I'm not thinking but I'm thinking more clearly than ever.
I grab my rucksack and pack the essentials: shirts, jeans, my pocket knife, socks...
I take off my mother's necklace. I wear it so much I usually forget I'm wearing it. It's just a simple gold chain with a green stone hanging off the end. I lay it on the bed beside the letter I wrote. I grab my pentagram necklace from the desk and pull it on as I slip down the stairs.
I skip the third step from the bottom (it always betrays me) and walk to the kitchen. Chips, bread, peanut butter, an apple, and a water bottle, find their way into my rucksack. I grab my jacket and the keys to the impala and slip silently into the night.
Dean taught me to drive after I graduated. I still have to wait another year before I can get my license but he said it was important to learn early. He'll kill me for stealing his car but he'll have to catch me first.
I open the garage manually; I can't risk getting caught at the door. Dean works on the Impala every weekend without fail. He never drives her so she just sits in the garage. She must be lonely. I slide into the driver's seat. She smells like leather and salt and hamburgers. Even after seventeen years without hunting, road trips, or crappy diner food, Dean still can't get the smell out of his car. That says something; I don't know what, but something.
I stick the key in the ignition and she starts up. Quietly humming to life, like she is just waking up after a long nap. I guess she is, in a way. I press the gas and glide out of the garage and down the street. She runs like a dream.
Within two hours I see a green sign lit up by the impala's headlights.
Welcome to Colorado!
Hi, Colorado, my name is Harley. Nice to meet you.
I wonder if Dad and Dean have even woken up yet. They'll probably notice the impala's absence at eight in the morning when Dean will walk outside to get the paper. It's only eleven so I have nine hours before they even realize I'm gone. I'll keep driving until midnight then I'll pull over and sleep for a few hours.
I could head north to Canada. I fantasize about slipping through the border and starting a new life for myself. I'm a fifteen year old genius who's successfully read ninety percent of the books in the Lawrence Town Library so that seems like a plausible option…
I drive and drive until I start falling asleep at the wheel. Then I pull into the parking lot of a McDonald's, crawl into the back seat, and fall asleep remembering one million other times that I've fallen asleep in the Impala's back seat.
The sun wakes me up and I walk into the McDonald's and buy some breakfast. The cashier stares at my eyes with a bit of fear and I have the feeling she's about to try to exorcise me. I put on my sunglasses the second I get back to the car. I'm on the road with half an hour to spare before Dean realizes the Impala and I are gone and he comes to kill me.
It's strange but I kind of want to be caught. I want Dad to come out here, drag me home, yell at me, and lock me in my room because at least he'd be paying attention to me. I know it's selfish and wrong and downright horrible but that's what I partially want.
Another part of me never wants to see him again. It wants him to let me go. It wants to drive to Canada or Mexico or California, get into any school I want, and just live and breathe. That's understandable. I was pretty much ignored for my entire life so going somewhere where I am a prodigy is a pretty amazing prospect.
I drive west because that seems to make sense and I don't have to make a decision. If I choose to turn north, there's no going back. I have to keep driving until I hit Canada. If I turn south, there's no chickening out. I have to keep going until I hit Mexico. Once I hit the border that's my life. Either Mexico or Canada. So I keep going west because California doesn't need me to make a decision.
My cell phone rings and vibrates on the seat next to me. I pick it up.
Incoming call: Dad
I let it ring and then listen to the voicemail.
"Harley, where are you?!" He sounds terrified and furious. "Dean and I are freaking out. I can't believe you stole the impala! We're coming after you and we will find you. Please, just be safe and come home."
"Gimme that!" Dean shouts in the distance. The phone is handed over. "If you put one scratch on baby, I will kill you. That car had better be in the best condition of its existence when we catch up to you! You hear me?"
"Dean!" The phone gets passed back to Dad. "Just come home."
"Don't you hurt baby!" The phone goes dead at that moment. I smile despite everything. I don't want to go back and I don't want to get caught because now it's a game of cat and mouse. My favorite.
My phone vibrates almost every hour but Dean always told me never to pick up the phone when I'm driving and I already broke the rule once. I stop just before one o'clock for a bathroom break and a snack. My phone rings so I pick it up.
"Hello, Daddy-o." I say.
"Harley, thank god. Where are you?" Dad says.
"You're funny. I know you're tracking the call. Two minutes, right?"
"Harley, you have to come home."
"Why?" He doesn't say anything for a moment. "Why should I go back to no-one-cares, Kansas? Why should I return to a house where I can be ignored for the rest of my life? I could win a Nobel prize and you would just cry and whine about how mom and my brother are dead."
"Harley, I…"
"No, I'm talking now. Just so you know, not having a mom or dad kind of screwed me up so good job, Daddy-o. I miss her too, by the way. I kind of wish I could have had a mom. And you should have been there. It was just us but it wasn't. I didn't have you, I had Dean and Lisa and Ben and Mary. You had your brother, you had me, and you lost your one night stand and a baby that you never knew. You ignored me. You shut me out because I killed them. I guess that's fair…" The clock strikes one and I sigh. "Sorry, two minutes." And I hang up.
He's going to be angry. He won't like me teasing him like this. I've made it worse for myself.
What should I care?
He's going to crush me anyway. I should enjoy the game of cat and mouse while it lasts. I should tease him, taunt him, lord it over him that I can escape if I want to. It's in my right.
Right?
