Chapter Three
Once Daniel and I were alone, the silence was defining. Daniel shook his head, his dark auburn hair stirred from one side to the other. His mane fell lightly over his eyes, partially blinding them from my stares. They were the only thing that gave me any notion to his thoughts. I turned my stare down, and rested my forehead on the table, bleach stung my nose. Burning the inside of my nostrils, I felt the buildup and quickly let out a sneeze.
Everyone made fun of me when I sneezed. Some thought I sounded like a cat letting out a quick and sudden Meow. More like a Mew… I guess. I kept my head down; I felt his soft hand lay against the back my neck. I recoiled from the touch and shoot straight up. My back must have been as straight as a post. Daniel’s hand was frozen mid-air from where it had lain on my back. I closed my eyes and my face tensed.
“Why are you even with Damien if this is how he makes you feel?” Daniel asked, his words were soft but you could tell from the way he asked it there was more to the question. Worse part was I didn’t know what. I opened my eyes and shoot daggers at him.
“You think I’m with him? Everyone knows we aren’t dating.” I spat back. I didn’t understand the harshness of my words; I never spoke like this to anyone. I was always quiet and did what I was told; it was just easier that way. I don’t know, I guess I am one of those people that don’t like conflict, that look in someone’s eyes when there mad, and you know there mad at you.
I shrink back into my skin, and curl to the center of my body, leaving the exterior to rot and wither, to dry up and coil at anything or person that touches me. The inside burns strong though. The heat grows, the burning sensation of fury and courage; but that never comes out, it has just been growing and growing. For years and years and for some reason I am taking my anger out on this guy. Why you may ask? I didn’t know him at the time; he was a stranger, a nobody to me.
It was like when you talk to someone on Facebook, you will talk to some people that you don’t usually talk to online that you would never talk to in real life. It’s easier; you have less fear, because you don’t have to see their emotions and the way they act around you. It’s just words being written down online, you can add little happy faces sometimes or sad faces to express the main idea of your emotions. Yet people care less about it then. People getting together online and breaking up online, it’s easier, fewer emotions are shown.
Daniel stared at me dumb founded. I guess he didn’t expect that from me. He laughed lightly and rested his head in his hand. I pulled my feet up on the seat and wrapped my arms around my legs pressing them against my chest. He looked up at me.
“Then why does he treat you the way he does? Why do you let him?” His voice was still soft. I swallowed hard.
“It’s not as simple as letting him or not letting him. He… he forces me into this. He doesn’t give me a choice. And why don’t I stop him?” I stared straight into his dark eyes then. I would show my strength. I would show my courage, but only to him. “Believe me when I say, that I have tried. I have tried to push him away. I have tried to get him to leave me alone. But it is not that easy. Not when you have a town that is blind to what happens to their children and a father who doesn’t care about you. When it’s just me fighting for my freedom, small weak me. I can’t do much to stop him.”
“You’re fighting for your freedom?”
“What else am I trying to fight for?”
“Your life.”
“My life, my freedom. There’s no difference to me”
We got talking, and it was nice to actually talk to someone, someone that might be my first real friends in years. Yet I felt like there was something more there. The way he looked at me with such hope and the way it was so easy for me to make him smile. He was jittery like me but I could tell it was not because he was frigid or shy like me, it was because of me. I don’t know why, but there was this unspoken connection between us, like in the movies.
Personally I hated those movies. Sometimes I just had to watch them though, to pretend I was the girl and I was dating the guy. They made me believe that maybe I could have that one day. That un-fore spoken love that you just know what it means. You know by just looking into his eyes, that he was the one you would kill yourself for. The one person were life would mean nothing without them.
Sometimes I would throw the movies to the other side of my father and mines trailer. They make me feel so alone sometimes. Like I will never have what they have, that that is not reality, and it that type of love is just in movies. It’s not like it was love at first sight though. I didn’t love him, I didn’t know what the connection was but I knew that connection was there.
Our food came eventually and we had Damien’s sent back. We ate in silence again; our whole world seemed stuck between our silence and the moment we felt we couldn’t stop talking. We probably would have sat there all night talking until the waitress had brought our food.
When we finished our meal, he paid the bill and we walked to his car. Daniel walked to the driver’s side and hopped in. Unlike Damien, he didn’t open my door for me, and unlike most people I was not offended I was actually quite happy. Damien always walked to my side opened my door and closed my door for me for one reason. Of course he thought I thought it was him being a gentleman, but I knew better. He did it so I had no choice but to get into his car, I didn’t get the choice to get a ride with someone else, or to get walk the other way. It was so he could control every part of my life.
I grinned and rested my hand on the door handle. Daniel was granting me this freedom. Yet and pushed down on the handle, opened the door and gently eased myself into his car. The car smelled like oranges and I noticed the orange coloured pine tree hanging on the review mirror. I moved my hand towards it and turned it around on the tip of my fingers. It was as rough as sand paper yet when I rubbed it when my thumb of softened and let out a strong fragrance of oranges.
Daniel starred at me contently. The tip of his mouth irked up. He moved his hands around the car, starting it and we back out and on to the main road.
“I know you don’t know me well, but can I take you somewhere?” Daniel asked. I let go of the air freshener and turned my gaze to him. He had asked me to go somewhere, he didn’t force me, he asked. I could tell that if I said no, he would take me home, but I thought about it, I didn’t want to go home. All that was there was a small plot of land with a trailer, were I slept on a couch and my father asked me to bring him beers all night, were my father got drunk and took his anger out on me.
“Sure” I said quietly. Daniel turned onto the highway and we drove out towards the cliffs. We lived on the prairie but in our county the land was very cryptic and different. You could look one way and there would be flat land, you would look the other way and there were hills, or a cliff, or a swamp, or even a forest. The cliffs were an area a lot of teens in our town hung out in the summer and winter. In the winter kids would sled down the sides of the cliff or just chill at the top of bottom. In the summer we would jump of the edge and place inflatable pools or a bunch of old mattresses at the bottom. The cliffs weren’t that high and the worst thing that had ever happened to anyone they was them breaking there leg.
Daniel turned into the parking lot and got out, I followed him and we walked to the edge of the closest cliff. The sky burned like bright lights, and colours flew with the wind. Crimson reds and blushing pinks. Daniels hand intertwined with mine, I glanced down at our hands, and they fit so perfectly. He held it loosely though as to say you can pull away if you want. My first instant was to pull away but I rested my palm in his large hand. Damien never gave me that option. For one night I decided to forget about Damien, for one night to let whatever happens, happen. We sauntered along the cliffs. Our hands clung strongly to each other’s, as if life meant nothing without this.
We sat down at the edge of a cliff further down the way. Our feet dangled over the edge, and I swung mine back and forth hitting against the side of the cliff breaking off small pieces and listening to them as they collided with the ground below. Our moment together that day had felt longer than life itself, yet we spent barely an hour there.
Daniel drove me home to my trailer. His frown knit his brow as we pulled up, the trailer and the small plot around it was covered in debris, tires, metals sheets and random car pieces covered our lot.
“My father fixes cars” I uttered, it was really the only thing he could still do these days. The only thing he could focus on when he was drunk. I got out of the car and went into the trailer. I didn’t say thank you, and didn’t even say good bye to Daniel. I had just gotten out of the car and went inside.
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