Girls Like Boys

No one was surprised when my sister and I decided to attend the same university. Not our high school friends or grandparents or our father. But when they learned that it was a school in Alabama rather than Indiana State that we were setting our sights on, the room went quiet and we all braced ourselves for what was coming.

Our dad was born and raised in Indiana, and subsequently, Wesley, Ramsy, and I spent most of our lives within the thirty-five mile radius that was Terre Haute, Indiana. Every now and then we’d get together with friends to make the seventy five mile drive to Indianapolis, but we were lucky if it only took a couple days to convince our father, and even more lucky if he didn’t want to drive us himself.

So when he heard that we were leaving to go to school over eight hours away, he lost it, and we’d all seen it coming.

“There’s no way in hell my teenage daughters are going all the way down to Alabama alone!” he shouted, jumping up from the table that held our graduation cake. He looked furious and sputtered as he tried to make sense of what we said. “Wherever you two got this idea from you put it right back there, because it’s not happening!”

He was in an uproar, knocking notebooks and decorations off tables and countertops as he turned and stomped through the small crowd that had assembled to celebrate our high school graduation with us. They backed up immediately and Ramsy gave me a look that I matched as our grandmother stood up from her seat and followed the tornado that was our dad, Charlie.

“Charlie Carrigan, you shut your mouth before you say something you’re going to regret!” she shouted, following him through the crowded living room and through the house to the screened in front porch. That’s where he always went when he was angry or had too much on his mind.

Our brother turned his unworried gaze to us from across the table and absent-mindedly decimated the piece of cake in front of him. “You two certainly know how to make an announcement,” he said, offering us his usual little grin, “but you could’ve at least waited until the party was over, yeah?” He stood up and touched both our heads before cutting through the masses after our father.

I looked at the small group of people who were still huddled around us, friends from school and a couple co-workers. “We’ll be back for Christmas,” I spoke easily, watching our friends crack small grins.

It didn’t take long until our father was back in the house, asking everyone to leave. He didn’t look at us while we thanked everyone for coming and showed them out. Wesley hovered near us the whole time, eyes flashing between us and dad like the mediator he’d gotten used to being.

My grandmother lingered in the living room, sitting in her usual chair. Ramsy thanked our friends for coming one last time as they filed into their cars and pulled out of yard, and then she shut the front door, and it was just the four of us in the living room.

“You’re not going,” Charlie spoke, glaring daggers at us across the distance. “How you two thought you could pull this off is beyond me. If you think I’m driving you all the way down to Alabama, you better forget it. It’s not happening. I’m not having my eighteen year old daughters alone down there. It’s just not happening.”

“Charlie, that’s not fair,” Ramsy spoke, crossing her arms over her chest. “You can’t make our decisions for us. We don’t want to stay in Indiana for the rest of our lives.”

She’d taken to calling him by his first name quite a few years back and I picked it up quickly. Wesley still called him ‘dad’ more often than not, but ‘Charlie’ slipped out quite frequently as well. For some reason it just worked for us, and Charlie didn’t seem to mind.

“I don’t care where you want to be,” he answered back. “It’s not happening. You’re not getting down there without me and I’m not taking you. You told me that you applied to Indiana State and that’s where you’re headed.”

“We did,” I spoke up for the first time since we made the announcement, “and we got in, but that’s not where we want to go, Dad.” He softened slightly at the moniker, and I could see that he was more upset than angry. Grams still sat quietly on the couch, watching this, and Wesley was just behind us in the entryway of the room.

“What’s wrong with ISU?”

“It’s right down the street for one,” Ramsy answered quickly, “and you’ll want us to live at home if we go there, like you made Wesley. We don’t want to be here anymore, Charlie. You made us go to John Paul so that we’d be able to get into good colleges, but now you expect us just to stay here. What are we supposed to do here, Dad? Work with Wesley at the bar? Or how about I keep working at fucking Roly Poly’s for the rest of my life and Cody can get married and have kids and figure out that she hates her life? How’s that sound, Charlie?”

“That’s enough, Ramsy,” Grandma Ester spoke, rising from her spot. I saw just enough of Charlie's expression to be glad that she stepped in then.

“But Est-“

“Enough,” she repeated, sending Ramsy a glare. “You don’t have to be cruel to your father. You knew that this would be hard for him to accept. And if you call me Esther one more time, I’m going to lock you in your room and leave you to die in there, do you hear me?”

“I don’t need to accept it because it’s not happening,” Charlie shot, stopping Ram before she could say anything in response. “You two are going to ISU or you’re going nowhere. I’m not having the two of you running around Alabama like you’re grown, because you’re not.”

“But we are!” Ramsy shouted, throwing her hands out. “We’re adults, Dad, and now that we’re eighteen there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I won’t take you, that’s what I can do about it,” he spat, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at the two of us. “So I don’t know how either of you think you’re getting anywhere without me, because your car is in my name and if you leave with it I’ll have you both arrested and dragged right back here.”

“I’ll take them,” Wesley spoke, stepping up from behind us, and we were shocked. When he saw the pissed look our dad sent him, he met it with an apologetic one. “I’m sorry, Dad, but they’re right. They’re adults and if they want to leave, you can’t keep them locked up here forever.”

Our father tore the house apart for the next week, slamming cupboards and stomping around. After that he progressed to simply ignoring us, acting as though we were already gone. We didn’t tell him that we’d already accepted our admittance to UA and that we were supposed to leave early August. We just spent the next couple of weeks giving him some space as we finished up the rest of the what we needed to start the school year in Alabama.

As move-in day got closer, Charlie still hadn’t spoken much to us. But in the last few days, he went from being angry to being upset, and it was noticeable. Finally he seemed to realize there was nothing he could do to stop us, because he woke us up two days before move in.

“Ram, Cody, get up,” he said as he walked into our room on Wednesday, flipping the light on even though the room was bright enough from the sun. “Ramsy, Cody, get up, I need to speak with you both.”

I gave in before Ramsy and rolled over, glancing across the room at my sister’s bed. I knew she was awake by just looking at her, but she held off a little longer. I sat up, pushing my comforter down, and looked at my father. “What’s wrong, Charlie?” I asked, adjusting my tank top.

The dark haired man looked at me and then my stubborn sister and spoke. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I’ll drive you both down there, we’ll check out the campus, stay overnight in a hotel, and then I’ll help you get settled on Friday before I leave.”

I could see Ramsy’s surprise, even though she was still pretending to sleep. Not wanting to give her away, I took the lead on this, sliding my arms across my chest. “What about our truck? Can we drive it down with us?”

“I don’t want either of you driving that far-“

Ramsy shot up immediately, shooting her best glare at him. “If this is your way of apologizing for ignoring us this whole month you could at least let us take our car, Charlie. It’ll be safer than walking everywhere, when you really think about it.”

Ramsy knew how to get what she wanted and Charlie was seriously considering it. After a few quiet moments and watching both of our faces, he finally relented. “Fine, but Wesley will follow us down with it. Neither one of you are driving eight hours.”

I shot Ramsy a grin across the room and she matched it. “Fine,” she said, wiping it from her face quickly, “but just because we’re girls doesn’t mean we’re not as capable at driving as Wesley is.”

Charlie sighed and turned to leave, realizing he would never completely satisfy Ram. “We’ll leave around ten tomorrow. Make sure you’re ready to go.”

When he closed the door behind him, Ram grinned again and climbed into my bed with me. Neither one of us enjoyed the thought of leaving without Charlie on our side and now we’d finally won him over, even if he was doing it begrudgingly. We’d already started packing up our room, but we still had clothes to sort through, so we started going through our closet, separating the items into two piles. What originally belonged to me and what belonged to her.

When we got up the next morning, Ramsy was all smiles as she loaded some of our things into the vehicles. She was thrilled that we were taking both down so that we could fit another box or two in, but we didn’t bring much. Most of the items we were planning on buying when we arrived in Tuscaloosa.

I was still gathering my things together when Wesley leaned against the doorway. Ram brushed past him with a bag of clothes, hitting him with a snarky comment about standing around all useless when we were trying to pack.

“Someone already roped me into driving all the way down there,” he retorted, calling after her down the hall. "I think I'm doing enough, Ram!"

I looked up at him to make sure he wasn’t really bothered by it. He was smiling, so I figured he was just messing around. “Thanks for doing it,” I said, shoving my chargers and laptop into my satchel. “Honestly, I’m really glad we’re going to have the truck down there.”

“Me too,” he answered, shouldering through the doorway and dropping onto Ram’s made bed. He settled his green eyes on me as I made sure I had everything. “Are you alright, Code? You kind of look like you’re going to throw up.”

I shot him a look. “I’m fine, just ready to get going. The idea of all of us driving down there makes me a little nervous,” I admitted. I dropped down onto my bed and just looked at my brother.

“If it makes you feel any better, at least Grandma Esther isn’t coming.”

I rolled my eyes, but had to admit that his lame joke did make me feel less nervous.

“Are you scared about being so far from home?” Wes continued, righting himself on the bed. “I mean, it’s fine to be nervous. Just because Ramsy’s ready to run away as quickly as she can doesn’t mean you have to be right up there with her. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“I want to go. It’s just feels surreal right now.” I offered a smile that I hoped would reassure him and got up, stepping over his legs to get to our dwindling pile of boxes. There were only two more small ones, so Wesley and I grabbed them and headed out to the sound of Ramsy’s voice.

She was in the living room arguing with Esther.

“When I tell you to do something, you do it, Ramsy Carrigan,” Grandma said, her arms crossed over her chest as the two of them stared each other down, “and when I tell you to focus on school, you better do that too.”

“I will, but there will be other things to-“

“Don’t think I don’t know what ‘other things’ you’re talking about,” Esther shot back, glaring at her. “I was young once too. Don’t you think I wished I could run off and mingle with southern boys? But you listen here-” She seemed to just notice me at the edge of the room, because she looked at me too, directing her words to us, “just because you’re eight hours away doesn’t mean I won’t have your father send Wesley down there to yank those boys right off of you. You’re going there to learn and that’s it, so don’t you dare think you can run wild now that you’re out of this house.”

“Don’t worry,” I mollified. “We’re going there for school. There’s no need to send Wesley down because there won’t be any boys.”

“Damn right there won’t be,” she answered, giving us another hard look before she started mumbling to Ramsy about her attitude and how she needed to keep more than her mouth shut.

Ram rolled her eyes and followed Wes and I out to the car. Charlie was standing near his, smoking a cigarette, and his eyes landed on us when we walked out. He didn’t say anything, he just watched as we stuffed the last boxes into the back of his car and then rearranged a few things, deciding that the heavier stuff could go in the bed of the truck.

“Code, can you get the rope out of the shed?” Wesley asked. He was standing up on the truck, trying to situate a small bedside table and a box of our shoes between a container of clothes and our lamp.

I nodded and jogged around the back of the house to the little red shed that we used to play in as kids. Although it was packed with the riding lawn mower and other yard supplies now, the three of us used to claim it as our own little house and we’d camp out here pretending we were out in the woods on our own somewhere. And even when Wes got too old and decided it wasn’t cool anymore, he would sneak out to us when it got dark and stay the night to fend off all of the scary things.

I glanced at the old toys that had been stored here and forgotten about and then pulled the rope from the wall, untying the knot that kept it together. Dad was gone when I emerged back around the house, but Ram was giving Wesley instructions and he was vehemently ignoring her. I tossed him one end of the rope and we began feeding it through the truck as Ramsy dictated.