Exit 109
Kate sighed as she tossed the wrapper from her third Twinkie in two hours to the backseat of her car. Taking a deep gulp of a warmed-over Pepsi, she kept an eye out for the next gas station. She had to get something new to drink. "Mile 149" she muttered to herself, "making good time." Rotating her shoulders as best she could in the cramped Toyota, she tried to stretch out without hitting the gas too hard. The old car couldn't take too much acceleration.
Expertly, she turned the car onto the exit, taking note of which way to turn. She pulled into the small Texaco, hoping they took personal checks, it was all she had left. She had started running low on cash after mile 178, and had begun to curse her lack of credit cards. "I don't want to get into debt" she started talking to herself again as she read the sign above the pump. "Cash or credit card only, just my luck." Kate pulled out again; searching for another station in a town that appeared to have a sum total of two stoplights and a McDonald's. This was way too much trouble for a weekend visit. Six-hour drive to and back just to spend about forty-eight hours total at home.
She hadn't been home in seven months. College was a convenient excuse, going home with friends over breaks, hoping nothing would have to bring her home again. But when her grandmother fell ill, it felt like the right thing to do. She had loved her grandmother, all those years when the small house beside the lake was her only retreat; her grandmother had been the only person she had trusted. When she had discovered her mother's affair, she had only told Nan. When her father had left, and her mother decided she couldn't care for her anymore, Nan had been the one to take her in.
When she had turned fifteen, her mother had settled down again, remarried, and decided she was ready to have Kate come home again. There wasn't much to be done, it was her biological mother, and Nan couldn't protest. So she had lived with her mother and "Wayne" for three years, constantly counting the days until she would be free again. When she began looking at colleges, she searched as far from home as she could, trying to find a place where she wouldn't be expected to come home except for holidays. Her freshman year had been rough to explain, claiming that homework kept her at the dorms, or that a friend wanted her to go to the beach for Spring Break. This year, it had been easier. She had avoided Thanksgiving by getting a job on campus, and for Christmas, she had visited her father. Now, it was almost the end of her sophomore year, and she was making her way home again.
She decided that there was no way she would find another gas station without getting too far off the interstate and risking getting lost. Slowly, she made a U-turn and headed back for the entrance ramp, hoping her quarter of a tank would last her until the next town. She made her way back on the interstate, with forty miles until home.
She started calculating in her head, a quarter of tank, about two and half gallons left. If she got about twenty miles to the gallon, that put her at a handful more than forty miles. Kate contemplated just trying to make it to home on the gas she had left, but she knew that once the needle started towards empty, it just got faster the closer it came. She cranked up the radio, trying to drown herself in the mix tape her roommate had made for their trip to the beach last spring. She bit her lip, trying to remember the words. She sang loudly to the chorus, all the while looking for the next exit.
She was so intent on the road signs that it took three rings for her to notice her car phone. She fumbled with the chord, trying to reach into the passenger side floorboard where it had fallen earlier. "Hello?"
"Kate, honey? It's your mother."
"Hey mom, is everything alright?"
"That's what I was calling to find out, you were supposed to be home over an hour ago."
"Yeah, I had to stop at and get some caffeine and sugar. This is a really long trip, especially by myself. It doesn't help that it's almost midnight."
"Well, dear, you didn't have to come in. I don't see why you're coming home now when you wouldn't even show up for the holidays."
"Mom, listen, I'm on the interstate, I'm about fifty miles out, and I still have to stop for gas again on the way in. I really need to concentrate on the road right now, so I shouldn't be on the phone."
"Okay. Be careful Kate"
"Aren't I always?" Kate muttered to the receiver, wishing her mother hadn't gotten the last word again. "Damn!" She slammed her palm into the steering wheel as she past another exit. She crossed her fingers that there would be another one soon, and slowly pushed further on the gas, trying to remember if speed had any affect on gas mileage.
:: Prose :: Poetry :: Novels :: Fanfiction :: About :: Home ::
Midnight Musings copyright Meiran. Layout and Design by Cyn W.
Brought to you by :: Cerulean Dreame :: Erised Designs ::