ABOUT: This started out as a simple Creative Writing assignment, but turned into one of my favorites of my own writings. A lot of stuff in it is taken from real life, and a lot of it is made up. But basically, it's just about how crazy people might not always be crazy, it might just be that they're trapped. The end needs some help, though. Click here for more stories.
Run
It was one of those days that everyone either loves or hates. Clouds disguised any hint of a sun as rain rushed down from the gray sky. It padded against the roof above me, plinked inside the tin gutters, and gushed out onto the rocks below the downspout. One of my favorite things to do on days like this was to lay around and listen to the rain. People who hate these days hate them because they are dreary and miserable. People who love these days, people like me, love them because they are so full of passion.
I’d woken up that morning, after only a couple of hours of sleep, to the rain beginning to sprinkle in through my window. I slid it shut and locked it before pulling myself up out of bed and throwing on a random pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. I intended to get out of the house on this day. My mother was away, since it was a three-day weekend, but by no means did I plan on spending the entire weekend at home.
Unfortunately, everyone I called either already had plans or didn’t want to go out. What a waste.
So, I lay in my hammock on the porch, my hands behind my head. I don’t know how long I lay there. It could have been five minutes, it could have been five hours. I just lay there, listening to the sounds of the rain and staring up at the suddenly fascinating ceiling above me. The chips of peeling pea green paint looked as though they might fall down on me at any moment. I hated the color of our house.
Random thoughts drifted in and out of my mind, nothing in particular of significance as I’m not exactly the most profound of people. The different medications I had been taking worked against each other - some making me drowsy, some giving me insomnia. So instead, I was stuck in between. Awake, but entirely unmotivated and almost completely numb to everything. When the phone rang on the table beside me, it took a good four or five rings before my hand finally fell on top of it, pressing the “talk” button as I lifted it to my ear.
“Hullo?” I said into the receiver, half sighing.
“What’s goin’ on?” the male voice replied from the other end.
“Not a whole lot.”
I sat up slightly in the hammock, clutching the phone in both hands like some sort of life preserver. My voice was lacking in enthusiasm, I’m sure, but I’d felt more awake at that moment than I had all day.
“Feel like doing something?” he asked.
I thought for a moment, slightly thrown off. Not only by the long pause preceding the question, but also by the odd tone in his voice. I nodded my head as though he could see me, and glanced down at my watch. It was somewhere after 5 o’clock, and I gazed out into the falling rain. I silently wondered why he wanted to go out in this weather when everyone else didn’t, but tone of his voice made it sound like he, too, was not on his best day.
“I guess. What are we going to do?” I replied.
“I don’t know. Just drive.”
Well, what else was I going to do?
When his car pulled into my driveway, I quickly tromped down the porch steps and slid into the cool leather of the passenger’s seat. The interior of his far-too-expensive car smelled of smoke and musky cologne - a smell similar to his own. He flicked his cigarette with his thumb, sending the fragile tip falling into the ashtray that jutted out awkwardly from under the stereo like a hungry mouth. I watched the raindrops splash down onto the windshield, only to be immediately swept away by the low-speed wipers. The rhythmic movement of the two rubber blades completely distracted me until he finally spoke. By then, we were halfway up my road.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, obviously able to detect how out of it I was. I should have remembered that you can’t hide anything from someone as crazy as yourself.
I shrugged. “Just one of those days. I think the weather affecting my mood and messing with my meds. But, what are ya gonna do? They tell me if I wanna be ‘normal’ I have to take them.”
I hated when I rambled like that. It made me feel like such an idiot, especially around him. As I faced him for the first time that day, I noticed that he’d finally shaved off most of his hair and trimmed his beard. He looked so much better like that than when he let himself get all scruffy.
My eyes traveled down the straight line of his neck, over his broad shoulders, and down his bare arms. He was a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy - I don’t think I’d ever seen him in long sleeves save for a few occasions where it was particularly cold and he wore his jacket. His right hand grasped the top of the steering wheel, exposing his red and raw knuckles. He’d been making enemies with the punching bag again, apparently.
I guess he noticed me staring because he shifted his focus from the road to my eyes. I turned away after a moment; I could never stand to look into his eyes for very long. They seemed like such an odd shade of brown that I had a hard time believing they were real.
The car stopped finally on the large pier he had taken me to once before. He turned off the car, leaving us to sit in the hollow emptiness left behind by the humming engine. The pier was quite a distance from my house, so I was surprised at how quickly the nearly silent ride had gone by. I think that’s how you can judge what kind of relationship you have with someone - whether or not you can reach a comfortable silence.
I stared at the fierce sea ahead of us through the sheet of rain that coated the windshield. Waves crashed loudly onto the rocks just below. I felt as though we were miles above the water. Occasionally, though, a large swell would bring the waves just barely below the top of the man-made wall and interrupt the illusion. I wondered how long it would take before the swells brought the frigid waters right to us and washed us out to sea.
Suddenly, I found myself shoving open the car door and stepping out into the rain. I heard the soft slam of the driver’s side door as I closed my own and approached the edge of the pier, looking down into the water. It was such a beautiful day and I did not intend on wasting it.
A pair of bare arms wrapped themselves around my waist. The two of us, now soaked and most likely looking like sickly children, stared out over the tumultuous ocean that lay before us.
“Let’s run away,” he said to me, “right now.”
“Yeah,” I replied sarcastically, one eyebrow slightly raised, “okay.”
I could feel all my prior numbness being slowly rinsed away with each drop of rain.
“I’m being serious,” he mumbled after a bit of a pause. “You’re eighteen, now. You can do it.”
“My mom isn’t even going to be home until the day after tomorrow!” I protested.
“Well then, now’s the time, don’t you think?” he asked, trying to rub the rain out of his dark hair.
He’d often ask questions like that, prodding me for a valid excuse and leaving me to trip over my own words and fall to the ground. I had a hard time admitting to my fears, and if there was one excuse he would not accept for anything it was fear. I sighed heavily and he smirked, reveling in his moment of victory.
I could protest all I wanted to, but he and I both knew my heart wasn’t behind it. Truth be told, I wanted to run away. I hated that town, and I was quickly growing tired of my life there. Too much routine; I hated routine. He was my one chance to get out, I knew that the second I’d met him. He’d lived, he’d traveled. He was spontaneous, not to mention older. He was my way out.
That was all I needed, in the end. Just a way out.
We stopped at my house and I wrote my mother a short letter. I stated simply that he and I had left, we didn’t yet know where we were going, but I’d call when I got there. I apologized and hoped she’d understand. It was vague, yes, but she was my mother. Mothers always know exactly what you mean even when you can’t put it into the proper words. They find a way to understand even the most difficult situations. At least my mother did, and I think that was one of the things I liked least about her. She was far too understanding and accepting.
I imagine my mother reading that note as it lay on the kitchen table, scrawled on an old envelope that had been lying around. When she reads it, her eyes will fill with tears and she’ll bite down on her bottom lip, just like she always does. His mother had taken it well when we’d stopped to say goodbye. She gave us quick hugs goodbye before she could get too tearful, wishing us luck and making us promise to call. I think she’d been expecting it; she knew that it was only a matter of time before the two of us took the chance to run.
I’m beginning to feel better already. Maybe I’m not crazy after all. Maybe I was just bored and stuck, and too afraid to make use of my way out.
Trees are flying by us now on either side in bright shades of green and yellow. The branches look as though they’re full of jewels, the soaked leaves glistening in the streaks of sun now peeking through the clouds. Soon, the rain and clouds will be gone, and it will be another sunny spring day. How unbearably corny. I hope there’s more interesting weather further down the way.