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I make it in at nine a.m., four hours later than if I would have been worried about making it home before my parents woke up. Through the cracked door I see my dad reading the paper, with his big glasses and fine brown hair. Mary Ellen, smoking a cigarette, sitting beside him on the overstuffed bed.
The first few minutes of confrontation are always the worst: the parents size you up, taking it all in: wrinkled clothes, messy hair, smeared makeup, and tired, dull eyes.
“And just where have you been?” they ask, for which you feel guilty, never calling to tell them where exactly you had been the night before.
“Are you going with us?” they want to know, skeptically.
“Huh… where?” I ask, my dehydrated brain screaming for water. I lope into my room and kick my shoes off, throw my bag on the floor next to the shoes, and sort of fall face first onto the bed, pressing my face into the clean cotton smell. The words convention and birthday find their way to my ears, followed by a knock on the door. I raise my head enough to get out, “I’m changing, please don’t come in,” and then a sigh from behind the door, and I really do get up and search for something clean to put on. Then I check to be sure my ride is still waiting, before going out into the living room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” they say, noticing my attire, my bag, all dragging itself along with my body.
“Yellow Springs? Yeah, Yellow Springs…” I let the words linger, as if they should just know why I would be going there. But they don’t.
“It’s your dads birthday… aren’t you going to the convention center with us?” Mary Ellen asks, her eyes stretching out of their sockets, at the realization that I was planning on leaving.
“Uhm… when are you leaving?”
“Soon. Ten minutes or so.” Dad says.
My mind did not prepare itself for this. I had forgotten about these plans, you see, these plans for my dads birthday that I am now ruining. I go back and forth between wanting to spend the day with my dad and wanting to go to Yellow Springs…
“I think I’m going to Yellow Springs,” I murmur, like it’s not a big deal.
They follow up with more questions, scratch their heads… let me walk out the door and hop back into the car with three guys I had just spent the entire night with.
Forty minutes later we pull into a driveway, connected to a house with busted window blinds. The car is off and we sit there, stalled, brains churning for energy. Finally two exit and walk up to the door, knock-knock, and the door opens enough for the two figures to slip inside, disappearing in the dark recesses of the house. I lean my head against the window and close my eyes…
“Hey, come inside,” Joe says to the two of us that had been waiting in the car. How long had we been sitting there? How long had I been sleeping?
“You weren’t sleeping were you?” he winks at me, his dark eyes behind blond eyelashes. Lazily I meander to the door behind the others, vision blurred, trying to grasp my whereabouts.
Inside it reeks of stale smoke and Budweiser, no doubt from the overloaded ashtrays and beer bottles throughout the house.

Tenderlungs

You've got my attention. Let's see more.

brokensoulbs

please finish the story

buttons

I'm working on it! Good things come to those who wait!

brokensoulbs

Nice potential.