"Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing, and there's so much to smile about." -Marilyn Monroe
I walked from the airport into the freezing cold rain, only my powder blue jumpsuit with a white t-shirt covering my body. I had nothing else with me but $500, the money I had saved up in order to one day run away from the hell hole I used to call a home. I had finally had enough. Tonight--well, last night; now it was two thirty in the morning--I couldn't even go to sleep in my bed. I was up all night thinking about my poor mother in that stupid mental institution, probably in a straightjacket. I kept envisioning her in one of those padded, square rooms, the walls getting smaller and smaller until she finally couldn't breathe, suffocated and died.
I jerked my eyes open. I had this dream every night.Then I had smelled my stupid brother's pot smoke leaking in from the hallway under my door and up my nose, and heard my father giggling in the bedroom next door with some woman who wasn't my mother. Some--nightwalker--that he had paid to spend the night with him and make him "happy" again. What I didn't understand was while he was selling all that cocaine and meth to people, why he didn't just smoke that stuff himself? It would've given him the exact same kind of "happiness" he got from those disgusting women.
I heard my father in the next room giggling with his homewrecker-for-the-night and I had had it. I got out of bed, put on some clothes, grabbed my $500 saved up in a sock under my bed and walked out. My dad's bedroom door was closed and he was too distracted to hear me get out of bed and walk down the hall. And it was pitiful how easy it was to sneak by Brandon's room. He was so jacked up on weed, he was too preoccupied with a spider to hear me walk down the hall. I walked down the stairs and through the living room. I opened the door and walked outside, letting the noise of Brooklyn, New York fill my ears and the cool wind hit my face. And now here I was.
Standing outside of an airport in Port Angeles, Washington, shivering by how cold it was. I figured I needed a ride, but hardly anyone was here. I didn't have my cell phone on me; it would've been too easy for my dad to find me if I took it. I looked around and the only person I saw who could possibly give me a ride was some buff dude with dark, curly hair. He was sitting inside of his cherry red Jeep Wrangler, talking on his cell phone with somebody. I took a deep breath and walked up to his car. He didn't notice me approach, so I had to knock on the driver side window.
He looked up and frowned at me. I saw him say, "Hold on, one moment," without peeling his eyes off of mine. He then rolled down the window and said, "Can I help you?" He was obviously a little taken aback.
"Hi," I started confidently. "Is there any way I can get a ride?" I asked. He blinked at me and then let his face relax a little.
"What the hell," he said, starting to smile a little. "Get in." I smiled and walked over to the other side of the car and slid into the passenger seat. He held the phone back up to his ear and started talking to the person once again. "Carlisle, I think I'm gonna be home a little later than I thought," he told the person on the other line. "Alright," he said. "I'll see you later." He then hung up his phone and smiled at me, and that was when I realized how stunningly beautiful he was. His teeth practically glowed in the dark and they were so straight, I was almost positive they had to be sharp. "Hi there," he said in a voice that was one of the most magnificently intriguing ones I had ever heard in my life.
"Hi," I repeated. He started the car and we began driving out of the airport. As soon as we were on the road however, he began driving like a maniac. I was positive he was going more than twice the speed limit and was barely stopping at the red lights, but I didn't say anything. I simply raised my eyebrows and watched the humble town pass.
"So where to, little lady?" he asked, looking away from the road to smile at me. I shrugged and looked at him.
"Take me as far as you can go," I requested. He gave a mischievous smile.
