The sprinkling rain pasted the dirt on the car to it's frame at first. Eventually the water washed the little black car clean. A young face framed with curly bangs and wild hair peered out into the grey skies, seeing nothing as she was looking for nothing.
The asphalt moved rhythmically beneath the car. She had her chin propped on her fists that were tucked between her curled up knees and her chest. Her seat belt had been rubbing on her neck so much that there was a red line where it sat on her collar bone.
There was only silence in the car. Silence and the hollow sound of the rain tapping on the windshield and that irritating squeak of windshield wipers that slowly moves to the background during a twenty hour drive. Her mother looked over at her momentarily every few minutes, checking for change, maybe seeing if there was anything to be said. There was nothing to be said, nothing right anyways.
A tear rolled down her ashen, porcelain face every few moments, washing her face as clean as the world beneath this giant rain cloud.
"Sarah, I wish there was something. . ." That was as much as her mother could make out in words without bursting into tears herself. Sarah went unresponsive, not crying more or less, not even acknowledging the words.
She pushed some of her curly brown hair behind one of her over-pierced ears and looked at the radio. She pushed a button that broke the silence, it was a classic rock station. Sarah recognized the song. Her father had sung it a million times along with the radio. He couldn't sing it now, all she wanted to hear was his voice. The crackling voice that couldn't hold a note. That sincere voice that she would never hear again.
Sarah closed her eyes trying to back the tears that wanted to surge out with the music notes. All she could do to keep them hidden wasn't enough, her eyes over-welled with tears and just spilled over to a continually glistening strip on her face.
This trip was suppose to be her answer. Sarah had a friend in Washington state, they'd been practically sisters which was a mirror image of the bond Sarah's parents had with the girl's father in high school. Wes and his daughter Wendy were the only option Sarah's mother, Pricilla could think of.
Sarah didn't think of it at all, she felt permanently numb to all her usual emotions. Sarah didn't care where she was, she would think about her father just as much in Washington as she would in Nevada where she had just left.
Priscilla was just praying that Sarah's friend could make her less of a zombie. Nothing else was working. Not to mention the time Priscilla needed for herself, she couldn't look at her daughter the same since the accident. She had his same green eyes and curly brown hair that she fell in love with on her deceased husband.
Sarah moved her plump pink lips to the song she new every word to and she looked back out at the crying sky. Maybe when she climbed out of the car in front of Wendy's house she would forget her entire life and be completely normal. It was impossible, she was clinging too much to the memories of her father.
It seemed like another lifetime before Sarah was looking up at a building in the Washington city of Seattle. It was tall and seemed to touch the sky but she knew even if she made it to the top she would be no where near heaven.
"Sarah, ..." Priscilla whispered. Sarah looked out the window to where her mother was pointing. Five floors above them a young girl was leaning out the window of her bedroom, waving her arm as quickly as she could. Sarah thought Wendy was a little old to be acting like such a child but then realized she was suppose to be acting the same way about seeing her long time friend.
Sarah climbed out of the car just as Wendy hit the bottom step of the building and they through themselves into each other and held on, refusing to let go. Wendy was trying to comfort Sarah but was crying more than her tragedy befallen friend.
It took Sarah a while to even realize that Wes was also outside of the building, talking to her mother. Wendy's father had peppered grey and brown hair and an always carelessly scruffy face. Although unheard Sarah saw her mother's face light up as Wes's mouth moved, he made a joke that made Priscilla forget her troubles for a moment and she knew this was perfect, Sarah would be back to her old fun-loving self in no time at all.
Wes grabbed Sarah's suitcase and backpack from the trunk and hugged Priscilla goodbye, they're reunion was unfortunately short but they both knew their lives were too hectic for a heart-to-heart right there on the busy Seattle street. It took Sarah a moment to see that Priscilla was waiting to give her a hug before she climbed back into the car for her long trip back to Nevada.
Sarah made it short and simple. Saying the usual, love you's and drive safe thing's she had to say but her voice wasn't even really there. She watched her mother drive away and let out a breath as she turned a corner leaving her sight. It was easier to watch her go than anything had been in the past few weeks.
Until then Sarah was relieved to be away from her home. She turned to Wendy and Wes on the step of the city apartment and saw something horrible. Wes had Wendy tucked under his arm as he kissed her forehead. Sarah lost her breath for a moment but covered it up professionally. Her father used to tuck her under his arm like that, a knife rammed through her heart but she couldn't tell the only two people she knew within a two thousand mile radius that.
Sarah took a breath, smiled and followed the two to the elevator and into the apartment marked 5C. In the elevator Wendy's mouth echoed off all the walls and left Sarah feeling like she couldn't breath. Was this the best idea her and her mother could come up with? Spending time with a daughter and father?
Wendy drug Sarah to the extra room there. Wes followed behind them with Sarah's bags and put them down in the doorway. He welcomed her and left quickly with the same smile on his face she'd never seen him without.
Wendy helped Sarah unpack and put on music behind her nonstop talking. Sarah was fully distracted.
"Don't you remember this song?" Wendy asked excited. Sarah opened her ears quickly listening for the beat she had been blocking out. Sarah nodded and forced on a fake smile.
"Of course." Sarah said back in the same tone Wendy had spoken. Sarah begrudgingly began to sing the words to a song that was preformed by her then favorite band three years ago. They sang together and then Wendy threw herself down on Sarah's new bed and sighed.
"Aren't you so excited to be back together?" Wendy asked with a smile on her face. Sarah's heart broke looking at the seemingly so young girl laying across the bed she didn't want to touch, Sarah didn't want to sleep here, she didn't want to eat here, all she wanted was her father and it took her this long to figure out that nothing was going to make her excited to do anything.
But she lied instead, of course. Giggling and joining Wendy bouncing up on the bed.
Wendy drug her to the kitchen and Sarah couldn't help but think to herself her age.
'Eighteen.' She thought. 'Eighteen years of living and I can't tell her to stop dragging me behind her like a puppy on a leash.' She just put on a smile and even choked out a giggle to a few of Wendy's jokes. Wendy was a lot like her father, Wes, she was funny. But nothing was really funny to Sarah at the moment and she laughed because her own apathy had nothing to do with Wendy's humor.
Wendy fell asleep quickly in the living room after their last horror movie at one o'clock in the morning. Sarah's eyes hadn't been functioning since the first person was killed in the first movie at nine o'clock. Sarah knew Wendy hadn't even linked the constant deaths of people on the screen to Sarah's life so she didn't take it personally.
Sarah inched silently so she wouldn't wake Wendy up. Wes had left just before the movie's began, with nothing more to say than he was going out, neither of the girls asked more of an explanation. Sarah crept to the bathroom and undressed quickly, as if there were spiders on everything that was touching her. She stood over the sink panting once she was completely striped.
Her eyes welled and turned a light pink color. Her crying face overcame her normal calm and she let herself collapse on the cold tile floor. She thought of everything that happened in the day that she couldn't think of at the time. She thought of her mother's choked words and the song that came on the radio, she thought of Wes and her body jolted in pain, she saw that mental picture she had taken of Wendy snuggled under her daddy's arm, she thought of every drop of blood she'd seen in the movies throughout the night. Every little thought sliced her brain and all the slices together felt like fire.
She eventually pulled herself up off the floor and turned on the water in the shower. Once in the stream she changed the temperature from scolding hot to freezing cold as often as it would allow. Sarah cried until she couldn't cry then for some reason she couldn't explain she was oddly refreshed and felt like she could run a marathon. She put her headphones in her ears and blasted a rock song she knew Wendy would hate because unlike Wendy's beloved Britney Spears and Lady Gaga, Sarah preferred Pink Floyd and ACDC.
Sarah wrapped a towel around her body that was still dripping wet, opened the door to the bathroom and turned out the light. She was met by pitch black. She took a sharp deep breath as she always did when she was circled by the darkness, it was one of her biggest, illogical fears. Sarah put too hands out in front of her as she tried to feel for a wall to clutch onto and find her way to her new room. What she found was much softer than a wall. She felt cloth and gripped it, thinking maybe she'd grabbed a curtain or maybe she was even facing the hallway closet.
'Was there a curtain in the hallway?' She asked herself silently in her mind.
She pushed pause on her ipod with her thumb and grabbed the cloth, trying to feel to the other side. Once she maneuvered one headphone out of her ear she heard a light chuckle and a light bulb clicked on in her mind just as a light flick on above her head.
That chuckle was the unforgettable Wes laugh. His hand was on a light switch beside the wall but when he saw what the darkness had hidden from him his smile faded. Sarah was frozen, her face close to his and her hands wrapped around his shirt. She'd never seen him not smiling, she didn't know what to think. Was this face nervous or angry?
She saw his fingertips shivering on the wall and realized she had him trapped, back against the wall, his hands flat on the wall behind him. He looked over her accidentally, noticing her shimmering damp skin and tightly wrapped towel and she lowered her head, smiling bashfully.
Her wet curly hair dropped into her face and Wes's shaking hand moved up to place it behind her ear. "How was the girl's night?" His voice wasn't light and joking like normal, it was deep and almost nervous. Sarah raised her eyebrows when she thought of the real answer but quickly said something else.
"It was fun, chick flicks galore."
