Safe Haven

After swearing to my own form of silence, quiet car rides turned out to be less awkward and uncomfortable than I’d first anticipated. I’d learned – and quickly taught myself – how to seem or be occupied with inner thoughts to avoid conversation.

But even with the amount of experience I had, I shouldn’t have expected to be prepared for silent car rides with John O’Callaghan.

There was a heaviness lingering over and between the two of us as he poorly masked his anger from behind the wheel. Whether he was pissed off at me for ruining his evening out or at Travis for being his usual, arrogant self, I wasn’t sure. The uncertainty had me on edge.

I focused on the blurs of buildings just outside the window, the smudges of streetlights against the darkness of the night. It wasn’t all that beautiful, nor was it all that interesting, but the idea of staring out the window at objects that didn’t stir anything within me was better than zeroing in on the knot of tension slowly settling in my gut.

And with being so focused on my surroundings, it didn’t take me long to figure out that we weren’t heading the direction of my house.

“Where are we going?” The words came out feebly.

“Someplace where we can talk,” John stated through gritted teeth.

I crossed my arms, suddenly feeling the urge to cry. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes and my fingers began shaking with the amount of emotional force I was using to control the dam that was threatening to break.

Seeing where he parked only made everything ten times worse.

The summerhouse: the place that the O’Callaghan’s rented out most summers to people who wanted to vacation in our lovely town, the place we once threw parties in every once in a while due to it being in the middle of the woods, and the one place that I grew to hate over the past few months.

I remained staring out the window, desperately trying to stop the shaking and the voice ringing in my ears that said to bolt. It wasn’t that far from my house, it wasn’t far from Fort Ravenrot; it wasn’t as if I didn’t know how to get back to civilization.

But my feet were heavy, my joints locked into place.

“Are you ever going to be able to actually look at me?” John asked after cutting the engine and allowing an even more awkward silence to fall between us.

Truth be told, I was afraid. I didn’t want to be seen as vulnerable in his eyes, and I didn’t want him to think of me as pathetic any more than what he already did. And especially not here – not where we were. Too many memories were beginning to surface, too many secrets had stemmed from this very spot for me to be able to look at him solemnly.

John was far too good at reading people for his own wellbeing, and I wasn’t about to risk anything: not after everything I’d done to ensure the confidentiality I strived for.

“No,” I stated after gathering my voice. “I’m afraid not. At least not tonight.” Staring down to my lap, I wrung my hands together unsure of where this conversation was going. I had a pretty good idea, but John wasn’t being as abrupt about it as I’d anticipated.

I heard a loud breath escape his lips before the question was answered. “Why, Marlow?” It was demanding, forceful enough to make me flinch in my seat. “I’ve been driving myself mad wondering what happened, what went wrong for you to just throw everything away.” There was a pause, one that I could only assume he expected me to answer his question in, but he continued before I had the chance to even open my mouth. “I was fine, you know? I gave up thinking back and dwelling on those last few weeks, trying to pick apart our relationship – trying to find any trace that you weren’t happy with life. And then you came back here and stirred every unanswered question up. I want to know Marlow.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw his clenched fists resting on the top of the steering wheel, his green eyes focused forward.

“I can’t.” The words came out mangled, trashed by trying not to cry and desperately wanting to come up with an excuse – any reason that would ease his mind.

“You don’t get to toss away a six year relationship without explanation. I deserve an explanation, Marlow. Everyone deserves an explanation.”

He did. I did owe it to him for the aftermath he was forced to deal with: the phone calls from my frantic mother wondering if he had seen me, the phone calls he’d had to make in a crazy search, the tears, the fear of not knowing until he found the vague note.

Loud, summer class, exam the next afternoon, needing to go study, smiling, kissing goodnight, getting out of the car, the chain snagging on the edge of the car door, the already feeble clasp snapping with the jerk of my arm. Headlights, my name being called. Noel. The part where it becomes blurry, the fear settling in all over again.

I couldn’t.

He didn’t need to know. No one needed to know.

“I wish I could, but I can’t! I-I need to go.”

I heard his fists bounce once against the leather of the steering wheel. “Why!? Why the fuck not!?” He was shouting, his raspy voice bouncy off of every hard surface inside his car. “How was it so fucking easy for you to throw everything away, like nothing even mattered!?”

With shaky hands, I reached for the handle of the door, but something stopped me before I took my chance to escape.

Turning to fully face him for the first time since I’d agreed to letting him bring me home, I stared for a moment with glassy eyes and pain of knowing that I’d hurt everyone ricocheting through my body. “It wasn’t easy. It was never easy.”

And then I left, running off, in the direction of my house, following the path I’d taken two too many times before.