Drive

Gray gravel crunches as I rev the worn out truck up the narrow driveway. Leafy branches swing overhead and undergrowth moves in layers around the dirt path. I sigh as the front tires bounce over a pothole. It's way too late...no, way too early to be getting home. When are these 4 o'clock in the morning arrivals going to stop? Never. I hear myself answer my own question. They will stop when you're dead. God, why do I become so macabre when I'm tired? Why do I talk to myself?

I finally see the last turn in the road before I reach the thin patch of grass the poor truck occupies in daylight. Home. No, not really. More like...bed. Just plain bed. It is as much home as I can hope for. The creak of the truck's door sounds harsh in the early morning hush, the jingle of keys, the slam.

The ridge that the house looks out over is turning gray. I know I have an hour before the daylight starts leaking through my blinds and into my head, because the birds have started their morning insistence. The chirps get louder as the sun gets brighter. My footsteps crunch on the rocks, and then tap on the wooden steps; the lock turns with the key. Oh thank heavens, I can sleep soon. I blink hard and feel my eyes sting behind their lids. My phone buzzes in my back pocket and I groan as I reach for it.

did u get home ok?

What a text... I don't know why I come at his every beck and call. And then he makes me feel guilty for being tired after helping him all night. The poor man, I love him. My fingers move slower than usual as I tap out a reply.

im home i’ll call later love

My feet drag to the kitchen counter and I toss the battered cell phone next to the pile of mail Elle stacked earlier. All the envelopes addressed to her are open with torn edges along the tops. The letters and one small brown paper box with my name on it are stacked neatly, unopened. I slid open the drawer and started hunting for a serrated knife and give up. I grab my keys instead and yank one of the jagged edges along the top of the box. And then I stop.

There is a bird sitting in the middle of the crinkled newspaper inside the package. A bright red bird in a nest of dark red soaked headlines. There is a lump stuck firmly in my throat and it’ making me want to vomit. I let out a scream that doesn’t have much sound in it; it’s more like a strangled swallow.

"Elle!" I manage to finally shout . She had better be upstairs. Is she even still here? I yell her name again and again. Am I breathing? Where am I?...someone get Jem.

After what feels like hours, but is only seconds, my cousin hurls herself down the old stairs. Her bare feet can't move fast enough and she jumps the last three steps. I see her thin face, eyes wide from fright and puffy from sleep. She reaches for me but I slip from her long fingers. "There's a bird. We have to go." She looks at the dead cardinal I'm pointing at with my eyes, its feathers limp and its neck broken. She isn’t registering fast enough for me and I shake her a little. "Elle! Let's go! Call Jem for me. I have to get our things." Her shoulders drop.

"Why do I have to call Jem? You're the one that can actually get him to listen. Jesus! Why does your life suck so bad, Cassie?"

"Don't give me lame teenager shit right now, Elle. Just call him...I was with him all night anyway, he should be in a good mood."

"You're the only one that sees him in a good mood. But whatever, I'm dialing. Just get the bags. And pillows for you. I'm driving because you didn't sleep." I shake off the fatigue as much as I can and consider taking the stairs two at a time, but my body votes no.

The bags are stacked neatly in the corner of the closet, the place they always are. I reach behind the bathroom door and grab an empty laundry basket, throwing items in. I'm almost in a trance, my muscles taking over and doing things by memory. 12 times I've done this. And I'm only 23.

"CassIE!" Elle's voice, as thin as the rest of her, comes up the stairs and gives me one last boost of energy to get the bags down to the truck.

"I'm here. Load these things into the Ford. Did you talk to Jem?"

"Yeah, your basket case of a best friend is on his way. We're meeting up at the Shell. And he wasn't in a good mood for your information."

I shoot her a pointed glance. "Don't sass me, Ellie. I'm running on six hours of sleep this week. Grab the keys."

And for the 13th time, my family and I are driving away. Away from nothing and away from everything. That is it.

When I meet someone new, which happens often, they ask me, "So, what do you do?" I usually I answer with a completely normal and unassuming half lie.

"I'm going to school for Elementary Education." or "I work as a receptionist at Chic Salon, you know the one in town?" Anything that will move the conversation away from me and why I have no roots. Every time I ache to tell them the truth. My lips open to say "I leave. I'm a professional runner. Runner away, that is. I drive from place to place so that the rest of the people I love can stay with me and stay alive, so that I can have a family. How about you?"

Maybe to an average person, my life sounds like an average action movie, or an average best selling novel. They would take my desperate sincerity as a funny sarcastic remark, or a social tactic I use to break the ice. The truth sounds just a little too frightening to accept easily. But I really do run when I see lifeless cardinals and robins. When I see a dead bird, soon afterward, I too often see a dead person.

The most terrifying, heart wrenching part is that the bloody body I find is never mine. The fact plagues me every waking and sleeping moment.

So I drive away.