Her nostrils flared. “You ungrateful bitch. I picked you over him. Is this how you pay me back? By leaving?”
I steeled myself. “I’m going now. I’ll call in a few days to let you know I’m settled.”
A plate landed at my feet like a Frisbee, clattering harmlessly to the floor, shatter-resistant. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked to the door. A bowl of oranges spilled around my ankles. A mug thudded against my leg.
She screamed at me, and I kept walking. I wanted to be smug. I was finally getting what I wanted. I had done it. It was a victory. But I couldn’t shake the feeling I had left something important behind.
Not all those who wander are lost. I knew that, I believed it, but just now, with my mother sobbing obscenities while I drove away in my ten-year-old Honda, I felt very alone and a little bit lost.
Chapter Two
The Niagara Falls mark the border of Ontario, Canada and New York, USA.
By late afternoon, I knew I’d taken a wrong turn. I’d only driven two hundred miles away from home. The three-lane highway had narrowed to one lane on either side, flanked by deep ditches and wide fields.
I’d only run occasional weekly errands in my car, and now I was driving across Texas—which felt as broad and wide as the world. The signs changed as soon as I left our small city. Different colors, different markings than the maps, and I soon found myself turned around and twisted.
I considered going back but I’d been driving this way for two hours. By the time I got back to the main freeway, it would be dark. I might miss it again and make everything worse. Besides, I was tired, hungry, and I really had to use the bathroom.
An exit sign had little pictographs for food, gas, and lodging. I pulled onto a smaller road, also devoid of cars or buildings. The pavement was smooth enough. The little reflective lights in the middle were comforting, like maybe I couldn’t be too far from civilization if they’d bothered with safety features.
Eventually I saw a complex up ahead, several buildings clumped together with a row of semi-trucks parked by the gas pumps. It looked like an all-in-one business, with hot food specials listed next to the gas prices and a vacancy sign for rooms to let.
Inside the tiny gas station building, a large balding man sat behind the counter while a tiny fan blew directly at his face. He looked me up and down in a way that made my skin crawl.
“How much?”
“I’m sorry?” I stammered.
Somehow, my mind had made a leap to something inappropriate, as if he were asking how much I would charge to have sex with him.
Crazy thought.
“How much gas?” He nodded toward my car at the pump.
I exhaled, feeling silly. Why had I even thought such a dirty thing? I felt bad for doubting him. That was the anxiety talking, secondhand anxiety leftover from all the lectures my mother had ever given me. Brushing off the embarrassing dust of fear, I paid for my gas and rented a room for the night.
Forty dollars made a sizable dent in my small pocket of cash, but the musty bed and aging particle board furniture would be more comfortable than the back seat of my car. Even better, the door had a thick, shiny lock that looked like it had been replaced recently, as well as a latch that only opened from the inside. After examining all the entry points, I berated myself for paranoia again.
My stomach growled. The soda I had bought wouldn’t tide me over all night. Maybe I’d pick up some chips to go with it. My jeans and a T-shirt seemed stale and a little constricting after the long car ride.
I put on a loose-fitting sundress that fell below my knees. It was white and airy, darkening to baby blue at the hem. I had bought it on impulse from the Walmart about a month ago but never worn it before today. My mother would have said it invited men to sin with me. I thought it was pretty and normal, and hopefully it would help me fake my way to confidence. Slipping twenty bucks into my coin purse along with the room key, I set out.
My car cooled in the night air right outside my door, but there was no point driving such a short distance. The buildings of the gas station, the diner, and the motel rooms were nestled together amid a wide expanse of concrete in an even larger plain of empty farmland. The other motel rooms I passed seemed vacant, their windows dark and parking spaces empty.
I felt tiny out here. Would it always be this way now that I was free? Our seclusion at home had provided more than security. An inflated sense of pride, diminishing the grand scheme of things to raise our own importance. On this deserted sidewalk in the middle of nowhere, it was clear how very insignificant I was. No one even knew I was here. No one would care.
When I rounded the corner, I saw that the lights in the gas station were off. Frowning, I tried the door, but it was locked. It seemed surreal for a moment, as if maybe it had never been open at all, as if this were all a dream.
Unease trickled through me, but then I turned and caught site of the sunset. It glowed in a symphony of colors, the purples and oranges and blues all blending together in a gorgeous tableau. There was no beauty like this in the small but smoggy city where I had come from, the skyline barely visible from the tree in our backyard. This sky didn’t even look real, so vibrant, almost blinding, as if I had lived my whole life in black and white and suddenly found color.
I put my hand to my forehead, just staring in awe.
My God, was this what I’d been missing? What else was out there, unimagined?
I considered going back for my camera but for once I didn’t want to capture this on film. Part of my dependence on photography had been because I never knew when I’d get to see something again, didn’t know when I’d get to go outside again. I was a miser with each image, carefully secreting them into my digital pockets. But now I had forever in the outside world. I could breathe in the colors, practically smell the vibrancy in the air.
A sort of exuberant laugh escaped me, relief and excitement at once. Feeling joyful, I glanced toward the neat row of semi-trucks to the side. Their engines were silent, the night air still. The only disturbance: a man leaned against the side of one, the wispy white smoke from his cigarette curling upward. His face was shrouded in darkness.
My smile faded. I couldn’t see his expression, but some warning bell inside me set off. I sensed his alertness despite the casual stance of his body. His gaze felt hot on my skin. While I’d been watching the sunset, he’d been watching me.
When he suddenly straightened, I tensed. Where a second ago I’d felt free, now my mother’s warnings came rushing back, overwhelming me. Would he come for me? Hurt me, attack me? It would only take a few minutes to run back to my room—could I beat him there? But all he did was raise his hand, waving me around the side of the building. I circled hesitantly and found another entrance, this one to a diner.
Hesitantly, I waved my thanks. After a moment, he nodded back.
“Paranoid,” I chastised myself.
The diner was wrapped with metal, a retro look that was probably original. Uneven metal shutters shaded the green windows, where an OPEN sign flickered.
Inside, turquoise booths and brown tables lined the walls. A waitress behind the counter looked up from her magazine. Her hair was a dirty blonde, darker than mine, pulled into a knot. A thick layer of caked powder and red lipstick were still in place, but her eyes were bloodshot, tired.
“I heard we got a boarder,” she said, nodding to me. “First one of the year.”
I blinked. It was a cool April night. If I was the first one of the year, then that was a long time to go without boarders.
“What about all the trucks outside?”
“Oh, they sleep in their cabs. Those fancy new leather seats are probably more comfortable than those old mattresses filled with God-knows-what.” She laughed at her own joke, revealing a straight line of grayish teeth.
I managed a brittle smile then ducked into one of the booths.
She sidled over with a notepad and pen.