the city lights

When I got my car on my sixteenth birthday, the first thing I did was drive. That’s the only reason I wanted a car, actually. To just drive. To get away from my family. To run. To hit the gas and just steer. Driving was something I could control. I had the control over which way I turned, which how fast I went and when I could hit the brakes and make it all stop.

It didn’t take me long to realize that planes travel faster than cars and I could get to my destination faster with an airplane.

But then I didn’t have the same control that I did when I steered my wheel and hit the gas with my lead foot.

I only loved to drive alone. Because then I could pretend that everything was okay. That I had complete control while everything around me was falling into a great black hole. I had to stand by idly and watch it disappear around me. I could do nothing to stop the debris that was falling around me as I just drove. If I drove fast enough, maybe I could go back in time and catch up with what went so terribly wrong in my life. Maybe I could rewind and fix the past.

Maybe.

There was a time when I didn’t want to drive. When I saw my father leave the driveway in his own car. I had seen the action so many times before, but now, it was a new view, a new action. The way he threw himself into his seat. He turned the key so fast, so hard that I thought maybe he would break it and then I wouldn’t be alone anymore with just Mom. I saw the way he backed out of the driveway so fast that he almost hit the sidewalk on the opposite side. I wanted to run down the stairs and out the door. I wanted to scream at him, the tears already in my eyes. How could he leave me?

But my parents never had any explanation for what they did. It was all a misunderstanding, they would tell me later.

I turned up my music so loud that I could only hear the Beastie Boys as they screamed “Sabotage” over and over. Then I turned on Metallica. Then Nirvana. Then Disturbed. I turned it up so loud I heard my mom knock on my door again and again, begging me to turn the music down. But I couldn’t. If I turned it down, I would have to hear my thoughts. The thoughts about how he abandoned me, how he left me alone to wrinkle and wither up…Those thoughts would resurface. I would have to hear them. With my music turned up so loud, I could at least block them out for a little while.

After I got over the fact that I wouldn’t be seeing my father for months, I started driving late at night again. There was a curfew for people under eighteen not to drive, but I didn’t care, preferring to break the rules rather than to try to obey. Keeping myself in check was not a forte of mine.

Whenever I drive, I have to have music playing. I can never have radio. Talk stations don’t really fit with me. I have always been more of a non-commercial guy. That’s why I don’t watch television, preferring movies always.

So when I am driving, I always play music through my CD player or my iPod when I haven’t broken my adapter. When I download a new set of songs, I immediately make a CD, inserting it after I’ve started my car. I don’t understand how some people can just drive quietly. I always sing along or hit the steering wheel when I need to make a point or hit along with the drums. My breath is always taken away by the sound of the wailing guitars or the voice of the lead singer.

And even thought my thoughts always catch up to me, I still drive, still steer, still hit the gas. Even though my eyes are barely able to make out anything due to the tears.
_____________

written for a novel I am currently composing slowly, but carefully. this is in a guys point of view, just in case you were confused.
thanks for reading,

Anya

happiness

It started at work.
The thing is, I can’t even remember the day. All I know is that this guy came in and sat down while I was on box, trying not to even think about him watching me, which is how I handle every person who comes in and sits down on the benches right inside the doors. I was probably doodling on a spare piece of paper or maybe I was just sitting on the counter (which I am not supposed to do under any circumstances) and leaning my head against the glass, wondering why on earth my life had to be this boring. I mean, why did I have to get a job that allows so much boring time in between movies? Can’t they all just run right after the other, no breaks at all? Nope. Especially when we haven’t had any new movies in a very long time.
Anyway, he spoke first, not even saying hey or any sort of greeting that could be considered the polite way to start a conversation according to those old writers like Jane Austen (actually, I have no idea what Jane Austen would consider appropriate because I have never met her or read anything she has written. I know it’s tragic, you don’t have to tell me twice). “So how do you like Mrs. Koch?”
I was surprised at first, my eyes glancing at him. “What?” I asked.
“How do you like Mrs. Koch?” he asked again.
“Oh,” I replied, my voice trying not to sound as surprised as I was inside. This was a total first. No one ever recognizes me outside of school unless I am friends with them or talk to them on a regular basis like the people in my AP Lang class, which is exactly what Mrs. Koch teaches. “Yeah, I’ve seen you!” The recognition was finally beginning to sink in, but only barely. “It’s okay. I just hate all the deep thinking. I don’t understand why we can’t just read something and take a freaking test on it!”
Yeah, I got very emotional. It’s kind of weird. I shouldn’t have done anything like that because I pretty much marked myself as a freak whenever he thinks of me now. Which is exactly what I want to be remembered as.
Not.
He agreed with me and everything, but even I could tell that I was a freak. But I still wondered who he was. I had seen him before. I just wasn’t sure if he ever looked at me like someone he may eventually be attracted to. I am not the most observant or people when it comes to guys. I tend to avoid eye contact with someone and not indulge into conversations with them as I most frequently end up acting like an idiot. And looking like one too.
Now, I was introduced to someone who recognized me. Me. Anya Kubilus. A no one. An overdramatic sixteen-year old (then, at least) who had nothing better to do with her spare time than read and go on Facebook and MySpace. Let me just point out that no one ever recognizes me. Especially guys. Unless, as I said before, I have talked to them in the past multiple times. And even then, sometimes they do nothing but pretend to not know me at all. But this guy, this nameless guy, he knew who I was. He recognized me. Even though I had never talked to him before in my life. What was I supposed to think of this? Was I supposed to just sit (well, figuratively) there and think about it at the time? If I had been someone different, someone braver, I could have kept talking, asking him about his classes and his name. That could have made things much more clear, but I didn’t. I’m not think-on-your-feet type of person. In fact, I am just the opposite. It takes me a while to write anything and even longer to think of a perfect response for a question. Sometimes, I can get away with a witty comment or sarcastic reply. But mostly, I am stuck in my life, stuck in something I so wish I could change about myself. I’m shy, I know it, but the fact that he asked me a question randomly and didn’t pretend to not recognize me, made me rethink my life and my personality. I wish I was braver that day. I wish I had asked his name. I wish, when I returned to school that next Monday and looked for him after my first hour when he normally comes in to the classroom, that I would have smiled when he made eye contact with me. That would have been a good choice. But being the shy person that I am, I didn’t. I stood there, holding my books close to my chest, my backpack breaking my back in its slowly annoying manner, and saw him break eye contact as soon as I didn’t smile or say anything that had the slightest sort of indication that I was interested. Because I most certainly was.
Now he’ll never know that. Every day when I get to school, I look for him, I look for the Senior in the green-and-gray striped zip-up hoodie. The boy who wears To Write Love On Her Arms shirts, who listens to Underoath and who is into Norma Jean. He plays the drums, he is in full orchestra with me. He has short hair and an amazing smile.
His name is Geoffrey Graham.
And he’ll never know how I feel.

~Anya