Little Bird

Chapter Three

I zip my coat as I charge down the porch stairs, knocking Penny off her feet. Gabe is no where to be seen, but I don't stop to look for him. A slight wave of guilt washes through me. Or maybe that's fear. I'm not sure. I hop into the old pickup truck and slam the door, jamming the keys in the ignition. I've only had a few driving lessons given half-heartedly by Mave who is 19 and just recieved her full-out liscense, and my mind is racing as I try to remember how to work the thing. I press buttons and push the levers at my feet until I feel myself gliding backwards and after a moment of panic, instinct takes over.

I wheel out of the driveway, leaving swirving tracks in my wake, and drive down the road. I'm clinging to the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles are white. My breath is escaping in qick gasps of moist, foggy air, dissolving into the cold and leaving little droplets of water on the scarf around my neck.

The snow is pounding the windsheild and creating a white curtain across my field of view. I squint my eyes and press forward, a little faster.

My heart is racing and sending electric waves of adrenaline through my blood.

I feel like I'm driving into a white and grey tunnel, entering a portal into the future, or maybe the past, when all was right with the world. When we would have summer barbeques and bonfires, when Mom would bring Dad a beer and rub her hands down his back, when Gabe and I would dash through the lawn, kicking a soccer ball between us. Or blowing bubbles, quivering cylindrical rainbows rising into the air.

My fingers are turning red and I grip the steering wheel harder. I gasp, suddenly. It's as if I've been underwater and have finally broken through the surface. A new wave of hot anger coated with hopelessness and fear rolls into my mouth and fills my lungs, stinging my throat.

I push on.

Suddenly, the car stops. The engine is going and I am basically standing on the pedals, but I'm not moving forward. I open the door and as soon as I step out of the car I sink to my waist in a drift of snow.

I moan in frusration and thrash through the drift until I have moved myself forward and am standing in snow only half-way up my calves. I stop and stare at the tuck, hopelessly. It's stuck in the drift. I walk around the back and press my red-mittened hands to the frozen metal, grunting and trying to push it forward. I try again and again, and my attempts become more desperate and short-lived.

The sky is turning a darker grey. I walk back around to the side of the truck to see if I've made any progress. No such luck. In fact, now the truck is even facing a little bit downwards, the nose beginning to bury itself into the drift. The snow is falling around me and I feel like I am the only person in the world. The wind slaps at my face with it's frigid fingers, leaving frigid, stinging fingerprints in its wake. I let it. I deserve it.

I walk around the truck again, careful not to step in snow that will suck me in and trap me again. I brush the snow from my jeans and lean against the back of the truck. I wrap my arms around myself and close my eyes.

I hope Gabe went inside and saw the lasagna sitting on the counter and put it in the oven and fed it to Penny and Mom. I hope Mave is the one who took Rosie with her. I hope this is all a dream.

I imagine myself standing in the snow, becoming colder until all my blood runs blue and my skin freezes and my lips chap and are splattered with blood, and the snow collects in the folds of my jacket, my ears, my open mouth, my eyelashes. With every pathetic pump of my heart, the life drains out of me, and my vision blurs to a blinding, blank white. They'd find me in the morning, and they would say, "That poor girl," but what they wouldn't know is that I'm better off now than I ever was, and I'm moaning in their ears, a ghost, a gust of wind, "You poor, poor people. I'm happy now."

I open my eyes, find that I'm still leaning against the truck, still breathing, and it is dark. I wade through the snowdrift and clamber back into the car, my joints stiff and my fingers frozen. My teeth vibrate against each other and my breaths come out quick and choppy. I close the door and turn on the heat. I lean against the backrest of the seat and close my eyes, waiting to dethaw.

Warm air blasts through the heating vents. The world is dark. I can only pray that this is a nightmare.