Chapter 2 The Trip

A Chapter by Christine T

The ride to Missouri, midpoint until they reach Colorado.

The window was down, causing my hair to blow everywhere around my face. I was pretty content in the position I was sitting in, my legs were propped up on the dashboard and I had my seat set back a little bit. We have been driving for at least five hours, it was around 12:00 and I haven’t said anything to my mother so far. Then that changed, “Heidi…..I am really sorry for all this, I didn’t mean to make you upset, and I’m not trying to ruin your life. I really wish you would talk to me, the trip would be so much easier if you did.”I stayed silent and looked ahead of me as if she said nothing, keeping a stern look on my face. “Please Heidi, this is really hurting our relationship”, she said pleadingly. Then I said the first words to my mother in about three weeks, “Mom, I had to leave all of my friends and a school I actually liked because you thought it would be better for us. Are you sure that you were thinking about me, or were you just thinking that you needed to get away from all the memories that dad left in that house?” I asked coldly. The car then fell silent, I couldn’t help but wonder where we were going, we seemed to have gotten off somewhere onto a dirt road. “Mom, where are you going exactly?” “The car is running out of gas, there was a sign saying there was a gas station this way, doesn’t look very promising does it.”, she responded. As soon as she said that, we came up to an old building that looked like it was ready to fall apart. The gas pumps looked like they weren’t used for years; I would be surprised if they still worked. On the front porch there was an old dirty looking man sitting in a rocking chair with a classic styled coca-cola drink in his hand. He was wearing worn out jean overalls that were torn at the knees, and brown untied boots. If you looked close enough, it looked like there were flies in the air around him. From the car you couldn’t see much of his face. The hat he was wearing blocked most of his face, wanting to keep the sun out of his eyes I presumed.

“Mom, are you sure this is a safe place, that guy makes me feel pretty uneasy, I don’t know if you should get out of the car. We could go somewhere else you know.” My mom looked at me and rolled her eyes, left the car anyway and walked over to the man. I put the window down so I could hear what was being said. As my mom approached the old man, he looked up. He had what looked like a 5 o-clock shadow and his mouth was wide open with some missing teeth. It looked like he just woke up. The I heard my mom speak.

“Hello, I would like to purchase some gas, may I do that?” The man was silent for a few moments and then finally responded,” Darn right, you cans order some gas, just do it like you normal do, I reckon it’s simple.” My mother then came back over to the car and parked it in front of the closest gas pump. While my mom was pumping the gas the old man asked where we were headed and what area, when he found out where, he got interesting. “Why are you moving to streaming woods, lots of crazy stuff there, and the Schmerz live there.” “I had no choice that’s where the job offering was, why are the Schmerz so bad?” The man than responded with,” Oh you’ll find out why there so bad, once you meet them, which you better hope you don’t.” My mother seemed to not have questioned him, guessing it was for the best, once she was done she thanked the man and paid him. “You take care sir, thanks for the gas” The man laughed obnoxiously and said,” Ha, I’ll take care better than you will, you are the one who will need to take care.” The car door slammed shut making me snap out of my zoning off to what he said. Instead of asking my mother if she heard what he said, I went back to my comfortable position prepared for another quiet ride.

I sat in my seat wondering if I should forgive my mom, if the house was big and exciting I would so forgive her, but she never showed me any pictures, I was in for a surprise. For the first time in awhile I broke the silence asking my mom when the school in Colorado started. For a minute my mom was shocked at my question, but then put a mellow look on her face and said,” Well, It starts in the end of August; you still have another few weeks off from school.” Well that was the first good news in 3 weeks; I was delighted to know I still had a few weeks before school started again. “Mom, I’m still upset with all that has happened, and I apologize for hitting the sensitive area about dad. It’s just, that house is all I had left of him, the memories, sometimes I forget his voice and I feel horrible about it.” I said feeling like I was about to cry. “Oh it’s alright, I would have been pretty mad myself, it did hurt to not have my daughter talking to me for so long but, I’m glad we’re talking now.” “Same.” I responded. After driving for another couple miles we decided to take a rest stop and let Sally out for a stretch. When we stopped, we both took turns using the restroom and watching the dog, when we were done we had a bite to eat. My mother had packed sandwiches, I’m glad she did because I was hungry for one. We then headed back on route, it seemed to have gone by fast cause before I knew it we were at the motel parking lot pulling in. “Wow mom where did you find this place, most haunted.” “Oh come on, you say that to everything.” As we got out of the car I noticed a bar directly across the street, or at least I think it was a bar, there were a lot of cars and bikes parked outside. On the deck of the building I saw a guy leaning on the post looking in my direction, from what I could see he was young and tall, hopefully around my age, I was 16 turning 17 very soon. Since I was curious I sent an innocent, shy wave towards him, to my surprise he waved back. I felt my cheeks blush and turned around so I could follow my mom inside. My mother told the lady that we had a room reserved for one night under the name of Kelle. Once we had our key, we took what we needed inside the room. The room didn’t look that bad, it had two beds and one TV. We were only staying for one night, so it wasn’t that bad. “Mom, I’m going to take Sally out for a walk and stretch, I want to see if I can spot someone.” “Okay, looking for the boy I presume? I saw you wave to him, he probably has a room here, and he might be around. Just be careful.” “Don’t worry mom, I have Sally.”

I headed out the door and went to the back of the motel where I located a mini play ground and a covered up outside pool. The first thing I spotted in the playground was the swings; I walked over and sat on one. Taking a deep breath I thought to myself, why is it so boring, no one around, no one to talk to. Sally whimpered and looked at me with her brown eyes. I didn’t bother swinging I just silently looked at the stars; you couldn’t see them exposed like this in Virginia. “It’s beautiful isn’t it?” an unknown voice said. Oh my goodness it’s him. “Hi, what brings you here?” I asked shyly. “Well, you looked kind of lonely, I thought I would say hello.” I stared up at him and noticed that he had medium length dirty blonde hair, with deep blue eyes, I almost got lost in them. “Well, huh, hello.”

“My name is Brian, may I ask what your name is?” He held out his hand to me.

“Mine is Heidi, and this is my dog Sally.” I took his and shook it.

“Very nice name, what brings you out here?”

“Well, I’m in the process of moving to Colorado, we came from Virginia.”

“Oh that’s cool; I live in Streaming woods, Colorado. We always visit Maine over the summer.”

“No way, you live in Streaming Woods? That’s where I live now!”I said.

“Really now, so you are the ones who bought the house that has been for sale for so long.” He said and sat down on the swing next to me.

“I guess so, the company my mom is with found the house for her. I’m glad to have met someone from there.”

“I’m glad to have been the first person you’ve met from that area.” He said this with a smile, which made my heart sink to my stomach; we talked for what seemed like forever, when in reality it was only 20 minutes. “Well, I better get going Heidi, I will see you in school or the neighborhood, and I’ll make sure of it.” With that said he gave me one last look with a smile and walked away. When I went back to the room, my mom was watching television and looked up at me as I walked in. “Did you have a good time?” “Yep, I sure did.” I got changed and crawled into bed, when I looked at the clock it was 9:30, and I decided to try and fall asleep. My last thoughts were, maybe this move wasn’t such a bad idea after all, but there is something that’s still not right.