You're halfway out the door when you realize you don't have your keys, and you don't know where they are. Two minutes later, you find them on top of the toaster. Why are your keys on top of the toaster, goddammit? You get to the car and the engine won't turn. You lean your head against the wheel and think: my life is a mess, my life is falling apart.
Well, take it from me, that's a rough morning, but your life isn't a mess, and it's not falling apart. Your life is probably just peachy. You don't get to think that your life is falling apart until your biker boyfriend follows you home from Vegas, gets held at gunpoint by your dad, then admits that he's trying to escape his own father, who just arrived at your doorstep with a horde of scary men on rumbling motorcycles. That's when you really get to say "my life is a mess".
Yes, when you look back from your bedroom window, out of which you can see the gang of men on their bikes, and see your crumpled panties on the floor, where the boy who shouldn't even be in your room threw them, and realize that you're irreversibly screwed on pretty much all accounts, then you get to think to yourself: my life is a mess, my life is falling apart.
Because at that point, it will be true.
25
"What are we gonna do? Boon, what are we gonna do? Holy shit, holy shit, I have to call my dad, I have to call the police, we gotta … ." I said, panic hitting me like a champion heavyweight. Blood was pounding in my ears, making the whole world sound muted, muffled. My hands were shaking; hell, my whole body was shaking. I could barely focus on Boon's figure at the window, his face pale. He turned to me and I felt his strong grip on my wrist; next thing I knew, we were running down the stairs and towards the back of the house.
"Boon, wait, stop, my dad, my phone, we … "
"No time! There's no fucking time, Samantha! They're not here to fucking negotiate, they're here to fuck us up!" Boon said, propelling me through the house at a neck-breaking speed. We reached the glass doors that led to the backyard and I thought, foolishly, that Boon was going to run straight through them. He stopped and fumbled with the handle. It was locked, but in his panic Boon was just pulling at it.
"Wait," I said, moving in front of him and unlocking the door, letting it slide open. I turned to him, blocking the exit, clarity starting to bleed into my frenzied thoughts. "We need to stop and call someone. We can't outrun them or … "
"Samantha, I swear to God, if you never trusted me before, you need to trust me now. There's no time." I heard knocking on the front door: a very, very, very loud and violent knocking. "You don't know my father. Now we have to GO!"
With that, he grabbed my hand again, pushing past me into the backyard, dragging me along the manicured lawn as I stared back into my house, hearing the knocking become a banging. This is a safe neighborhood, I thought to myself, vaguely, as Boon pulled me through the backyard. They can't hurt me here. They can't hurt us in my home.
Just as Boon was pulling me through the hedges that acted as a fence around our backyard, I saw shadowy figures in the hallway, rushing towards us. And then we were in the next yard over, my heart racing, my mind still foggy, Boon still pulling me along. I couldn't see the house anymore after that.
"Jesus, Samantha, you gotta hurry up, baby, please," he said, his voice desperate and fast. I turned back, facing forward now and trying to walk as quickly as Boon was dragging me. We came out the other side of my neighbor's house; the street here seemed so quiet, so still and normal. But Boon kept pulling me away.
He led me across the street to a car, grabbing the handle and pushing me towards the front.
"Get in on the other side," he said; the driver's door must have been unlocked, because he slid into the front seat and leaned over, unlocking the passenger side. I stood in front of the car, looking at him incredulously.
"I'm not going to get into a stolen car with you," I said, loudly.
"Well, consider it borrowing, then, Samantha, but get the fuck in," Boon said before his head disappeared; he was leaning under the steering wheel, presumably preparing to hotwire the car. I slammed my hands down on the hood. His head jerked back up.
"I'm. Not. Stealing. A. Car. We just have to go into any of these houses, someone will be home and we can call the cops," I said.
"The cops? Samantha, my dad eats cops for breakfast. And anything they can pin on him, they can pin on me. I can't call the cops on them, Samantha, I just can't. They'll gang up and it'll be my ass in a cell for seventy years. Please, please, just get in the car," Boon said, leaning out of the window and looking at me with a mix of fear and determination in his eyes.
I turned back to the house whose yard we had just cut through and nearly pissed myself when I saw motion in the hedges; a tall, leather-clad figure emerged, running across the lawn, and my mind was made up. There really wasn't time to go door-to-door looking for help. I raced across the car to the passenger side and threw myself in, locking the door.
"Go, go, go," I screamed. Boon held a bundle of wires in his hand and I watched him match some up; the engine roared to life and Boon grabbed the wheel, one foot pressed against the pedal. We skidded off down the street and, turning around, I saw one, two, three, five, seven huge figures run out into the street after us. We skidded around a corner, then another; I had no idea where we were going and neither, presumably, did Boon.
"Where are we going?" I asked, my breath shallow, adrenaline coursing through me.
"Somewhere safe. Any ideas? This is your town, where can we go?" Boon said, glancing at me quickly. His knuckles were white from clutching the steering wheel, his eyes dancing between the road and me. My mind was racing, but it seemed like I was thinking in gibberish. Nothing really made any sense. I felt tears begin to roll down my face.
I thought, suddenly, inexplicably, that I wished I'd been wearing panties. They were still balled up on my bedroom floor. In my house. Which had been broken into. And probably trashed. Maybe they were in my room right now, tearing my curtains, breaking my picture frames, going through my clothes, they'd see my panties right there on the ground …
The tears began to turn to sobs as my poor little brain began to process the last five minutes. Those five minutes, when I looked back on them, felt like hours.
"Samantha! Focus! Where can we go? There has to be somewhere!" Boon yelled, reaching out one hand and grabbing my shoulder, squeezing it. Despite everything else, the weight of his hand on me felt calming, sturdy. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes.
My first thought was my aunt's farmhouse, where my cow and chickens lived, but if the club had been able to find my address, they could certainly find my aunt's house.
"The Clamhouse," I suddenly said, speaking even before the thought was fully formed in my head. "We can go to the Clamhouse."
"Okay, okay, what is that, and where is it?" Boon said, squeezing my shoulder again. The Clamhouse was what we all called an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of town. It was a place where people would sometimes throw parties or bonfires. The origins of the name were murky, but it was common belief that it was called "the Clamhouse" because it was someplace boys took their girlfriends to have sex. In a fairly conservative town where you couldn't get a hotel room if you were under 18 and most fathers had shotguns locked in their desk, sometimes you needed someplace to get a little privacy.
Of course, I'd never been taken to the Clamhouse for anything other than a post-football game party, but I knew there were mattresses and blankets and things inside, and that it would be – probably – the best place to hide out. We were driving aimlessly, and quickly, through my neighborhood. I tried to make my brain work enough to figure out the directions.
"Take a left here," I said, knowing that we needed to get on the highway. Boon followed my directions and soon we were zooming through the city, headed towards the country. I looked out the window (the stolen window) and felt tears returning, pressing against the backs of my eyes.
"I need to call my parents," I whispered, turning to Boon. "This is bad. I stole a car and … and … "
"You didn't steal a car, I stole a car," Boon said, not making eye contact.
"Well, then I assisted you in stealing a car," I snapped back, my nerves raw. "And my dad is the goddam sheriff, and I'm about to start college, and … and … shit!"
"I know, Samantha, I know. Don't you think I feel guilty enough? Goddammit, I knew I shouldn't have done this … .I shouldn't have come here! I'm such a fuck up! And now I've got you involved … " He slammed his hands against the steering wheel, his shoulders practically next to his ears with all the tension in his body.