If You Leave - Leonardo DiCaprio

0.1

I couldn't help but question why my mom decided to pick up and leave. She never really told me anything, just walked into our room and told me to grab my shit and get in the car.

I wasn't sure what she was planning after her vague instructions, so I went along with it. I didn't take much. I thought we'd come back.

That happened when I was 11, I'm 16 now. Still not sure what was going through her head. We'd lived different kinds of places as long as I can remember, none of them were really ours.

We lived with my dad for a while. He always said he'd come find me when he could. I was still waiting. Mom was always the one to leave.

We lived with my grandparents, stayed for a couple years. Left.

Lived with my Uncle Georgie and his wife Ruby for a couple months. Left.

Had actually been invited by Aunt Doris to stay until mom could get back up on her feet and get a real job. Stayed three weeks that time.

After that we'd occasionally "stop in" to see family across the country but ended up staying for a while. It was no secret my mom was a nuisance. And I guess that made me one too.

When we'd exhausted all of our options on the family route, it was shady Motel 6s, Red Roof Inns, and if we were desperate, our old car. But that only happened a couple of times, mom almost always had money on her.

I still don't know where mom got her money from, and I don't care to know at this point.

"Kate, get a move on we gotta go." She'd said. I felt a smack on the back of the head as a pillow covered my face.

"Jesus Christ, where are we going now?" I sat up, throwing the pillow to the end of the bed. She bounced around the room throwing everything she owned into her ratty old suitcase.

"Don't take that tone with me, I'll leave you here if you don't hurry it up!" She shrilled. It's not that she was excited, or angry, she was just that. Shrill.

"Trust me, I'd love it if you left me here." I mumbled. I looked down at my bare nails, picking the skin around them.

"What did you just say to me?" She narrowed her beady brown eyes at me. " Nothing." I answered. Her jaw clenched a little, looking like she could bust a tooth if she wasn't careful enough.

"I'd love it if we got to go back to California, you think we can do California?" She questioned and made her way to me. I shrugged my shoulders. I stood in front of the chest. She carefully packed her "treasures" as she called them. The "treasures" were costume jewlery, and not pretty at that.

"Fuck, Kate I don't have all day, get some clothes on, put your shit in the suitcase and lets go!" She sped up her packing and slammed the case closed.

I could stay, couldn't I? It wouldn't be hard to live by myself. Not like mom really takes that much care of me now.

"Screw it. I can't find my other shoe!" She said. I threw my stuff into my suitcase and tried to match her pace. I walked in front of the mirror in the bathroom to take my toiletries. Mom walked up behind me and looked into the reflection. "Thatta, girl." She said. She put a hand on my face-squeezing the crap out of my cheeks. I shrugged away and threw more stuff in my purse.

"You know, you'd be prettier if you didn't look so much like your damn father." She said as if she wasn't trashing her highly impressionable daughter's dad.

We rushed to the parking lot and searched for the car. "What the fuck, I left it right here!" Mom gestured to the empty space. "You don't think someone jacked it, do you?" She placed her hands on her hips and breathed deeply.

"Fuck it, we're going to the bus. They'll see how long that piece of shit'll last for them."

I mentally groaned and we walked down the shady streets of Manhattan. The sky was filled with clouds, not one bit of sunlight shone through. The air nipped at your face like a bunch of small sharp teeth. My scarf was wrapped around my neck and mouth, the tip of my nose exposed. My hat was pulled down over my ears but it didn't help much.

I know my dad wouldn't have made me move all the time. Granted I hadn't gotten to speak to him in years because of my mom, I just know he wouldn't want this life for me.

Finally, we made it to the bus station. It was a Friday morning, and the place was slammed. Mom elbowed her way through the crowd to get to the window.

"When's the next bus outta here?" She demanded. The clerk looked at the schedule. "Philadelphia, 12 o'clock noon."

She checked her watch to discover it was 11:57 and eagerly grabbed her money out of the janky old coin purse and slapped it into the clerks hand in a wad. "Two, please." She beamed.

He gave her the tickets and we waited outside with the packed queue of people headed the same way we were.

The same way she was.

I'm not going.

I mean, could I stay? I could do this! Right? I could stay here, and start my journey to find my dad. Easy right?

The bus pulled up and I stood my ground as the crowd of people pushed forward inside.

Just as I suspected, she never looked back for me. She sat on the bus, talking to the empty space that used to be me. I hurried inside the station as rain started to fall.

The bus eased out of the station and merged in with traffic. Not once did she look back.

I expected to feel relief as I watched her leave. The same weight on my shoulders remained. I wasn't sad she was gone, I wasn't exactly happy either. I know she'll be fine.

And hey, she likes to do the leaving, right? At least she got to leave.