I watched her carefully as she slowly turned her head to stare out the window at the old house. Frost began forming down the back of my neck, spreading its icy fingers. When she answered, she spoke softly, almost to herself. Her expression was far away. It was almost as if she were talking to me from another universe. “I don’t think it matters whether I want to, or not. I think we have to.” She turned her head back toward me with a look on her face like she knew something terrible and wonderful at the same time. It was a look, not only of longing, but of fear as well…and acceptance. “This is where I’m supposed to be.” The frost turned to jagged icicles stabbing down my spine. Even as she spoke the words, I heard a voice growing within me. Run, the voice was saying. Get out of the car and just run. Run like you’ve never run before and keep going, boy! Don’t look back. Don’t you ever look back! You won’t like what you’ll see. Just run, and keep on running. Run until you reach the end of the world! God only knows how I wanted to listen to that voice. As her words reverberated through my head, the voice inside me grew louder with every echo. Run! Run and don’t look back! I couldn’t explain it. There was really no reason for the way I felt. Terri wanted the place. It called to her in a way that I couldn’t understand…at least not at the time. Maybe that’s why it bothered me so much. Maybe it was simply because there was something going on that I couldn’t figure out…something I could never truly know. Whatever it was, even as strong as I felt it, I shook it off (at least for the moment) and smiled at her, but that smile felt as thin as stretched hose. One little snag, and it would run, and I with it. If Terri noticed anything wrong, she gave no indication…but I think she knew just the same. I think she knew a lot of things that day. If I had known, I’d never have gone along. I would have listened to that voice and run and never looked back. But I didn’t know. All I knew was there was a certainty in her look as well as in her voice that I simply couldn’t deny. To deny it would be to deny that the sun came up in the east, that the grass was green, and the sky blue. So I smiled at her. I smiled all the way back to Dalton. I smiled as the Realtor typed up the offer, and through dinner, and all the way back to the motel. That night after we made love and the lights were out, she lay sleeping next to me. She was curled into my arm. Her hand lay on my chest, and her knee was drawn up over my thigh. As sleep began to pull me under, I heard that voice whisper. Run. From “The Rabbitry” https://facebook/groups/126014020784739/#!/pages/William-S-Chadwick/603288883096431
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 13:39:58 +0000
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