“It’s just me, Jake Simonsen, sir. I came to check on your daughter.”
“Who?!”
“Jake Simonsen, from the football team.”
The captain of the team, he didn’t need to add.
“I remember you! I remember you!” Lindsay’s father said with rising agitation.
“He’s leaving now,” she said. “So that’s that.”
Jake was waiting for Lindsay’s dad to freak out. Start threatening to kill him, beating the door with his pipe.
But no.
Mr. Morrow’s voice got earnest and low, “You’ve got to take Lindsay with you.”
Jake could tell he had his face pressed up against the door.
“She won’t leave me and she has got to leave me,” her father said.
“I don’t even know where I’m going,” Jake said.
“It doesn’t matter. Son, please, please, you’ve got to get her away from me.”
“I won’t leave you!” Lindsay protested. “Stop trying to make me leave you! The air will be safe any day now, and who’s going to take care of you?!”
Jake had his bag packed now. Only thing he couldn’t find was his head lamp.
“PLEASE, SON, TAKE HER FROM HERE,” Lindsay’s dad shouted. “I am begging you.”
Jake put his hand on the railing.
He didn’t like to get to know the dads of the girls he hooked up with. It was too weird. But he remembered what Lindsay’s dad looked like. He was tall and thin, like his daughter, and stood in a way that made you feel he was a good guy.
Did insurance, or mortgages, or something like that.
He sponsored a youth league football team and Jake had seen him out with them, once. Remembered him waving over to Lindsay as she talked to Jake while he warmed up. Tykes crashing helmets on the field.
“Look,” Jake said, turning to Lindsay. “Do you want me to take you with me back to the store? I can take you there. You’ll be safe. Astrid is there, which will be awkward, but.…” He shrugged.
He was willing to take the heat, to save a girl’s life. Of course he was.
“You think I should leave my dad?” came her voice, shaky and scared. Her brown eyes shining big in the dark basement.
Jake shrugged again.
“I can’t tell you what to do,” he said. “All I can say is that I probably can get you somewhere safe.”
Then BAM as her dad hit the door. “You have to go, sweetie!” The tone of her dad’s voice was rising, getting mad. “You have to GO! I’m your father and I demand that you go!”
Lindsay crossed to the metal door and put her hand on the center of it.
“But Daddy, I can’t leave you locked up, and if I let you out, you’ll go crazy when we leave.”
“You’ll leave me locked up. And that’ll be that.”
“Nooo!” Lindsay wailed. “Daddy, you’re asking me … you’re asking me to let you die!”
Lindsay slid down the door and sat, leaning onto it, on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. “But I can’t leave you. I just can’t do it.”
There were sobs, now, from the other side of the door.
“We’ll be okay,” she said. “We just have to hold out for a few more days, now.”
“All right,” he snuffled. “All right, Lindsay. You and me, we’ll stick it out.”
The whole thing made Jake uncomfortable. There was something about this kind of love. Not sick. But maybe deeper than he knew about.
And Jake decided, right then, to make the hike to his house, after he found the pills.
Just to check, in case his dad was holed up there, waiting for him.
“I should go. So … are you sure you want to stay?” Jake asked.
He didn’t get an answer.
Jake hoisted the backpack up onto his shoulders.
“Okay, then,” he said. “You want to get ready? I need to open the door.”
“Wait!” Lindsay said. “I do need something from you, Jake.”
She looked up at him.
“You’re leaving me that gun.”
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Copyright
Copyright (C) 2013 by Emmy Laybourne
Art copyright (C) 2013 by Gregory Manchess
