Lie Until You Laugh

1- Prologue

When I get downstairs, they're screaming at each other in the living room. My mom is still crying and he is still yelling. The living room is on one side of the house but the kitchen is on the other side with the dining room and office space in the middle, where the stairs let out. They don't hear me and he is hitting her, so he doesn't notice me as I tip toe through the office and then the dining room. When I get into the kitchen, I grab a plastic back and with my shaky hands, I manage to fill it with food from the kitchen. It takes a minute because of my shaky hands, but I manage and then I run outside from the backdoor.

Our house is big, so it's a long walk from the back door to the front where my car is parked, so I run because if I take too long, he'll catch me. They're still in the living room and he'll be able to see my car from the windows, but I hope that if he sees me, he won't have enough time to stop me. With that in mind, I sprint from the edge of the house to my car and I throw myself in the driver side before taking a few minutes to find the ignition with my shaky hand.

"Come on," I sob pleadingly at my shaky hand to get the key into the ignition, and then finally, it makes it. I twist the key and my car fires up. I don't know where I'm going but I can't figure that out now, so I back out of the driveway and speed down the street, leaving my home in the back ground.

I know they might think of it as selfish, but I'm coming back. When I come back, I'll have an answer to all of this. I'll make their pain go away.

I don't know how long I'm driving until I realize that there's a car right behind me, and the car is really close to me- strangely close. I squint to see past the headlights and then let out a loud screech when I realize that it's his car and he's the one behind the wheel. He followed me and now he's going to catch me.

I'm not going down without a fight though.

With that thought repeating in my head, I press on the gas pedal and floor it forward, intertwining with all of the other cars on the two-lane road. Somebody honks at me and I feel bad, but it's for a good cause, so I don't stop. I have to get rid of him.

Panic starts to rise inside of me, fighting in my stomach and I start to cry. It doesn't help at all with my driving because my vision becomes blurry and unclear, but I keep driving forward, frequently looking back to see where he is and if he's still following me. He is.

I turn onto the highway and try to blend in with the rest of the cars so that he doesn't see me take the turn onto the on ramp, but he does and turns onto it behind me. He's going to catch me and all I can do is cry about it.

I push the gas again, afraid that if I get caught, I won't be able to protect my sister and my mother, and I have to save them from this horror story that is our life. I swerve in front of a semi-truck that obstructs his view of me just long enough for me to slip off of the highway and onto a main road that seems to lead to nothing. I don't mind though, because when I look behind me, I see that he passes the exit, which means he didn't see me get off. I did it. I'm safe. Well, I'm safe for now.

I decide to wait a while before getting back on the highway and while I wait, I pull up a map and find the quickest route from Georgia to California. I'm on the right highway, but I have to go the other way, westward. I wait for two hours in my car to make sure that he is gone and probably not going to find me, and then I get back on the highway going west this time.

I drive through the night, until it's five in the morning and I'm almost out of gas. After I fill up the tank at a gas station off of the highway, I realize that it won't be safe if I keep driving because I'm so tired, so I park across the street from the gas station, at a truck stop. I know that it's not safe, but I don't really have a choice right now. I park as far away from the trucks as I can and then crawl into the backseat of my car. Even with my paranoia about everything, it's easy for me to fall into a deep sleep considering how exhausted I am.

I wake up at ten, so I only got five hours asleep which is already too much. I need to keep driving. I don't have time for sleep. As I get back on the highway still going west, I shuffle through the bag of food I grabbed from the house. It's full with food, but it still isn't a lot considering it's all I have to drive across the country on. I have my emergency money, but I need that for gas so I'm going to have to eat this food slowly.

As I'm driving with one hand, I split the food into ten days, assuming that I can get to California in that time, and I see that I can have an apple a day along with a granola bar. It works out well- an apple for lunch and a granola bar for dinner. I have water and if I run out, I can find a water fountain somewhere or buy a jug of water or something, so that's not an issue. I can really do this if I think it through the right way.

I drive through the day until it's midnight. I find comfort in listening to the radio and singing along with the songs out loud. My own voice is the only one that I have to hear until I reach California. The only reason I have to leave my car is to get gas and pee. I'll eat and sleep in my car and I'll pee and get gas occasionally at a gas station. It will suck, I won't lie, but it'll be worth it if I can reach my destination and seek the help that we so desperately need, me, my mom, and Jo.

Yeah, it definitely sucks, but it's what I have to do. I have to be strong. I have to do what's right.