I couldn’t believe how at-home I felt in His car. Just sitting in the passenger’s seat, staring out the window. Occasionally He would clear his throat, about to speak, but He never did. When He did speak, His voice was quiet and smooth. We drove for hours. The radio played pop songs. I paid no mind to them, lost in thought. I couldn’t muster up the courage to ask Him the question I had wanted to ask all along; why He had left me and mom right after dad had gone to prison. But now mom had also gone into prison, drugs having taken over her life. And I was stuck with Him; a twenty-three year old typical white boy. And I was anything but typical. I couldn’t believe that I was even related to Him. He had milky brown hair and grey eyes, having inherited dad’s looks. I had straight as a pole blonde hair and green eyes, having inherited Mom’s looks.
“Are you hungry?” He asked all of a sudden.
“No,” I replied. Honest, I was starving, but I just wanted to get to home. No, not home. It was all temporary until mom got out of prison. Temporary, that’s what she called it. The last time I had seen her was in the prison.
“Your living with your brother is only temporary. I’ll be out in a few years,” She had said. And I had believed every word. Now I realized this was anything except temporary. I would never see my mother again. She had been sentenced for life. Why, I wasn’t sure. He seemed to know. He said He would explain everything when the time came. I had come to know him as Matthew. Or “your brother” as people had referred to Him as in the court. I had tried my best to avoid an occasion that I had to use His name. It just didn’t seem natural. Yet here I was, laying down on the declined chair. I closed my eyes and felt the car heater blast the side of my body. He had no blankets in his car. So I had draped my jacket over my thin shoulders, earphones in, listening to a playlist of my favorite songs on my phone. The phone was cheap and crappy. It had come free with mom’s cell service plan. I looked in the back seats. My bag of stuff was sitting there. It held all my stuff, which wasn’t very much. Mom had wasted all her money on drugs and alcohol. She barely had enough food for herself, so I was very malnourished. She had told me all my life that the parents came before the child because without the parents the child wouldn’t be there. When this to Him, He looked at me with very serious eyes, as if contemplating what I had just said.
“That’s not right,” He had said. Now I looked over at Him. So focused on the road, as if the world depended on it. I hadn’t known my brother very much. He had been sent to boarding school when I was merely five. And then, when He graduated at the age of eighteen, He moved out and lived on His own. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. We still had quite a few hours left in our journey, and I just wasn’t comfortable sleeping in front of him.
“I’m going to the back,” I told Him. I unbuckled my seatbelt and crawled through the middle to the backseat. I buckled the seatbelt and began searching through my bag. I wasn’t quite sure what I was searching for. I just wanted to seem busy to avoid conversation with Him. I eventually found an old worn-out blanket I had slept with since I was three. I curled up into a ball, my small frame barely taking up the seat. It was hard to believe I was sixteen. I looked twelve. Other than being 5’5, you honestly couldn’t tell.
“We’ll reach my house by morning. For now I’m going to stop at a hotel so we can sleep for the night. I can get us separate rooms, if you’d like,” I heard Him speak up from the front seat.
“One room is fine,” I replied. “As long as it has two beds and a curtain in between.” I heard Him laugh. A deep laugh.
“Anything else, m’lady?” He asked jokingly.
“No, that will be all,” I replied, unintentionally answering His humor. I heard Him laugh. About fifteen minutes later we stopped at the hotel. It was a nice place, the exact opposite of the run-of-the-mill place Mom and I had stayed at the one time we went on vacation to the lake. Now we were far away from the lake. We were far away from anything I had ever known. But I don’t know it anymore. Because I have left that life behind.
Realistic Fiction
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Sorry I’m new to NoahWriting and I’m not sure if I can edit the post after posting it, so if anyone catches a mistake or has suggestions, I’m always open to constructive criticism!
Welcome! If you ever want to edit a piece you already posted, just go to your profile, and look for the edit button t the bottom right of each post.
Thank you so much!
This keeps me on the edge of my seat. Just curious why is the guy she with addressed as Him and not him? GREAT JOB!
I made it like that so it seems like she isn’t too happy about using his name
Oh, well that’s a great idea!
Thank you!