My mother drove me to the train station as I rolled down the window of her 2006 Dodge Neon. It was eighty degrees in Charlotte, North Carolina; the sky was a perfect baby blue with the sun shining as bright as can be. I was wearing my Johnny Cash sleeveless shirt and my faded blue jeans. I turned my camouflaged baseball cap around and sighed. I had my winter coat in my lap, where I was headed would be wet and cold. Northwest of the state of Washington, up the towards the Olympic Peninsula sat the small town of Grader. Constantly under a cover of dreary clouds and heavy rainfall, it was exactly my kind of place.
My mother had dragged me away from there as a child to escape the marriage she clearly couldn't handle. Yet, she sent me back every summer until I was fourteen. It was Grader I was escaping to now. I resented North Carolina. The sunlight always blasting in my face, the happy-go-lucky attitude that I couldn't stand. I loved Grader. "Raven," my mother said to me for the thousandth time before I got out of the car and onto the train, "You don't have to do this."
I rolled my eyes as I stared at her sad puppy face. How could I leave this childish, harebrained mother to fend for herself with her loser, jobless husband? Simple, that's how. "I want to go," I sighed in annoyance. I always was annoyed at her attempts to make me more cheery like her. "Tell Barry I said 'hi'."
"Sure," I grabbed my bags from the trunk and turned to get into the station. "I'll come visit soon," she persisted, "You can come back whenever you want." I rolled my eyes again, "I'm sure I'll be fine Mom, don't worry. I love you." She trapped me in a bear hug and I managed to squeeze out of it and got on the train. I stared out the window, blanking out until she was gone. Thank God.