All In The Past

It was a chilly night in late spring. The day had been rainy, the wet streets of the small town of Drew Wyoming were shiny yellow from the streetlights above, and the breeze was just on this side of being too cool for comfort. Claire Daniels, standing out on the corner a half block from her house, rubbed her hands together and blew on them in an effort to keep warm. She should have brought her jacket and put on a pair of jeans that had fewer holes in them, but her flight from home had been foremost in her mind; getting away from the latest fight between her parents was more important than being warm, and frankly she would rather stand out in freezing cold all night than go back into that madhouse.

She looked at her wristwatch, its dial readable in the glow of the streetlamp; it was just half past nine. Her parents would be at it a while yet, if they held true to form. Not a week went by that they didn’t have a set to about something or other, and a fight never ended until well into the eleventh hour. It was Claire’s opinion that they enjoyed fighting, it was about all they had in common.

Well, they can fight until they are blue in the face, I won’t hang around to listen! She thought, an angry frown creasing her pale forehead, while her heart ached with a bitter sadness in her chest. Not that they would know anything about my sneaking out in the middle of the night since I was seven. They never cared enough to think about me beyond making sure I had a plate of food in front of me...

Yes, she’d been sneaking out for nearly ten years now to escape the hellish existence at home, and they didn’t know, and she figured that if they did know then they probably wouldn’t have cared much where she was or who she was with. It caused a physical pain, much like a fist punching her in the ribs, when Claire played two possible scenarios in her mind and both of them came out to the same conclusion.

“Dad, Mom, I’m going out the for the night to get away from the shouting.” she pictured herself speaking to both of them, quickly jumping in between angry retorts that shot back and forth across the ever messy kitchen table.

“Where will you be?” one or the other would ask, but without taking their eyes from the object of their heated dispute.

“At Aunt Joy’s.” was one answer, and the other was “At a drug den getting high.” Both were met with a wave of the hand as a dismissal, and the fighting carried on as she walked out the door to her fate. Aunt Joy’s or a drug den, both would be all the same to them; that was how much she mattered.

Aunt Joy’s was, however, the only place she’d ever run away to, and tonight was no different. Aunt Joy and Uncle John knew of Claire’s home life, and they had always told her to give them a call at anytime of the day or night if she needed to get away, and called them she did, and far too many times to count. They’d always come for her, and she’d climbed her way down the side of the house from her bedroom window and hopped into Uncle John’s old pickup, and away to the farm they would go.

Only tonight Uncle John couldn’t make it. On calling at nearly nine the phone was answered by Aunt Joy, her voice dismayed as she gave a troubling explanation. “Oh dear! Oh why did the tire have to go out on the pickup just this evening! Honey, it’ll be a while before he could make it out there to get you, the tire actually blew out just as he pulled in the drive after going out to the Mcgill's place today. He is still trying to change it, but it is slow going, and I don’t know if he’ll be able to get it tonight-”

Claire had felt like someone had hit her upside the head with a hammer. Wait for who knew how long, or worse, weather the storm below? She might as well walk around the town until daylight for the amount of sleep she was going to get, and it would be far more peaceful than remaining in the boiling angst that permeated the house. She thought about taking Dad’s car, but it was the only vehicle they had and if he couldn’t get to work in the morning he would give her a beating when she next made it home.

Stammering, her mind in a whirl of frantic activity to think of anything that would get her out of there, for she knew she couldn’t stand being trapped there all night, she tripped over the words that bubbled up from her throat an instant before managing by force of will to be coherent. “Um, I’ll call Marianne and see if she can get the car to drive me out. Don’t worry about coming to get me, I’ll find a way to get out to the farm.”

“Don’t take any chances, honey. It is a wet night and the roads out here are really rough right now.” Aunt Joy had cautioned, and Claire knew that she would have much preferred it if she remained home, no matter the situation. But Claire wasn’t about to do such a thing, and had been about to dial Marianne, her best friend, for a lift when her fingers strayed and dialed Charlie’s number instead.

Her heart had lifted the moment his voice had come through the phone and into her ear, and on explaining the situation he had, as always, come to her aid. “Sure, I’ll come get you… only Brian has the car, he’s working late or something. But there is the bike out in the garage, if you don’t mind ridin’ out in the open on a cold night.”

It was the saving of her, and she wouldn’t have cared if the air was thick with snow, she had to get away, and she’d do anything and go anywhere with Charlie. She’d quickly thrown her things into a backpack for overnight, scurried down the trellis that covered the wall under her window, and not even bothering to look back at that hated house she marched down to the corner to wait for her ride.

Now it was thirty-five past nine. And then she heard it, the purring of Charlie’s dirt bike, and looking up she could see it single light down the street, growing ever larger as it approached her. She straightened from her leaning position on the lamppost, and standing with the toes of her well worn sneakers hanging over the edge of the curb, she waved both hands in the air to flag him down.

“You called for a ride, Ma’am?” he said on pulling over and removing his helmet, his dazzling smile brightening up her spirits so much that for an instant she forgot why she was standing out on the streets on such a cold night.

“What’s the charge for going out to Brown’s Farm?” she’d asked, carrying on with the banter that they’d always had between them since they were kids, her mouth quirked into a teasing grin.

Charlie put on a show of careful consideration, then taking her wrist had pulled her closer to him and put his arms around her. “A kiss?”

“Seems fair.” and she’d payed in full and in advance, her wrists crossed lightly behind his neck. A kiss from Charlie was akin to kissing an angel, and to Claire he was the closest thing in the world to a heavenly being, and as near to perfection as could be found. And that he was living in a place like Drew Wyoming, a tiny speck on the map that was little more than a stopover for truckers on their way to better, grander places, was a wonder to her. And she was thankful he was there for her to love, and to be loved by.

The kiss ended, and they leaned their foreheads together. “Bad at home, then?” he asked quietly, and she nodded.

“Totally sucks, but there is nothing new in that.” she opened her eyes and stared into his pale blue ones, and brushed the light brown curls away from where they fell onto his forehead. “Thanks for coming.”

His fingers tightening slightly against her waist. “Hey, anything to try out these wheels without Brian breathing down my neck. Too protective by far; I tell you, it isn’t easy having an older brother sometimes. He keeps telling me there is something hinky with the brakes on this thing, but I’ve not had a problem with them.”

That gave Claire a momentary pause, but she pushed the sudden unease away as she put on the extra helmet that Charlie had brought with him. “You sure about that? I mean, it isn’t a big problem?”

“I took it around the block a couple of times just the other night while big brother was out, this baby stopped on a dime every time I needed it to. I think he just doesn’t like me to be out having fun, he is a control freak if ever I saw one. Here-” he shifted the helmet on her head and messed with the straps under the chin. They were loose and partly frayed and the buckle didn’t cinch down beyond a certain point because of it. “He should see about getting this strap fixed. Feel alright?”

It didn’t feel stable and shifted easily around on Claire’s head, but she just shrugged. “It will hold for the few minutes it’ll take to get to Aunt Joy’s.”

Charlie bit his lip and watched as Claire slung her backpack over her shoulders, his eyes wandering up and down her slender figure, his mind going to that place it tended to when she was around, and when he spoke it was with some hesitation. “Brian is going to be out a while. You could come home with me-”

The suggestion made Claire’s motions stiff and jerking as she did up the buckles on her backpack, and she didn’t look at Charlie when she threw her leg over the seat and settled in. She put her arms around Charlie’s waist. “Not going there, Charlie. I won’t risk repeating my parents mistake by getting pregnant at seventeen.”

“But Claire-”

“Lets just go, Charlie, okay?” she snapped, and then was silent. Regret for being so short with Charlie was fast in coming, and she wished with all her heart that she’d been kinder. But it was hard to keep telling him that she wasn’t going to sleep with him, or anyone else for that matter, until they were married. Mom and Dad had married because she got pregnant in high school and nothing had been right since, and Claire wouldn’t go down that path.

Charlie’s frustration came out as he gunned the bike into life and sent it flying down the street far faster than was safe. Claire held on tight and leaned her head against his broad back. I’ll apologize when we get to Aunt Joy’s…

~~~~~~~~~~

They never made it to Aunt Joy’s. They never made it out of town.

What happened was to forever remain a blur in Claire’s mind. She recalled a traffic light going from green to red, and they didn’t slow down.

There was a flash of shining paint from a car coming from their right, but the color she never could remember. All she remembered then was a feeling of horror and terror mixing in her chest and rising up to choke her, before her body jerked with the force of impact. The world tumbled in a twisting, disorienting madness for an unending split second, lights flashed and twirled in the darkness of night, the smells of rain, wet pavement and car exhaust assaulted her nose. But there was no sound, at least she didn’t hear anything; it was as though she had gone deaf, or the world had suddenly been silenced by the flicking of a switch.

When Claire came to she was in a hospital.

And ten years had gone by.