45. Broken

I want to punch out and break something.

It’s Friday afternoon, and I know that last conversation I had with Kelsey means I’m going to have wait another few days before seeing her again. She no longer answers my texts or wants to talk on the phone.

She’s making it pretty clear how she feels. She just doesn’t have the guts to tell me to leave her alone.

I get on my bike and start it up and drive off.

I’ve got a full tank of gas, so instead of heading to an empty cabin I decide to stay on the roads. I just ride around thinking and wondering but mostly just riding.

When I get older I want to take this bike across the country. I want to see the Grand Canyon and drive through the desert and through the Rocky Mountains. I want to feel dirt and dust and heat and cold and feel something I’m not able or allowed to feel around Solitary.

I want to ride alone because that’s what I do. That’s what I’m destined to do, for some reason.

What did I do wrong?

I went too far, and I knew it even when it was happening.

No, I didn’t. I wasn’t thinking about anything except Kelsey.

Maybe I wasn’t thinking about her at all.

Maybe it was something that had been building for a while. Ever since Jocelyn and Lily and everything else that happened.

And maybe I’m just a regular guy doing what regular guys do.

I take a corner a little too fast and feel the bike buckling underneath me as I grip the handlebars.

But I kind of like the out-of-control feeling.

I wish I could be just a regular teenager. Just a normal guy dating a normal girl doing normal guy-girl things without thinking too hard.

I don’t want to see any more freaking spaces in between.

I don’t want to drive up to the inn or find the hidden bed-and-breakfast or go down to see the creatures by the bridge.

Maybe you don’t have a choice.

The chilling wind wakes me up, and I keep driving.

I know that later tonight I’ll be on my own. This guy who’s bruised and broken and not sure what’s going to happen next.

I can’t let Kelsey leave me. Not now.

Yet I also know that maybe it’s the best thing that could happen.

At least to her.