How to be Wild

[Knightofsloth707]

She needed to go, now. To put as much distance between her and him as possible. Every second she was here, was a second she wasn't getting farther away, escaping his reach.

"No, you need to go," he said, his voice rising. "Pack your things, take the truck, and go."

He knew what he needed to say next, but the words caught in his throat. He forced them out.

"And never come back."

 

[WretchRoad]

Her fingers twitched, wanting to reach for him, to ask if it was all a cruel game, or a joke, because this Daniel was not the one who danced with her to old love songs in the livingroom, he couldn't possibly be the one who's affectionate touches stirred her heart all week long.

The urge came and went. Her fingers curled into fists.

She was eighteen years old, standing on the highway, terrified.

She was wiping tears from her eyes, watching Denise run out into the pasture toward the lifeless heaps in the grass.

She was right there, finally able to recognize that what she felt was love, unable to say it.

No more words came for fear of choking on them. Ash turned stiffly, and marched in the door, each step feeling like lead, like that day she first walked toward the truck.

She didn't question why he wanted her to take it, why he wanted her gone immediately. That would require words she just didn't have.

Every bit of strength went into holding back tears as she gathered her few belongings from Daniel's room, trying not to look at the bed they shared the night before. Trying not to think about how he took the one thing she was afraid of giving away — herself. And in return, all she had was the aching memory and the lingering smell of him on the shirt she was still wearing.

She tore it off, throwing it across the room.

Ash didn't have a driver's license and barely any money to her name, but that didn't matter. She needed to leave, to get away from that place as quickly as possible. She moved as though she could outrun the twisting pain in her chest, the feeling of being split in two.

She didn't look at him when she passed him by on the way to the truck, her backpack stuffed and slung over one shoulder. Her eyes glazed over, she watched the middle distance as she started the engine and forced it into gear. Hitting the gas, the truck lurched out of the garage and through the overgrown grass before peeling out and onto the dirt path. Away from him.

 

[Knightofsloth707]

Daniel held it together while Ash started up the truck, his face an impassive mask. She drove it down the long corridor of oaks, around the bend, and out of sight.

Then he was bent double, tears streaming down his face. He clutched his chest, his breath coming in heaving bursts. His insides felt like they were filled with broken glass.

Roland issued a confused whimper, his gaze switching between Daniel and the place where the truck had disappeared from sight.

Daniel tried to control his breathing through the pain. He stood upright, wiping his face on his shirt. With bleary eyes he walked inside.

He walked about the house, purposeless, wandering from room to room. He stumbled into the kitchen, his eyes fixing on the dishes still set on the table, adorned with their cold breakfast.

He was filled with a sudden rage. He grabbed the plate off the table, hurling it against the wall where it exploded, food and shards of ceramic flying in every direction.

An inarticulate growl issued from his throat as he launched a chair against the cabinets next, the sharp clattering echoing throughout the house.

Breathing hard, he stalked into the great room. The sight of the record player, where they had first danced together, shifted his unstable mood once again.

He sank into a chair, a hand draped over his eyes.

He had sent away the only woman he had ever loved, and broken her heart while he was at it. The look on her face as she'd marched away was burned into the back of his eyelids.

He stumbled to the liquor cabinet, pouring himself a tall glass of whiskey. The burning liquid joined the roiling knot in his gut.

He poured another.

 

[WretchRoad]

The trees whipped by as she barrelled down the old road, the ancient truck quaking over every bump and crack. She pressed down on the gas, wrenched the gear shift into third, then fourth. A thick cloud of dust followed in her wake.

The tears started as soon as he was out of the rearview and didn’t stop. They ran down her cheeks in fine rivulets, dripping off her chin and staining her shirt. Through bleary eyes she could barely make out the path ahead, not until a bright red sign flashed by.

The sound of a horn rose and fell.

She slammed on the brakes, the front of the truck coming to a halt as the back swung wide, fishtailing in a wide arc that burned rubber against the hot pavement.

Fists pounded the steering wheel. She screamed.

-

The pharmacy was a sterile, stark white so bright it hurt her eyes. It felt like a dreamspace after ten days on the old property, long enough she nearly forgot that places like that existed. Or maybe that was the dream and this was reality, hauling her back down to the world where she was alone, where she had nothing.

Ash wiped her eyes on her sleeve before she approached the counter. “I need plan B,” she said — the first cracked words that came from her lips since before Daniel told her to leave and never come back.

“How long has it been?” the elderly clerk asked, eyeing Ash over his glasses.