I assured her I wouldn’t and flung myself in the car, pulling away and not looking back. She was right. As soon as I was past the city limits on Interstate Five, I felt better. I pulled over at a rest stop and called her again. When she answered, it sounded like she was in the middle of something.
“Hey,” she said, “where are you?”
“Just outside of LA. I stopped.”
“Good,” she said. “No driving and talking. It’s dangerous.”
“I have the Bluetooth in the car, Hannah,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” she said, laughing a little. “Well, at any rate, I am glad you stopped. And I am glad you left, too. Are you coming here? I can make space for you at our place. Our new house should be ready soon, and we’ll have an extra room for you, but until then you can crash on our couch.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “Really, you have no idea how much I appreciate that. But I already booked a hotel, so it’s okay. I’ll need help getting around and figuring things out after, though.”
“I have your back,” Hannah said, “always.”
I almost teared up right then. “Thank you, cuz,” I said. “It’s a long drive. I probably won’t get there until really late, but I’ll text you when I do.”
“Okay. Hurry up and get here. I want a hug.”
I smiled, and we said our goodbyes. Then, I held the phone in my hand and stared at it. It wouldn’t be long before they figured out I was gone and that I’d taken a bunch of my things. It was going to be chaos as soon as they put it together, and I simply didn’t want to hear it. Their latest expectation: that I would be home when they got back so we could talk through how I was supposed to act when Adam proposed to me in a lavish and highly choreographed and produced “surprise.”
My phone would blow up with calls and texts. They would scream and yell and threaten and cajole. Then, if Hannah was any indication, they would convince themselves that this was some phase, try to control me by depositing money in my account, and then track me down and accuse me of being a freeloader. It might not be exactly like that, but my dad and his brother, Hannah’s dad, were very similar. Hannah figured it out by getting a job. It looked like I was going to have to get one, too.
That was fine. I’d spent too much of my life living off my name and my station. I wanted more from my life than that. I wanted more from myself. I would figure out how to survive, as long as it meant being able to do it my way.
Holding the power button down, I flipped my phone off. I wasn’t going to be able to handle their calls, not without going crazy and saying everything I’d wanted to say for years. It was better to ignore them, drive to Portland, and turn the phone on when I was safely in the hotel to send a text to Hannah.
Cranking up the radio and following the GPS built into the dash, I got back on the road. Singing loudly, and badly, to whatever came on next was cathartic, and I was feeling a lot better by the time I passed the California state line. Stopping in Medford, with just about five hours left to go, I decided that if I was going to be on the road, running from everything I knew to start a new life, the least I could do was cheat on my diet.
My secret obsession was a fast-food pizza chain that I never allowed myself to eat. Now there was no one stopping me, and Medford happened to have one right off the interstate. With a passenger’s seat full of pizza and breadsticks and drinking straight from a two-liter of soda, I got back on the road feeling halfway good about things.
The remaining five hours of the drive took me into darkness, and when I finally pulled into Portland, I was beyond exhausted. The pizza, what remained of it, was cold, and I really had to use a restroom. The hotel was in the heart of town, and by the time I parked and got inside the lobby, I was about to explode. Bypassing checking in, I went straight to the ladies’ room, and when I came out, I felt the emotion and exhaustion of the day wash over me.
All I wanted was to stuff my face into a pillow and sleep forever. The girl at the check-in was nice, but I was beyond the ability to return her cheeriness. She told me my room was on the top floor, and I asked if they had someone who could get my bags. It was how I was used to traveling. This was not, however, the kind of hotel that had staff on hand to cater to my every whim.