Runaways (Orphans 5)

"Don't you have a girlfriend?" I blurted out, and then quickly wished I could take the words back. It was one of those questions you don't want to ask because you dread the answer, but a question you know you have to ask.

"Did," he said. "We broke up about three months ago. She was rushing me into something I wasn't ready for," he added before I could ask why.

He sprayed the bolt and worked it out much easier, holding it up as if he had extracted a gold nugget.

"Ta-da!" he said. I smiled and he suddenly looked very serious. "You've got the cutest nose I've ever seen," he said. It was a compliment that seemed to fall out of the darkness, completely unexpected, stealing my breath for a moment. "I guess you've heard that before," he added, turning back to the engine.

"No," I said softly. "Never."

He looked over at me like he didn't believe me and then went back to work. I watched, but my heart was pounding so hard, I didn't think I could hold the lamp steady enough. He didn't seem to notice how much my hand shook. Finally, the used part was installed.

"Time to test our work," he declared. "Go start the engine "

I did so and he watched it run.

"How's the gauge doing?"

"It's back to normal," I said. "We'll have to wait and see though."

"Why don't you let it run for a while," he suggested.

After a few more minutes, he asked me again and I told him it was fine.

"You girls lucked out," he concluded. "You can turn it off," he said and I did.

He began to clean up.

"So where do you think you'll end up?" he asked.

"We want to go to Los Angeles. We hope we'll find an inexpensive place to live and find work. Crystal wants to get back to school and we want to find a dancing school for Butterfly," I told him.

"Butterfly? The little one?" I nodded. "She seems so fragile, too fragile for this sort of thing."

"You're right, but she's got us to protect and watch over her."

"Is it enough?" he followed quickly. "Sorry," he said, "but I tend to be brutally realistic sometimes."

"It's all right." I took a deep breath. "I don't know all the answers, Todd," I said. "I know that we hated where we were and what was happening to us. We felt trapped. We felt as if we were merchandise left on a shelf, merchandise no one would want to take home with them. Maybe we were crazy. Maybe we were just a bunch of stupid girls, but we took charge of our lives, even if it's only for a little while, and that felt good. When I first drove out of there . ."

"What?" he said, holding his smile.

"I don't know. I felt so free, so powerful. I just felt . . . alive. I guess I sound stupid."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "You sound pretty wonderful to me."

I felt my face warm. Why did I have to blush so much?

"I can understand how you felt." He walked to the doorway and I followed alongside. For a moment he just stared out at the road, the woods and the bushes. "This place sometimes puts me in a strange, sad mood, as if I've got to run fast to catch up with the best things in my life, things that are all slipping away from me. I feel the same sort of panic you felt. I feel trapped and alone."

He stepped out and we walked as he continued.

"Sometimes, I see a car with out-of-state plates go by and I think about just walking away from here, getting into my car and driving until I run out of gas. Wherever that is, I'll stay and make a life for myself," he said, looking out at the darkness.

There was a flatbed truck beside the garage. It looked like something from the sixties, rusting, missing a rear tire, the passenger side window shattered.

"Why don't you do just that?" I asked softly. His voice and mine were barely above a whisper now. He shrugged.

"Dad, I guess. I'm all he has, even though half the time, he doesn't even know I'm around. And then I think, what will I have out there? At least here I have something. It's not much, I know, but it's mine and I'm my own boss. Not many guys my age can say that," he added.