered if the boy’s mother was at work, or if she was away on a business trip, or off with her girlfriends or just waiting at home. I wondered if she was dead. And wherever she was, could just Dad ever be enough?

  Inside the gas station and into the bathroom I went, the clap of the door behind me as my green light. Off came the white top, the shoes, and the skinny jeans, leaving my nakedness to echo off the grimy walls of the little room. No distinct thoughts, I just reached into the canister and pulled out a clump of brown paper towels. Three squirts of hand soap would do. With a flick of the faucet the towels were wet and then they scrubbed my body, rough. On fast forward. I pressed the makeshift rags harder against my skin. And it hurt a little, but what didn’t? A droplet fell to the ground in front of me, and I realized tears leaked from my eyes. A shampoo-and-rinse in the sink followed, before thin paper towels dried my body, hair, and face. Then, the day’s outfit covered me up again. I rubbed my eyes to relieve their ache.

  Thankfully, no one waited outside for the bathroom. The clerk glanced in my direction, not seeming to notice anything strange. I bought a hotdog, a bottle of green tea, and a bag of chips for dinner. I thought, I can still do this. The shack wasn’t so bad—so long as it didn’t crumble—waiting unbothered and as orderly as I’d left it. Having reached the concrete outside the gas station, I turned left and walked … home.

  A ways down the road, a green bench worn from heavy men’s backsides and weathering faced away from a daycare center called KidKare. The daycare reminded me of the place I got dropped off at as a kid. Dad dropped me on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Mom on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Whoever dropped off, the other would pick up.

  A small woman sat on the bench as I was about to pass. Her dirt-covered plaid coat wrapped a thin white t-shirt, and dark khaki pants with more rips than buttons hung from her waist. Black boots finished off the look, decorated in cuffs and frills of thread. She slouched into the bench and stretched her legs out in front of me in one exhausted motion, causing my pace to slow to a stop. She looked peaceful enough, but sad, or lonely, or hungry. I still needed to call Dad. What a better time than now?

  The woman sent me a sideways glance, wrinkling her face so as to shield her eyes from the sun, bold and bright above us. She mumbled something, then reached for a plastic cup she’d placed beside her on the bench. With an extended arm she shook the cup at me to rattle the coins inside. The look in her eyes intrigued me. And suddenly I had no option but to learn to live away from Dad, Georgia, whatever the cost.

  “Hello, Ma’am.” I used my most polite voice. She looked at me with grim, doubtful brows. If Dad was so out of it he’d let me move to North Carolina without even meeting the woman I’d live with, why wouldn’t he believe this woman’s voice to be Dr. Gomez’s?

  “I’d like to ask a favor of you,” I said. “I’m willing to pay you money.” She looked at me confused, questioning.

  “What you talking about?” Her words were quick and fluent.

  “Nothing inappropriate, maybe just a bit unusual?” She waited as I took a short breath. “I’d like you to pretend to be my aunt. Talk on the phone to my father, and say only what I tell you to say.”

  She stared me up and down while she contemplated. Then she said, “You pay?”

  “Yes, I’ll pay you ten dollars before and ten after. Deal?”

  Another pause. A group of kids poured onto the playground from inside the daycare center. They laughed and shrieked behind the victim of my pathetic plea while cars roared and snorted behind me.

  “When will you call?”

  “Now.” I pulled out my wallet to hand her ten dollars. She grabbed the bill and folded it quickly before standing up and pocketing it. I situated my cell in my palm, dialing Dad’s number speedily before she could walk away. After forcing my fingers to cooperate and not to just press “end,” the phone rang for two rings. The woman on the bench sat and stared at me, beautifully reinforcing my anxiety. It caught me off guard to hear, “Hello?”

  Dad answered much earlier than usual. The silence that followed could irritate a deaf man. But eventually, I broke it. “Hey, Dad.”

  “How’s it going, Syd.” He sounded a hint less zombieish. What was I doing? Focus Sydney … Ana.

  I said, “Well I’m here and everything’s fine. I’m all settled in and started at school and everything, and I’m actually starting to feel—”

  “That’s great.” There was a pause as he exhaled and I tried to let his rudeness pass.

  “Well, I’ve got to go, Dad.”

  “You know, you’ve got some nerve kid. You just leave your home, your family. And now? God dammit, Sydney.…”

  I moved the phone from my ear, pulled it away from my face to stare at it. My father would never take responsibility for anything. The end. I tried to convince myself there was no point in feeling hurt any more. But the thought barely took the edge off.

  I handed the phone to the woman, more roughly than my usual. “Interrupt him, and say ‘Hello Mr. Collins.’ Let him say whatever he’ll say, tell him I’m in good hands, and all living arrangements have been taken care of.”

  She took the cell phone with hesitant hands. The look in her eyes suggested no more hostility, only pity.

  “I’ll pay the second ten dollars if you do it, try to be convincing.”

  She held the phone to her ear, waited a moment, and said, “Hello, Mr. Collins.”

  She did a decent job: said everything I told her to. But her hoarse voice and accent weren’t convincing. I felt my pulse speed when she passed the phone back to me. “He’s asking for you.”

  I brought the phone back to my ear.

  “So I guess you’ll be staying there then.” Dad’s voice was less emotional.

  “I can’t go back home.”

  “Don’t expect any money.”

  I pressed the end button, closed the phone, and paid the woman her second ten-dollar bill. I tried to hold back the ever-so-often tears, but angry tears are the strongest kind, and they took the battle, again.

  “Good luck,” the woman said, and pity consumed her eyes as she watched me fail to defeat the tears, and worse, the pain.

  “Thanks.” I almost wailed the word as I turned away, wiping my face. I took a few steps, sobs increasing with each one. How could you just leave your family right now? Slow steps turned into fast ones, and fast steps turned into jogging strides—the jog morphing into a run, and the run into an all-out, sprinting attempt to beat the pain home. How could I, he asked. Well if I was daring, what the hell was he?

  The run to the shack was forced and harsh as pain embraced me and intensified. I ran beside the streets, and across them, until finally after that last, long, empty strip of path, I ran right in through the shack’s front door and into the bedroom. There, I finally met a sanctuary. I threw myself upon the thin blankets, lay there, and let the pain churn my core and take me. You win.

  Chapter 5

  The cell phone clock told me I’d slept until seven-thirty. Frantic, I sat up. What homework did I have? What all did I have to do? Then I remembered I’d only been through one day of school, so there was no homework, only a pile of papers to sign.

  Before, if I’d heard that in the future I’d be forging the signature of a woman I didn’t even know onto school documents after waking from a weep-induced sleep alone in an abandoned shack in North Carolina—I wouldn’t have guessed I’d be in that situation by choice. Yet, when the time came for me to forge apparently-not-my-aunt’s signature on the syllabi, I barely hesitated. How far is too far when everything you do is insane? Maybe that’s how Dad felt. He had died with my mother, after all, so speaking and breathing probably felt insane to him while he was crumbling into a meaningless being, deteriorating.

  I organized the papers into their re
spective binders, then made a quick check around the shack. Things still seemed in order. No new bugs or rodents around.

  Recognizing the hunger bubble that had occupied my stomach, I pulled the hotdog, green tea and chips out of the thin bag they’d bounced around in during the stumble home. I dug my MP3 player out of my luggage, maneuvered the ear buds into my ears, and I ate on my one piece of furniture: the blankets. My jaw opened and closed, and guitar strings thumped and rang a tune through my head that I hoped would keep my mind contained.

  What else is there to do alone in a shack? I reran the school day in my mind, the teachers I could love and those I would barely stand. I thought about the classmates I could grow to tolerate, and those I didn’t want to. I thought about the subjects I was taking, which ones would be difficult and which I could easily blow through.

  The girls from lunch were okay: Taylor, Kylie, Michelle, Arianna and Brit. As far as teachers went, homeroom teacher took the gold. Boys-wise, no one had caught my interest, but the girls were at work setting me up with a jock or two, or three. I figured that honestly, that wouldn’t be so bad. Nothing wrong with a little attention—paid to Ana, of course. I thought about the jackass, and how I’d never stare at him again.

  By the time I was done thinking, it was eleven. I figured I might be able to sleep again if I kept my eyes shut a while. The ketchup-covered cardboard hotdog holder, empty chip bag, and tinted plastic bottle were tossed back into the bag from the gas station. Next, I headed over to my luggage to pick out the next day’s outfit. Faded jeans—not skinny—with a blue shirt, and hopefully some new luck.

  * * *

  Day two at school was pretty much a repeat of the first. Instead of receiving syllabi, though, we turned them in and got to do pointless introductory busy work, like a pre-test or ice breakers.

  The boy in History, Eric, made a point to stare at me random times throughout class just to piss me off. Just once I looked back at him, straight faced, begging him with my eyes to stop teasing me. I thought he got the message; he stopped at least.

  After last-period bell, I stopped at the gas station before heading back to the shack.

  It came to be that I simply lived in the shack. There was no hope with Dr. Gomez and Dad was insane. But it was fine, I figured. School was good, and there was always food and a bathroom at the gas station. I’d have to think of something, though, before I ran out of money. About 320 dollars left.

  Day three came. In Pre-Calc, we actually kind of got started doing legitimate work: much to my excitement. Mr. Ross, the teacher, put us in groups of three to work on this “Pre-Calc puzzle” together. My group consisted of three kids, Kaitlin Thompson, Garret … something, and me. Unfortunately, Garret turned out to be one of those people I probably wouldn’t grow to tolerate, obnoxious and utterly stupid as he was. He was also sloppily large and consistently got on everyone’s nerves. Kaitlin and I jointly decided to ignore him, and we made it through the puzzle. I actually found myself chuckling at the “anti-Garret” bond I’d formed with Kaitlin. Like a real laugh, in a way I hadn’t been able to for months. Like, since when my mom was alive.

  I’d begun to dread fourth period because the jackass was in there. Those hoodies, two days in a row, in the summertime, really?

  Mr. Kyle started with, “Many of my past students have questioned, ‘Why study history? Why spend so much focus on the past when we’re living in the present?’ So I’d like to know, how do each of you feel about history?”

  “That’s stupid,” a lone voice in the audience called.

  “Well that’s a very typical response, Mr. Brantley, not quite what I’d expect from you,” Mr. Kyle said. “But then again, I never know what to expect from you. Very well, though. Anyone else?”

  “It’s stupid to question why we study history.” Eric’s voice painted the room dull and beige, his tone exuding arrogance while he spoke as if his words were indisputable fact. “What does it mean to live in the present, when the present is intangible until it’s in the past? The future is intangible too, even more so than the present—until it becomes present, and then it’s still not tangible until it’s part of the past. The past is the only tangible evidence we have to attest to the existence of anything. How could we ever ignore it? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Mr. Kyle opened his mouth to respond, but Eric wasn’t finished. “Nothing exists but the past. We study history because it was the present. It predicts the present, and the future. History is the part of life that’s already been here, the only part that really exists. History lets us know what happened, what is happening, and what probably will happen. History is the only thing that gives us any idea what we’re even doing here.”

  A few students sniffed at the extremity of his tirade. The rest of us stared blankly in a blend of confusion and amazement.

  Who knew the jackass had a brain? Who knew that inside that brain, there were thoughts like those? Who knew you could both adore and despise someone so hard in the same moment?

  “Mr. Brantley, it appears that you just proved my point.” Mr. Kyle beamed at him through low glasses and chuckled.

  “How’s that?” Eric asked.

  “I truly never know what to expect from you.”

  I don’t think anyone knew whether Eric changed his mind about what he was calling stupid because Mr. Kyle called him out, or if he really believed himself. I felt my shirt shuffling slightly with each of my heartbeats. Could the kid truly have some intellect, some soul? The rest of the class carried on as if this random display was nothing beyond ordinary. Maybe he just did that sort of thing. He looked at me and caught me staring, again. I’d broken my pact so thoughtlessly.

  As though he could see my confliction, he lifted his eyebrows, almost shrugged, and sat back in his chair. I looked down as he looked away.

  I wished he were wrong, and that history didn’t really matter. And in my case, I wished it didn’t exist, that it didn’t predict the present and the future. I’d be much better off if history could just leave me the hell alone.

  In the afternoon I left school with a heavy decision to make. Dr. Gomez was out of the picture, and it was getting more difficult to live in the shack day after day. I had no way to do laundry, no source of money. Someone could catch me squatting in the shack any day. The risk was getting too high.

  I rounded the corner to head down the sidewalk toward the shack, my cell phone in the palm of my hand. The contact titled “home” was loaded, waiting for me to press the green phone symbol and make the call. I didn’t want to go home, but I knew I couldn’t keep living in the shack. I pressed my finger down over the green icon, and listened to the phone ring.

  Three rings, and then an answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Dad,”

  “Sydney?”

  “Yeah, hey. I need to talk to you.”

  “Oh? About what?”

  “It’s about me living here,”

  “Yeah, yeah. I thought it through, Syd. I think you were right. You clearly don’t want to be here so it’s best that you’re there with your aunt.”

  As he said the words a thick nausea clouded my stomach. “But Dad, I—”

  “Spare me the details, Sydney. It’s hurting me enough as it is.”

  “Will you just listen to me?”

  “What, Sydney? What more do you want from me?” He was yelling the words at me. That flat, weak yell that only he could ever master.

  “Things aren’t going how I planned here, at all Dad.”

  “Well you should’ve thought that through then, huh? But you’ve made your choice now.”

  “Are you serious, Dad?”

  “I won’t let you flip this, Sydney. This is what you wanted, I’m not letting you back out now.”

  “Dammit, Dad!”

  “Excuse me—”

  I ended the call with my chest rapidly inflating, only to blow the air right back out through puffed cheeks. Years ago I never would have considered cursing in my father’
s ear, but at that moment I only wished I had cursed him more. Even in my time of emergency, he couldn’t listen to me long enough to know I was in trouble. Worse, he thought it best I was gone. It was because of him that I came to Greensboro, and it would be because of him that I’d have to stay there. I had no money and no place to stay. I’d be staying in a shack with no electricity, no running water, and no way to get a job under a fake name.

  Opening his contact file in my phone, I vowed to never answer another call from him again. The negative effect he had on my life had become so old it was ancient. So I decided I was on my own, for real, and wherever I ended up, I would never depend on him, ever again.

  Chapter 6

  Thursday morning, getting to school, I walked to my locker before going to get breakfast in the cafeteria with the girls. Taylor, Kylie, Michelle, Arianna, and Brit were just as chatty as usual. Arianna, the wildest of all of them, sat with a ponytail on top of her head, her long brown hair hanging flawlessly to her belt, a modern-day Spice Girl. She had the right to want to flaunt it, though. It was natural and gorgeous. She stood out to me because she seemed even more excited to see everybody than usual. Once everyone was done with greetings, she said to me, “Ana, I have a surprise for you.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, knowing precisely what she meant.

  “Well, you know that guy David, the senior running back who got an offer from South Carolina?”

  I rolled my eyes. She had pointed him out to me the day before, when I’d made the mistake of looking at him too long. “Yeah, I guess, what about him?”

  “Well, he’s coming over here right now to talk to you.” As she told me this I immediately looked up to see this huge mass of a guy in a gold-and-black letterman’s jacket walking toward us. The three other guys with him were smaller than him, but still big, wearing sweats and t-shirts. “Talk to you, as in get-to-know-you talk,” Arianna chimed in, “here he comes.”