On the Run (Vagabonds #1)

by Jade C. Jamison

  It was time.

  I chose, at that moment, not to look out at all the bodies watching me. I already knew the place was crammed with people, and they’d already liked the Avenged Sevenfold song earlier, so they were warmed up for my music. This would be okay. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. The house lights were off, so that sea of bodies was now dark. No way would I be able to see much of anything.

  So I stood under the hot lights of the stage and arranged my fingers to do what they already knew how to do. Once I started playing, everything else washed away—the anxiety, the worry that no one would like my music, the fear, the dread…even the real me. I got lost in the music and allowed myself to feel the audience.

  Yeah, that was weird. I hadn’t known that there would be some sort of connection, but there was. I could tell that some people didn’t know what to think but there was another sensation mixed with it…and that was positive. Very positive. That feeling energized me so that I played that damn arrangement better than I ever had before. My fingers flew all over those strings and the playing I’d done over the past week, merely as a drill to make sure I could respond on cue and play without error, was forgotten. Tonight I was playing with renewed vigor and it was intuitive. It wasn’t rote playing; it wasn’t just playing the notes in order because they were written in that way. My mind and body felt that they belonged there, and I played them to complete the beauty of the songs.

  When I finished, I could still feel the vibration of the strings through my fingers when I heard the audience cheering and clapping. I looked up, grinning, and squinted, trying to see through the bright lights. I knew my mom and dad were out there somewhere, and I was happy about that, but I was even more thrilled that a lot of people—some who knew me and lots who didn’t—could appreciate my talent, even if it wasn’t their thing.

  God, it felt amazing.

  When I went backstage, I felt like a star—high fives, big smiles in the muted light filtering over the curtain. I went to the greenroom, guitar still hanging off my shoulder, and closed the door. One of my male classmates, a kid named Decker, said, “Holy shit, Summers. I didn’t know girls could play like that.” I smirked, because there was a long (though admittedly light) history of girls playing like that, but I was happy to bask in the glow. Before I could come up with a response, he asked, “How long you been playin’?”

  As I answered his question, I tried to remember what he’d been in the talent show for and then remembered that he and one of his friends, a guy standing behind him, were doing a comedy routine with magic tricks. By the time I’d finished the answer, there were other kids getting closer. I’d gotten more than I’d bargained for, it seemed, but I wasn’t complaining. I felt like a star.

  Chapter Four

  MY JOY WAS short lived. A shame too, because the high feeling was amazing, and it continued for a little while. At the end of the show, they had mini awards, like “Best Band,” “Best Skit,” and the like. Obviously, “Best Solo Guitarist” ensured it was mine, because no one else had done what I’d done, but I thought it was their way of honoring my contribution. I’d known people would respect my playing abilities; I had no idea it would be as well-received as it was.

  I looked for my parents as the audience and talent show kids and I made our way through the auditorium and out into the commons area of the school, but I couldn’t see them anywhere. I hung out in the lobby for a while and continued to get stopped by kids who told me how amazed they were with my playing. I felt so proud of it and wanted to see what my parents thought. I hoped they were proud too.

  The crowd began to dwindle, though, and no sight of my parents. I was beginning to feel a little worried, so I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. I didn’t have a text from either of them, but I sent one to my mom, asking her if they were waiting for me in the parking lot. After a few minutes and no response, I decided to head outside and was stopped by two more kids offering me congratulations.

  Decker walked up alongside me as I made my way down the steps away from the school and said, “Hey, we’re all heading to a party to celebrate. Wanna join us?”

  I smiled. I didn’t want to be rude, and I wouldn’t have minded a bit of celebration, but I had to find my mom and dad first. “Where?”

  “At the reservoir.”

  Ah, yes, one of the notorious party places amongst kids my age, but I didn’t know why they even bothered. Cops knew kids liked to party there and broke the celebrations up often. It was nice to feel included, though—hell, just to be invited was nice—so I told him I might. He and his two friends walked away as I looked around one last time before turning my focus to the vast parking lot ahead.

  There weren’t too many cars left in the there, though it was a large space and, even with the large streetlamps overhead, it was hard to tell if my parents’ car was there somewhere. As I walked toward my own car, I felt my phone vibrate and pulled it back out of my pocket.

  It was a text from my mother, short and simple. Ky, honey, pls come home. Will explain then.

  I felt my stomach knot up, only this time it wasn’t with excitement and anticipation. It was pure dread. Something was wrong.

  I got in my car, my five minutes of fame forgotten as my fingers gripped the wheel and I let my instincts take over. I was in no state of mind to focus on the act of driving, because I was focused on what my mom hadn’t said in the text. I had a bad feeling that something was wrong with my dad.

  I swallowed hard with that realization as the acid in my stomach sloshed again, making me feel sick. No matter what was going on, there was nothing I could do about it, and there was certainly not a damn thing I could do being away. I couldn’t comfort my mother or ask questions or anything—not until I got home.

  I pulled up to the house. The porch light was on and there were no cop cars, even though I’d halfway expected to see destruction and mayhem at my house. The large two-story brick building looked as quiet and unassuming as it always had.

  But as I walked up the sidewalk to the house, it felt eerie. I didn’t like the sensation that my whole life was hanging in the balance.

  When I opened the front door, I could feel it. It was almost like a blanket smothering me as soon as I entered the living room, and my parents turned to look at me. I could tell I’d interrupted something but what? No idea.

  The first thing I noticed was mom’s expression. Her face was normally tanned with pink cheeks, but instead it was red and blotchy, and she looked miserable. My dad also looked distressed but he hadn’t been crying like mom. I wanted to ask what the problem was, what was going on, but my throat seized up, refused to cooperate. I didn’t know exactly how to ask anyway.

  Fortunately, mom took over. She rushed to me and pulled me into an embrace. Her grasp was desperate and tight, but I let her do it because I could tell she needed to. My mother wasn’t a large woman, but she held me so tightly, my breathing was restricted.

  What the hell was going on?

  When mom loosened her grip, I looked at her as she searched my eyes and finally let go of me. Then I looked to my dad. He seemed a little sheepish and reluctant to talk. I tried to pull air down into my lungs but found it difficult. Just as I was managing to form some words, my mother said, “Your father’s moving out of the house.”

  My dad quickly added, “For now.”

  Mom managed to keep her voice calm and steady, but I could hear a hidden snarl. “For a while. We’re not sure how long.”

  Finally my tongue moved. “But why? What happened?”

  Dad came over and pulled me close so I couldn’t see his face…but I could hear a crack in his voice. “We just…need some space right now.” He held me in a snug embrace so that I couldn’t move, but when he finally released me, his voice sounded normal again. “It’s not forever, punky. Just for now.”

  Oh. That was bad. Dad hadn’t called me punky since I’d been a little kid. It made me feel sad and scared and alone. I couldn’t smile but something i
nside me told me not to cry. My mom was being too stoic, too calm, and I knew that if I showed weakness, she wouldn’t be able to maintain her composure. Somehow…I just knew.

  I was worried about dad, too, and he also seemed distraught, but there was something about mom that felt more fragile.

  And I didn’t belong there. I could tell that they weren’t going to talk with me there and they obviously hadn’t finished their conversation when I’d walked in. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Oh, baby,” mom said, walking closer to me again but not too close. She was keeping her distance from dad. “You don’t need to do anything. It’s something your dad and I need to work through.” She inhaled deeply before adding, “Why don’t your dad and I go out on the porch to finish our conversation?”

  That seemed really weird, but that told me for certain that they didn’t want me to be in the middle of whatever was going on, and they likely didn’t want me to know what had caused any of it, either. But to conduct whatever cold, calculating business surrounding the division of their things out on the porch seemed ridiculous. “Why don’t I just go upstairs to my room?”

  My mom looked up at my dad and he seemed to consider my words before nodding. Then he glanced at me before I moved and said, “We love you, Kyle.”

  I swallowed and forced a few undiscernible bobs with my head. “I love you too.”

  I had made it across the room and up two stairs when I heard my mom ask, “Oh, how was the talent show?”

  I let my breath out of my nose, paused on the step, not sure what to say. I didn’t want them to force themselves to try to be happy on my account when they were obviously miserable and had things to discuss…and, frankly, it just didn’t seem that exciting anymore, not when the lives and hearts of the people I loved hung in the balance. I swallowed and turned my head, careful not to make eye contact so the lie would come more easily. “Eh, it was okay. I kicked ass, though, but no big deal.”

  Yeah, right. Up until five minutes earlier, it had perhaps been one of the biggest fucking deals of my life.

  * * *

  I drove down the highway, forcing myself not to cry, trying to keep my foot light on the pedal, because my anger fueled a heaviness in my foot that couldn’t be contained. But even cranking the radio as loudly as it would go (the fact that the station was playing “Crazy Train” helped) couldn’t drown out the thoughts in my head.

  Couldn’t drown out the words I’d heard moments earlier either.

  I should have played a CD in my room once I’d headed up the stairs, but I’d wanted to understand what the hell was going on with my parents. Why were they acting cold and distant to each other after a long, beautiful life together? It made no sense to me at all.

  So I’d closed the wooden door like they’d asked, but I’d pressed my ear up against it. I’d pulled my hair back over my shoulders with my hand and then rested my ear up against the cool door, straining to hear whatever stray words might rush up the stairs. It was muted at first, and my mother and father almost sounded like they were planning a surprise birthday party for me. But after a little bit of time, I could hear their voices getting a bit louder, a little more emotional, and then I began to be able to pick words out. I also got braver, knowing they wouldn’t be able to hear if I managed to pop the door open a crack.

  It was then that I heard my mother say—her voice seething and hot but still barely more than a whisper—“I’m not the one whose dick was getting sucked.”

  I swallowed and backed away from the door as though it had grown unbearably hot. It was difficult to breathe then as so many things began swirling in my head, the first of which was disbelief. If my mother wasn’t just flippantly saying something to piss my dad off, it could only mean one thing…that my father had had an affair, and that was why he was leaving. Maybe. Yes, that had to be it. My mom was kicking him out because he’d been unfaithful. At first, I thought maybe he wanted to leave, but some of the things he’d said earlier pointed to my mom wanting him out.

  And I guessed he probably should leave.

  That was the first moment when I experienced loss…disappointment. It was a hard lesson to take, learning that my parents weren’t gods. They weren’t perfect. They too were human and capable of making mistakes, screwing up, doing something wrong.

  I didn’t know how to cope with what I was feeling.

  Part of me wanted to rush outside my room and rage. I wanted to scream, not just at my dad but at both of them. Somehow it was both their faults. This pain was hard to manage and I didn’t want to face my parents with that ache inside my chest. Even playing the heaviest song I knew and screaming all the vocals wouldn’t make me feel better.

  All I knew was there was no way I was going to cry. Something deep inside me made me feel like crying would make me weak. I had to bottle it inside.

  That stupid attitude was likely influenced by the music I listened to, but I wasn’t thinking that at the time.

  I held onto the door handle, still debating if I wanted to exit my room, whether to leave the house or take out my confused and heated state on my parents. I couldn’t face them. No way.

  So I opened the window to my bedroom, at first just to poke my head outside. The cool breeze on my face helped clear my mind. But, as my parents’ voices escalated and I couldn’t drown them out, I knew I had two choices—I could crank up my music loud and send them a message. It would let them know that they were making me miserable. I could see my mom’s face in my head, though, and I didn’t want to pile on to her torment. She didn’t need to feel like I was betraying her too. The second choice? I could get the hell out of there, just refuse to deal with it.

  That was the decision I made, but I couldn’t leave through the window. Sure, I knew, now that I was more exposed to movies and television, that fictional kids hop out their bedroom windows all the time…but this was real life. I had a screen on my window to contend with, not to mention a long jump from the roof that would certainly damage something on my body. There was no flimsy trellis to use as a ladder, no convenient tree I could grab hold of and shimmy down, no lower roof that I could hop on as a stepping stone…and I certainly couldn’t scale the wall. And no way was I going to try the silly trick of tying sheets together to make a rope. That had disaster written all over it. Nope. I had to use the stairs inside and the front door.

  All I had to do was know what I would say when my parents asked where I was going. I had planned to tell them that I just needed some time to myself. I took one last deep breath and grabbed my keys before opening my bedroom door and stepping into the hallway. I made my way downstairs, steeled for the question, but my parents had moved into the kitchen at some point, and they would have had to be looking for me to see me. I was certain they’d moved into the other room hoping to muffle their voices, but all the kitchen had done was to project their voices like a megaphone through the house. I sucked in air through my nose and marched to the front door.

  By the time I got in my car and on the road, though, I was hit with a new wash of emotion. It all raged over me like whitewater. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel and I couldn’t describe everything moving through me, but I was profoundly unhappy. It felt like my whole life had changed in a matter of minutes and I’d gone from the highest high to the lowest low in less than an hour. That seemed like fate was cruelly punishing me for some unknown reason.

  I was driving along, almost blind with my suffering, and it wasn’t until I was on the highway, “Crazy Train” blaring from the car speakers, that I realized I was driving to the reservoir.

  To the party.

  To Decker.

  Why, I didn’t know, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Chapter Five

  THE BREEZE BLOWING off the lake was cool, but the air overall was warm and comfortable. It was a beautiful night and just the place to take my mind off my parents.

  I saw the cars and heard the kids down the shore, but I parked a little farther aw
ay so I could walk alone for a bit. It was comforting to hear the lap of the water even while hearing the loud laugh of a girl down the way.

  As I got closer, I saw the fire and kids surrounding it, and, as I approached, I wondered if anyone had noticed my car pull up. I could tell the party was well underway, and I could feel the happy energy emanating from the group as I got closer. Yes, this had probably been a good idea—being around people with positive energy could lift my spirits, and I definitely needed it.

  I didn’t expect what happened next. As I got closer to the circle—dark bodies surrounding bright, flickering flames—I tried to make out who was there by looking at the faces on the other side, but the sound of a voice to my left as it approached me broke my gaze away. “Kyle, I didn’t think you were gonna come.”

  I looked over at the voice. It was Decker. I hadn’t given him much consideration before, mainly because we’d never talked. He’d been in a couple of my classes—hard to avoid in a town small enough that only one high school is needed to accommodate all the students—but that didn’t mean I’d had reason to ever talk to him. I was pretty sure he’d been on the JV football team last fall, and I knew he was in my world history class and had been in my geography class the year before, but I doubted we’d ever said two words to each other. Part of that was me. I felt comfortable around a lot of kids, but the jocks and cheerleaders didn’t seem like my type. I couldn’t explain it. I had nothing against them—in fact, since settling in, I’d grown friendly with a couple of cheerleaders in my classes, but they didn’t feel like my people.

  No one did, really, but that didn’t stop me from being friendly and getting along.

  Now, though…maybe now that people understood my passion, maybe we’d have more to discuss. At least, that was how it was beginning to seem with Decker. At any rate, I’d piqued his curiosity.