How to be Wild

[Knightofsloth707]

She needed to go, now. To put as much distance between her and him as possible. Every second she was here, was a second she wasn't getting farther away, escaping his reach.

"No, you need to go," he said, his voice rising. "Pack your things, take the truck, and go."

He knew what he needed to say next, but the words caught in his throat. He forced them out.

"And never come back."

 

[WretchRoad]

Her fingers twitched, wanting to reach for him, to ask if it was all a cruel game, or a joke, because this Daniel was not the one who danced with her to old love songs in the livingroom, he couldn't possibly be the one who's affectionate touches stirred her heart all week long.

The urge came and went. Her fingers curled into fists.

She was eighteen years old, standing on the highway, terrified.

She was wiping tears from her eyes, watching Denise run out into the pasture toward the lifeless heaps in the grass.

She was right there, finally able to recognize that what she felt was love, unable to say it.

No more words came for fear of choking on them. Ash turned stiffly, and marched in the door, each step feeling like lead, like that day she first walked toward the truck.

She didn't question why he wanted her to take it, why he wanted her gone immediately. That would require words she just didn't have.

Every bit of strength went into holding back tears as she gathered her few belongings from Daniel's room, trying not to look at the bed they shared the night before. Trying not to think about how he took the one thing she was afraid of giving away — herself. And in return, all she had was the aching memory and the lingering smell of him on the shirt she was still wearing.

She tore it off, throwing it across the room.

Ash didn't have a driver's license and barely any money to her name, but that didn't matter. She needed to leave, to get away from that place as quickly as possible. She moved as though she could outrun the twisting pain in her chest, the feeling of being split in two.

She didn't look at him when she passed him by on the way to the truck, her backpack stuffed and slung over one shoulder. Her eyes glazed over, she watched the middle distance as she started the engine and forced it into gear. Hitting the gas, the truck lurched out of the garage and through the overgrown grass before peeling out and onto the dirt path. Away from him.