Floorboard's filled with baby toys,
An' empty coke bottles an' coffee cups
Steve hates night driving. Honestly, it sucks balls and if he was still in his hometown it would be a lot easier, but he's not and he's got a good reason for that. He's practically vibrating, running off the deep end of several energy drinks he'd collected up and drunken en masse to stay awake a few more hours at the last gas station he'd passed that day.
Drivin' through the rain with no radio,
Tryin' not to wake her up
Usually, the radio would help him stay a little bit more awake, but given there's a storm outside that's been raging and building in size for the last 2 days or so, there isn't much reception and it's not like he'll dare turn it on. He doesn't really want to hear the screeching of the static that would most likely come through, plus his daughter, his sweet baby girl, had just gotten to sleep maybe an hour ago after fuzzing mostly down the highway because she wanted out of her chair and he wasn't pulling over. Not just yet.
Cell 'phone says "low battery",
God, what if I break down?
He glances from his rearview mirror to his pager for 5 seconds and swallows not only at the beeps telling him his missed messages list is getting only longer and more frequently updated, but the sounds indicating that most of its battery is gone from him not turning the damn thing off and he needs to switch them out with a new set pretty fucking soon or otherwise, he'll be stranded with no one able to reach him should he break down.
I'm just lookin' for an exit with a lotta lights,
A safe little interstate town
He almost wants that to happen, but he told Dustin that he'd call (more like promised under threat, the kid's a menace, but he's a good one) when he found somewhere to call from, wherever that ends up being. The kid is the only one who knows he's gone and he'd better keep it that way. Thankfully he's decent at multitasking, so with the thought in hand, he continues down the highway, headlights only giving away that cars and trucks are even around or passing him as the rain batters against the windshield.
Just a cheap hotel, with a single bed,
And cable TV is good enough for me an' Emily
He knows he's getting tired again when he almost careens the car into another truck that passes him by, the sharp sound of its horn jolting him back awake as he corrects himself, breathing rapidly before he groans, rubbing his face. Man, he hopes that there is some motel up ahead or some town that has one, because he's not sure how much longer he can do this for. It's been almost 3 days of non-stop driving and he knows that not only himself, but Emily as well by her performances these last few days, are getting to the both of them. Hard.
Someday, when she's old enough,
She's gonna start askin' questions about him
Speaking of Emily, his eyes flutter to the rearview mirror only to watch her sleep, her curly blonde hair as messy as it's always been and dummy in her mouth. She may only be 16 months old, but she still had a lot of growing up to do and it scared the crap out of him thinking about stuff like that, especially now given they are on a cross country trip to the middle of somewhere unknown, all alone with only themselves to rely on.
Some kid at school brings his Dad for show an' tell,
An' gets her little mind a-wonderin'
He knew that there would be questions asked of him, no matter where he and her went. A single, decent looking 24-year-old from a very small town smack dab in the boonies of Indiana doesn't just show up somewhere with a child in tow and does not expect himself to become a fixture of gossip. That was if he decided to stay in a small town, that is.
He really hadn't thought all of this though just yet.
"Where's my Daddy? Do I have one?"
"Does he not love me like you do?"
He also knew that Emily would have her own questions in the future, should he be as unlucky in his love life as he has been for years by that time. About a lot of things. Kids always had questions and other than the typical 'Why is the sky blue?' one he knew he'd get eventually, there were also others that she would most likely ask that he didn't have an answer for.
Oh, maybe I'll find someone to love the both of us,
An' I'll tell her when she's old enough to know the truth
Well, okay, not really questions that he didn't have an answer for. Just...answers that might upset her. A lot. As well as himself. He hopes it never comes to that, but it might and the truth hurts a lot more than he's willing to readily admit. Even it if will be years before something like that even happens.
Will it break her heart? Will she understand
That I had to leave? That's what was best for me an' Emily.
It wasn't like he didn't want to tell her. It's just hard. His little girl crying already broke his heart, he can't take it he's the one causing it. He wouldn't dare let someone hurt her, ever...which is why he had to leave William "Billy' Hargrove, her father and his former lover, in the dust.
That house was never clean enough. his dinner never warm enough
Nothing I did was ever good enough to make him happy
A few tears escaped him as the memories of just what had happened to him over the last several years flashed back through his mind. He and Billy had become on and off lovers about a year after he and his family moved to Hawkins, the "on and off" part of the whole thing really being that when Billy got out of hand and violent due to his stepfather's treatment of him, Steve would walk away, only to slink back when Billy asked him so.
He knew that Billy was most likely manipulating him, but given how attention staved he was due to his parents fucking around the US and other countries without him, he couldn't really care less and he only really showed his true colors when Steve was pregnant with Emily.
So, I guess, he gave me what he thought I deserved,
But it would kill me if he ever raised his hand to her
Unfortunately, the relationship just got worse from there, as Steve's parents wanted nothing to do with him after that and he was forced to move in with the man to a 1 bedroom shithole apartment that only held so much pain and not really any room for a baby. While Billy seemingly loved her at some points, her crying and fussing made him angry when he had to get up to go to work or when he was doing something he deemed as important and he'd taken that anger out on Steve several times.
Once Emily was there and present on her feet given she'd learned how to walk (and break things) quite fast, Steve was on constant eggshells around Billy for the longest time and finally, after Billy almost wrenching Emily's arm out of its socket, he couldn't take it anymore.
Billy could throw hands all he liked at him, but Emily was not his to hurt.
Big rigs are throwin' rain on my windshield,
An' I feel like they're laughin' at me
His train of thought is snapped back from the past to the current present, where under a wash of water from a couple of nasty looking big rigs that were passing him side by side, he saw a turn off and indicated quickly after driving more over the stretch of road towards it and seeing several early morning lights blinking in the distance.
Finally the storm is lettin' up,
An' the mornin' is breakin' free
He makes it into the turnoff just as a car almost clips him and he sighs in relief as the road curves before it evens out and he's driving straight into the early morning sunrise coming up over some type of mountains or hills, having to put his sun shield down to protect his eyes.
It's a brand new day, it's a second chance.
Yesterday is just a memory for me an' Emily
Eventually, he sees the red neon of a motel and pulls into it with a sigh of relief, his head hitting the steering wheel and shoulders that were tense from driving dropping a fair bit as he just stayed there a moment, the stale air-con blowing in his face.
Floorboard is filled with baby toys,
An' empty coke bottles an' coffee cups
Shrugging himself off, he stepped out and into the cooler feeling air around him as he leaned against the car, stretching his entire body out and feeling the tiredness seep back in once again, before he yawned, jaw cracking quite loudly. He hoped that the place had a vacancy of some kind, because a bed was calling his name and suddenly, someone else was. "Dada?"
Least there's one good thing that he gave me,
An' she's startin' to wake up
Plastering on a smile so he didn't look so exhausted, he turned to his side and pulled the passenger door open, seeing two little sleepy brown eyes staring back up at him, half-awake and dummy gone. "Out now, Dada?"
"Yes, baby girl. Daddy can let you out now, princess." Reaching in, he unclipped her from the seat as he pulled a bag from beside her seat and let her little head rest on his shoulder as he moved towards the front door, stopping short to look back at the highway and with that, finally let go of Hawkins and all that he left behind.
It was a new day and he wasn't taking it for granted. Not one single bit.