Be My Escape

The first thing that came to my mind when I woke up was, What the hell am I doing?

It was reasonable, really, me questioning flying all the way over to England just to get away. Sure, I had a good enough reason on paper, and that was the reason I told everyone who asked me why I was leaving the semester before college would let out for the summer. But in reality, I just couldn’t handle it anymore. The sleepless nights, the questioning glances, the newspaper headlines… it was all too much, and I needed to get away.

So here I was, sitting on an airplane on my way to England for the summer, or at least for a couple months.

I turned my head and let my green eyes graze over the ocean beneath us. I only looked for a few seconds; I wasn’t afraid of heights or flying or any of that, but the water below brought back bad memories. I knew if I looked too long I wouldn’t be able to get the memories out of my head. After just waking up, I had clear thoughts and I wanted to keep it that way for a little while.

I turned my attention to the Sky Mall magazine sitting in the pouch in front of me. I leaned forward and pulled it out, then relaxed back into my seat. I started flipping through the pages and realized it was all a bunch of junk; it reminded me of the infomercials I would watch late at night when I couldn’t sleep back at home.

Thinking of home caused my heart to ache. Even though actually being there was hard, it was harder not being there. I missed my mom and my step dad, I missed my bedroom, I missed college as weird as it sounded. I even missed the few friends I had on campus, but it was a very select few. I guess when you alienated yourself from everyone, friends were hard to come by.

I closed my green eyes and lay my head back on the headrest as I thought about my current situation. Several months ago, the only contact with my father had been the occasional phone call or email. We didn’t talk very much; that wasn’t to say we weren’t friendly, of course. He just lived in another country and so catching each other at a good time was difficult. I guess I was lucky, or so people told me. They always said that I should be thankful that my parents didn’t have a bitter divorce and that they were still friends, for the most part, although I didn’t see the luck in this. I never had.

My parents divorce had been mutual. They agreed, after getting a somewhat forced marriage because of (yes, you guessed it!) my mother’s impending pregnancy avec moi, that divorce was the only option. My father had originally been a rather well known author in England and so after their divorce he moved back. They got a divorce when I was five, which was rather tragic for me. But apparently no one thinks about their kids in these kinds of situations. Or maybe that was just my parents.

Anyways, I didn’t talk to my dad much. He knew I wanted to be an author like him, having inherited the creativity gene and all that, and he thought it was wonderful. When I had first decided I wanted to be a writer in about my freshman year of high school, he was always emailing me tips and things to help me with writing, which I thought was sweet, but it was also obnoxious at the same time. I felt like he was trying to push his way into my life, and at that point I didn’t need it. I had my mother and my stepfather and a great group of friends that were taking up all my time and energy; I didn’t need a dad who lived in a whole other country competing for me too.

As I grew up though, I realized how ridiculous this was. He was my dad for God’s sake. He deserved some respect. So, we started to talk more. Or, as I said, as much as we could. Then, this opportunity arose that I was currently taking and I was headed on a plane to England to live there for the summer and intern at my father’s publishing office.

I was really lucky, I suppose. I had a father who lived in England of all places, who was also rather well known in the industry I wanted to get into. He was happily remarried to a nice woman named Hanna and he had a stepson who was apparently in a band and who I was going to get along well with, as stated in my father’s last email before I left home. The two even had a new baby named Emily who I was rather excited to meet; I had a thing for new babies, and luckily they had a thing for me too.

Even if I was ever so slightly scared of the thoughts of living in England for several months, I knew that I was lucky. It wasn’t every day that the opportunity arose to leave the country, leave the home that held such bad memories. I was lucky to be able to get away from it all, but I knew I was going to need reminded of this a lot. Just because I knew I was lucky didn’t mean the hurt and bad memories went away.

***

As I stepped off the plane and walked through the small hallway that would take me from the plane to the actual airport, shifting my carry-on from my left shoulder to my right, I was suddenly nervous. I hadn’t seen my father in fourteen years, and no amount of emails or phone calls would change this fact.

But then, as I stepped into the Heathrow airport with the small amount of people anticipating the arrival of the other people on my plane, I spotted him. He wasn’t facing me but instead turned to the side with his phone up to his ear, but I knew it was him. As I walked closer, I took in all of the details that I recognized. His dark chestnut hair was almost the exact opposite of my own, and he had some gray scattered throughout. I noticed I had his eyes though; mine were almost a direct copy of his own seafoam green eyes. He was laughing as I got closer, so I figured he might have been on the phone with his wife. He had a big smile, and when he laughed it was infectious. It almost made me want to laugh too, even though I had no idea what he was laughing about.

Now that I was almost five feet from him, he turned and spotted me instantly. He said a quick goodbye to whoever he was talking to and instantly opened his arms to hug me. “Peyton!” he exclaimed, his large, well over six foot frame towering over my measly 5’9” self. “How are you love? How was the flight? I bet you’re bloody exhausted,” he smiled, pulling back.

I nodded. “I am tired, actually. But not nearly as tired as you’d think. I actually slept for quite awhile on the plane.”

“Good, good,” he said, wrapping one arm around my shoulder as we started to walk towards baggage claim.

He fired questions at me as if he hadn’t seen me in fourteen years (go figure) and I answered them all. He was curious how my mom was doing and about school and in general just about my life at home. He asked a few questions about my stepdad, but we quickly steered away from that topic, which I was thankful for. He tried to ask questions about the incident as I had started to refer to it as, a less painful name than what it should have been called, but I quickly diverted to a new subject.

We reached the baggage carousel with the other people from my flight, and even though I hardly flew I knew this would be the worst part; waiting for my luggage to come around. When I finally spotted my standard black suitcase covered in stickers and ribbons galore so that I would easily recognize it, he grabbed the handle and smiled. “I’ve got this love.”

Even if I was used to having my stepfather around, I knew that having my actual dad around was a million times better. Just like that, the nervous butterflies in my stomach dissipated and I was just happy to be there, happy to be with him, happy to be away from everything back home.

***

“So, this is our home,” he said as we stepped through the door of the small house. “It’s tiny, but most are around here.”

I nodded as I followed him through the hallway that lead us from the foyer to the kitchen. When we got in the rather large kitchen fit for a king, there was a woman standing at the kitchen counter cooking what seemed to be a very extravagant meal. “Love, I thought I told
you to go easy on the cooking.”

When she turned around, I realized how pretty she was. She was petite, about 5’4”, with gorgeous blonde, wavy hair that I would have loved to trade for my own frizzy blonde locks. She was smiling wide as she gave my father a quick peck and then hurried over to me. Before I could stop her or think about what she was doing, I was being pulled into an embrace. “I’m so glad you’re here for the holiday, Peyton. It’s just lovely that I’m getting to finally meet you!”

I smiled and nodded. “I’m really glad to be here.” While she was petite, she was rather overwhelming and she intimidated me a little. Although, I wasn’t sure if that was just my nerves or not, but regardless.

“Come, come,” she said, dragging me over to the dining room table located right across from the kitchen, the only thing separating the two an island. “Take a seat dear, you’re probably exhausted.”

I offered a small smile and did as I was told, sensing she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“We’ve got quite the extensive breakfast selection here for you,” she told me with a smile. “Although, I’ll confess. I don’t usually go so crazy,” she admitted sheepishly, “but we do usually do a large brunch type feast on Saturdays. Or at least we used to, but with the baby we don’t get around to it as much.”

“My mom and I do this on Sundays, too.” I smiled thinking of my mom, wondering what she was doing right now. Or what time it was in Boston, even.

“So your mother cooks more now, does she?” my dad asked as he took a seat next to me at the table while Hanna returned to the kitchen.

I shrugged. “Not really, honestly. My stepdad Bill is a huge cook.” I couldn’t lie to him; he knew my mother, afterall, and anyone who knew my mother knew that she just was not a cook.

“Sounds more like it,” he laughed. “You’re mother could hardly boil water when I first met her.”

I laughed too. He was right, and she hadn’t changed much. She could now successfully cook macaroni and cheese from a box and scrambled eggs, but that was about it, even after thousands of lessons from my stepdad.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Hanna interrupted with a plate of food. “And if you aren’t, please don’t think I’ll be the least bit offended if you don’t eat. I should have waited, but I was too excited,” she admitted, taking a seat as she handed a plate to my dad and sat one down in front of herself too.

“No, it looks delicious,” I lied, looking down at the food. Luckily, I was one of the best liars you would ever meet; it was a trait I used to not use often, but lately I was using it more and more. It was just easier to lie than it was to tell the truth these days.

Looking at the food, I realized it did look good. I just wasn’t much for eating a lot lately. I stuck to small, simple meals and I usually skipped breakfast. But as I looked at the selection before me, I figured I should try and eat some of it because I was hungry.

After devouring the eggs and what I thought was sausage and eating a piece of toast, I thanked Hanna for the food. I yawned unexpectedly and realized I was actually really tired. “Oh, you poor thing. You must be exhausted,” Hanna said sympathetically.

I shrugged. “I guess I am. I didn’t realize.”

“Well, we have a bit of bad news I’m afraid,” my dad piped up. “I’m afraid we didn’t quite factor in how long you were going to be staying with us when we first planned this.” My dad looked at Hanna sadly, who nodded.

“I’m afraid we don’t have the room so that you could stay here comfortably,” he told me finally.

My face immediately turned as white as a ghost. What exactly was she saying? Were they kicking me out? Was I going to have to stay in a hostel for the rest of my stay? Or worse—was I going to have to go home?

“Oh, don’t worry love!” My dad chimed in happily, as if he hadn’t just told me some of the worst news possible at the moment. “There’s good news too!”

“Th-there is?” I stuttered, unsure of what he was going to tell me next.

“Certainly! You didn’t think we were inviting you out here without a place to stay, did you?” he laughed. “I own a loft out by my publishing house you’re interning at. Of course, it’s rather tiny but it’ll do just fine. And the best part is Max—”

“That’s your stepbrother,” Hanna interrupted.

“Yes, yes, anyways. Max and his mate’s are staying in the same place for a few months while they write and record for a new record or something of that sorts.” I looked at my father, who was beaming at me. He was obviously very proud of this arrangement. I, on the other hand, was terrified.

“So I’ll be in the same apartment as them?” I asked worriedly. I was not about to share a tiny apartment with however many guys that I didn’t know. No way in hell.

“Oh no love, you’ll be in the loft across the hall from one of the ones they rented out. You’ll be in your own space, don’t you worry about that. But this way, you won’t be all alone!” he exclaimed, happy as a clam. I knew I had no choice but to say yes to this arrangement. No just wasn’t an option at this point because I didn’t have much of a choice, unless I wanted to go back home which also wasn’t an option.

We decided that I would take a quick nap and then the three of us would head over to the loft, which turns out was only about fifteen minutes away. I should have been happy about the arrangement, but the only emotion I could conjure up was terror.

I’m very lucky, I thought to myself. Just keep reminding yourself that, Peyton.

It was going to be a long next couple of months.