Page 67 of Reaching Hearts
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Tommy
Door To The Den: quietly inching open. Dad & Mom: in the way of a good, hard fuck.
Ilisten to the sounds of the television in the living room, and pans moving in the kitchen. Devising my escape was easy; I’ll leave through the window behind me, but I need keys. I’m assuming my car is still in the garage and opening the garage door will be a cacophonous alert of grinding belts and chains. Plus, it moves too slowly. Even if it rose up high enough for me to speed out underneath it before my dad made it to the driver’s door to yank it open and drag me out, he’d just run out, jump in his own car and chase me down. I want them to never know I left. I’ll be back before they wake up tomorrow.
As I tiptoe toward the stairs, I realize that Dad heard me come in, in the dead of night, and already had his shotgun pointed at me, so what the fuck am I doing? Sneaking is the wrong way to go about this. With all of my weight, I change tactics and walk into the living room like nothing is amiss.
“Well, look who’s up. Bathroom’s that way.” My dad says with a quick glance my way before he looks back to the T.V.
“What are you watching?”
“What does it look like I’m watching?” He doesn’t look back to me. So I watch the screen for a couple minutes as my mom comes in and puts a beer in front of him and reaches to take away the empty one. “Thank you,” he mumbles. She smiles and I shake my head at the complexity of their relationship. I’ll never understand them.
“You’re watching Orange Is The New Black?” I ask, glancing over to his jacket on the table behind us. Next to it are his keys.
Dad picks up his beer and takes a swig. “Great fucking show,” he says, reaching to the remote to tune me out with louder volume.
This gives me an idea. “Hey, Dad, I was thinking…”
He turns up the volume louder. I glance over to the kitchen and see my mom’s back as she cleans the stove with a sponge and big bottle of yellow liquid. Probably something organic, knowing her. Taking a couple steps closer to the keys, I continue, “What if I moved back in here with you guys?”
He snorts, eyes glued to the screen.
There is no way in hell I would EVER move back in here. I’m thirty years old for Christ’s sake. “Why not, Dad? I’m tired of living in the city.”
“I’M TRYING TO WATCH MY DAMN SHOW!” he bellows, throwing up his arm in disgust and looking to the side. He grabs up the clicker and hits the volume yet again and just as he does, one of the girls starts a fight in the onscreen bathroom. Their catfight masks the sound of my dad’s keys being quietly lifted from the table.
Walking to the den, I clutch the keys to my chest like I’m holding my wounded shoulder, grumbling loudly, “Alright! Alright! It was just an idea! I’m going back to sleep.”
In the den, I close the door and dash to the window, pulling it up and biting down my yelp of pain as I climb out. My feet fall with a crunch onto the plants outside. I look toward the kitchen window, waiting to see if Mom heard. I don’t see her pop her head out, so I rush to the fence and out to the street to climb into my dad’s Ford pickup and drive back over the Golden Gate Bridge.
My phone I left in the den. If they do check in, without the GPS that’s lodged in it telling them where I am, there’s no way they’ll find me. Not until I want them to. The pain in my shoulder is pounding. Even though I was careful, I irritated it to no end just now.
But I don’t care.
All I care about is getting to Rebecca.