The Runaway

Natalie formed her plan as she ran out from under Trev’s desk chair and across the long distance of his bedroom, her tissue dress flapping and flowing around her thighs, her X-Acto blade bouncing against her back, ignoring the pain in her feet from running barefoot over the aged hardwood floor, the cracks and grooves sharp and prominent at her size. She timed her footfalls to the dismal beat of Kanye’s ‘Runaway’, playing in a loop in the back of her head.

The quickest route home would probably be through the wall vent beneath Trev’s bed that connected to the vent in her own bedroom, that they used to talk to each other through on the nights that Trev was stuck at home with his Dad. 

See, I could have me a good girl

And still be addicted to them hoodrats

Or, on occasion, the nights when they didn’t talk, when she’d sit scowling against the wall by the vent, hearing the slams and bangs and yells coming from the apartment next door. And then Trev’s bedroom door would shut and she’d hear him sniffling and whimpering as he crawled under his bed and she’d murmur through the vent, “I’m here, Trevor. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And I just blame everything on you

At least you know that's what I'm good at

And she’d yank down her comforter and some pillows from her bed and lay on the floor by the vent, glaring at the ceiling while he cried quietly on the other side of the wall, wishing she could shrink down and pass through the vent to get him, take him somewhere far far away, run away and never come back.

And I always find, yeah, I always find

Yeah, I always find something wrong

You been puttin' up with my shit just way too long

But now that she had quite literally shrunken down enough to pass through the vent, she was anxious about the idea. It was likely pitch black and there could be rats or something and she didn’t know if it connected to her room directly or if it dropped off or if there was some kind of giant fan that would suck her in and chop her up into little pieces like something out of a horror movie. She’d have to venture all the way through his apartment to get to the door, but she preferred the route she knew to venturing into dark and unknown territories. 

I'm so gifted at finding what I don't like the most

So I think it's time for us to have a toast

She reached his closed bedroom door and barely had to duck down to pass beneath it, turning down the short hallway that opened up to the living room on the left and the kitchen on the right, separated by the towering kitchen island. On the wall facing her, rising above the kitchen island, she could see the back door with its barred window, leading out to the connecting stretch of patios overlooking the grassy courtyard. 

Let's have a toast for the douchebags

Let's have a toast for the assholes

Let's have a toast for the scumbags

Every one of them that I know

Let's have a toast for the jerk-offs

That'll never take work off

This wasn’t the door she was heading for, however, choosing instead to venture across the length of the living room to the main door that led to the dark, creepy stairwell down to the street. No one ever used the front entrance, preferring to take the longer route around the building to the courtyard stairs, in order to avoid said dark creepy stairwell, where you never knew when you might meet some zany character whacked out on Methamphetamine. But there were vents running through the bottom of the front doors that—fingers crossed—she should be able to climb through, and the front door to her own apartment was directly across the hallway. 

In the unfortunate event that Trev returned in the midst of her escape, it would be through the patio door, giving her ample time to duck into a hiding spot and unsheathe her X-Acto blade.

Baby, I got a plan

She hummed under her breath, “Run away as fast as yoou can.”

*                                                *                                                *

Her mother’s funeral service had been excruciatingly long and boring and, as Auntie Rita so eloquently muttered under her breath from farther down the pew, “Un-fucking-believable.” 

They were seated towards the back of the congregation, on the opposite end as the Fletcher side of the family that took up the first few rows. Auntie Rita was the farthest in, next to Frank, who was bouncing Tommy in his lap to keep him quiet with one arm draped around a sniffling Nick. Next was Natalie, slouched down with her arms crossed, and then Trev in the aisle seat. The pews faced a raised stage to her mother’s casket, surrounded by huge flower arrangements. An easel stood before the casket, displaying a blown up, colored version of the same photo of Rebecca as the funeral cards. Beside the easel stood a podium, where a pastor had given a long winded sermon. 

To no one's surprise, there was zero mention of Rebecca’s husband or children; nor anything about her life after high school, besides melancholy little insinuations about how she had been ‘lost’, a lone runaway on a perilous road, but that she was at rest, now, and may the Lord guide her towards peace, at last.

Auntie Rita leaned over to Frank and muttered, “Sure you don’t wanna bail?"

Frank shook his head, blank-faced, and she put a hand on his shoulder. “These fuckers ain’t shit, bro. We’ll throw her a real funeral.”

The floor was eventually opened up for friends and family, and the whole fucking congregation seemed to have something to say about sweet ‘Becky’. Uncle William babbled on and on about how his little sister had always been so bright and inquisitive, pestering him every evening with whatever she’d learned in school that day. Anna Murphy broke down into tears when she reminisced about what a little angel Becky had been to look after. A procession of old high school girlfriends bombarded them with story after story about how funny Becky was and how kind Becky was and how smart Becky was. Everyone agreed that Becky was a friggin genius. Top of the class. Valedictorian. Most likely to succeed. So much potential.

Trev leaned over and muttered, “Hey, Natty, I’m starting to think you mighta been a mistake.”

Natalie’s lips twitched. “Shut up, Trevor.”

“I mean, dang. I always knew you were a tragedy, but goddamn, you really ruined Becky’s life! Just look what you did to all that potential. Ya killed it.”

She snickered.

Some snippety lady whipped around from the row before them with a loud, juicy, “Shh!” And hissed, “Show some respect.” 

“Yeah,” Trev hissed loudly, rounding on Natalie. “Show some respect!” 

She smirked, kicking his leg, and muttered, “You show some respect.” 

“I’ll show some respect,” he grinned, kicking her back. “I’ll respect circles around you.” 

The pretty young woman speaking behind the podium broke down into sniffles. “Thank you.” The congregation clapped lightly for her and she sniffed, smiling around at everyone, before blowing a kiss to the casket behind her. She stumbled down the steps, wiping her teary eyes. 

Another pretty young woman stood up, a couple of rows ahead of them, but before she could step out from the pew, a ten year old boy with dark brown hair rushed past her up the aisle, uttering, “‘Scuse me.”

Natalie reeled back in surprise and whipped around to find the pew beside her vacated. Tommy called loudly, “Where Trev going?” at the same time Nick muttered frantically in her ear, “What’s he doing?” and Frank clutched her shoulder, snarling, “The hell is he doing?” She grimaced around at her dad and brothers, all three of whom were gaping at her as if she had orchestrated Trev’s sudden divergence from the group, while Auntie Rita simply stared after him with raised eyebrows.

Trev strode confidently up the steps to the podium, where he pulled the microphone down to his mouth. “Hey, every-body,” he said brightly, looking around at the baffled congregation with a crooked grin. “So, um, a lot of you out there don’t know me, but I just wanted to say…” He tsked, shaking his head, blinking towards the ceiling. “Becky had so much potential.”

Natalie let out a loud squeal of laughter, clapping her hands over her mouth while Frank squeezed her shoulder, snarling, “I’m gonna kill him.”

“The amount of potential she had,” Trev continued, grinning over at Natalie. “Was just… out of this world.”

The congregation muttered amongst themselves, trying to figure out who this random kid was. The Fletchers seemed to have some idea, as they snarled and hissed to each other, shooting outraged glares around at Frank, who groaned, “Oh my God, I’m gonna kill him.”

The funeral director hovered anxiously to the side, trying to figure out if he was expected to step in or if that responsibility lay more with the kid’s parents.

“I’ll be passing around a petition,” said Trev. “To Webster’s Dictionary. Demanding they add a picture of Becky next to the word, ‘Potential’.”

And before she knew what she was doing, Natalie was ducking out from under her dad’s grasp and stalking up the aisle, ignoring his hisses of, “Natalie! Natalie, I swear to God!”

The muttering and mumbling crescendoed after her as she stalked past the bewildered Funeral Director, up the steps, squeezing in next to Trev. “If I could just emphasize!” she called, yanking the microphone down to share it with him. “How much potential sweet Becky had.”

“So much.”

“So much.”

The Funeral Director looked inquisitively towards the family of the deceased in the front row, who seemed frozen in states of shock and indignation.

“Yo, your kid’s a fucking G,” Auntie Rita mumbled with a huge smirk and Frank groaned, pinching his forehead and yanking Tommy back to the seat as he attempted to sprint up after Natalie.

The shusher lady whipped around to hiss at Frank, “Are you planning on stopping them?”

Frank sighed at her, as if they were both in allegiance against the ruffian children on stage, and shook his head. “No ma’am, I’m not. But don’t you worry, there’s gonna be two more funerals after this one.”

Natalie shot Trev a piercing glare and without a word he scooted over, letting her take the center of the podium. She peered out over the congregation of strangers looking back at her in various states of shock and confusion.

She swallowed and said, “So, um, a lot of you don’t know me, either. And, um, I didn’t know Becky.” She looked at her brothers, from little Tommy with his wide smile, waving at her in awe and admiration, to Nick, staring in shock, mouth agape. It was to them she said, “The lady I did know… she didn’t have it all together like Becky did. She got really sad sometimes. And she was really spastic. And messy. And she couldn’t cook. Like, at all. She had this thing where she refused to look up a recipe because she wanted to figure it out, and she’d get all experimental. And it would always taste so bad. And whenever we’d complain, she’d just laugh and say something weird like, ‘Someday you’ll savor the flavor of imperfection.’”

Nick’s mouth closed as he drew in breath, his lip quivering, his brows drawing together.

The angry muttering picked back up again with a panicked sort of frenzy in the first couple rows, amongst her grandparents and uncle and other family members she’d either never met or didn’t remember. She ignored them, keeping her focus out on the crowd, on the people who’d greeted her dad with friendly smiles and called her Natty Light, who were watching her in confusion, trying to gauge if this was a continuation of the other kid’s ‘potential’ gag.

“She was really into horror movies. And she was super obsessed with Halloween. Like, super obsessed. We’d always have to decorate on the first day of October, and all month she’d drag us out to pumpkin patches and cheesy haunted houses and make us watch the same old horror movies year after year, which we suspected that was part of some grand scheme of hers to give us all nightmares and get us to sleep in bed with her while Dad was exiled to the couch, like, all month.”

There were a few random chuckles from across the congregation, from people concluding that this wasn’t a prank, that this kid actually did know Rebecca, quite intimately it seemed. Anna Murphy leaned forward over the pew to whisper something into her irate grandmother’s ear, squeezing her shoulder.

“And, um…” Natalie went quiet for a moment, her brows drawing together, and Trev’s hand brushed against hers. “She was really creative. She didn’t like us watching too much TV, so she was always having us draw and paint and make masks and costumes and put on plays and make up games and stuff. And she taught herself to play guitar. She’d found a really nice acoustic one at a garage sale and came home super pumped about it, even though she didn’t actually have any idea how to play it. But she was about to have my baby brother, Tommy, and she wanted to learn so she could sing him lullabies and stuff. And she actually got pretty good at it, too. And she, um,” she drew in a raspy breath, holding back tears. “And she started writing songs... Um, there’s this one that I haven’t been able to get out of my head the past couple of days, and um, it really sucks, because she never recorded it or anything, so we’ll never, um, we’ll never h-hear it again…” 

She shakily pulled a folded up piece of paper from her dress pocket, swatting tears from her eyes. “I, um, I wrote down the lyrics so I wouldn’t forget… I won’t sing it, but I can read it. It’s really pretty, like a poem...”

But she paused as she saw Anna duck down her pew and approach the stairs to the podium, calling softly, “Okay, sweetie, that’s enough.”

Natalie sniffled down at her, her lip quivering.

Anna smiled warmly, holding her arms up, beckoning her towards her in a motherly sort of way. “It’s okay, sweetie, you’re not in any trouble. Just come on down, now.”

“Why can’t she talk?” asked Trev from beside her, who’s voice had gone rather quiet and hoarse. “Everyone else got to.”

Anna’s lips tightened. “That’s enough, now, sweetie.”

“Are you kidding me!” Auntie Rita bellowed from their pew at the back of the room, her mascara smeared with tears. “Let her read the freakin’ song!”

Natalie gaped down at the beautiful, scowling woman, who had been like a sister to her mother. She looked around at her brothers, both now sniffling against Frank, who was looking sadly up at her with furrowed brows. She looked around at his scattering of old high school friends, glancing around at him and muttering excitedly to each other, as if they’d finally just cracked the case of a ten-year old mystery. She looked around at the Fletchers, glaring up at her as if she was some foul and disgusting mold that had slunk through the walls, that they simply could not get rid of, no matter how hard they scrubbed. 

Natalie glared back at them, pulling the microphone right up against her mouth. It was to them she said, “I’ll never forget this one time,” her voice ringing loudly through the chapel. “I found Becky. Dead in our living room.”

Her grandmother shrieked. 

“Shit,” Frank spat, shoving Tommy into Nick’s lap as he climbed past him down the pew.

The congregation gasped and sputtered. Anna shot a look at her husband, a stalky, thick-jawed man sitting by the twins, as well as another little girl and a boy around Tommy’s age. The man huffed and got to his feet.

“Puke foaming outta her mouth,” Natalie continued, glaring around at everyone. “Needle sticking outta her arm.”

Trev chuckled beside her, shaking his head, and he leaned back into the podium to say into the microphone, “Ooh, that Becky. What a gal.”

“What a gem.”

“What a star.” 

“What a goddamn angel!” 

Frank stalked up the aisle, pointing up at her and bellowing, “Not another word, Natalie! Time to go!” but was ambushed by Fletchers before he could reach the stairs.

Her Uncle William got in his face, bellowing, “You need to get her out of here! She’s completely out of control!” 

“Sure,” Frank growled. “Move.”

But then Auntie Rita appeared at his side and bellowed, “Hey, fuck you, man, don’t talk about my niece like that! She was giving a way better eulogy than any of you fuckers!”

“Why did you come here!” her grandmother wailed from the pew. “Just leave us in peace so I can say goodbye to my daughter!”

Frank’s scowling gaze snapped over to her. “That’s funny. I seem to remember you saying goodbye to your daughter fucking years ago.”

“Don’t talk to her like that, you piece of shit!” her uncle hollered, shoving him.

“You don’t wanna push him right now, man!” her aunt hollered, shoving him back.

Meanwhile, Anna Murphy’s burley husband came storming past her up the steps towards the podium, shouting, “Get down! Now!”

Trev stomped down before him, blocking his path. “Wait your turn, bro! We all wanna chance to talk about Becky!”

 “I remember this other time,” Natalie snarled into the microphone before anyone could stop her. “Sweet Becky, high outta her mind she was, said to me, ‘I’m sorry you got stuck with me as your mom, Natalie. I wish I coulda been a better person. I wish I coulda been perfect for you. It’s just so hard. It’s all so fucking! Hard!’”

“Okay.” The big man shoved passed Trev and grabbed her by the arm and Frank bellowed from the aisle, “OY! GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY FUCKING KID!”

He threw her uncle aside but then her grandfather grabbed him by the front of the shirt and wailed into his face, “You shouldn’t even be here! You did this to her, you son of a bitch! You did this! YOU KILLED MY DAUGHTER!”

Natalie snarled up at the big man, clutching the microphone as he tried to pull her away while his other hand clutched the arm of a punching, shouting Trev, holding him back. “So thanks, every-body!” she yelled. “Thank you all so much for all the kind words about my dear dead mom! It’s just so fucking swell to see all these kind, loving, supportive folks she had in her life!” The man scooped her up under one arm, pulling her away and she clung to the microphone with all her strength and screamed, “TOO BAD SHE WENT AND GOT HERSELF KNOCKED UP IN HIGH SCHOOL, THE FUCKING WHORE!”

The man released his hold on Trev to grab her wrist, twisting it and wrenching her hand from the microphone, and she squealed in pain and Trev barreled into him, pounding his fists against his back and suddenly Nick appeared out of nowhere, shouting and cursing like a maniac and throwing himself around the man’s legs.

“What is wrong with you people!” her grandmother screeched. “What is WRONG WITH YOU!”

And then Frank was there. He wrenched Natalie from the big man’s grasp and punched him square in the face. The crowd erupted into gasps and screams (and a couple of odd hoots and cheers) as he hoisted her around him and she squeezed her arms around his neck and her legs around his chest and she burst into screaming sobs against his shoulder as Anna screamed and rushed to aid her husband, who was groaning on the ground beside the podium, clutching his face. 

Frank held Natalie with one arm while the other yanked Nick off the floor by the collar of his suit jacket. He grunted over the commotion, “Say goodbye to your mom, kids.” 

Nick blinked around to the casket and whimpered, “Bye, Mom,” while Natalie only sobbed louder, screaming into his shoulder. 

Goodbye? Good-bye? To say goodbye would mean that this funeral wasn’t really for that Rebecca chick, after all. It would mean that this wasn’t all some big mistake or elaborate prank, that the reason her mom had been lying so still on the floor, the reason she’d been so cold, the reason her deep blue eyes were open but that she wouldn’t look at her, she wouldn’t even fucking look at her, was that her she was… she was…

Natalie squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like her insides were blasting apart into a million pieces. She wailed against her dad’s shoulder as he carried her down the steps, away from the casket, willing him to hold her shattered pieces together, or better yet to pull some all-powerful Dad magic out of his hat that might reverse time, take it all back, bring her back. He hugged her tightly with one arm while his other wrapped around Nick’s shoulders, shielding them from the howling Fletchers as they stalked by. 

This unbearable pain slicing her apart seemed to have shot through both of her brothers at the same time, because Nick had his face pressed against their dad’s waist while they walked, convulsing violently with muffled sobs, while Auntie Rita struggled to console a bawling Tommy in the aisle as he screamed, “I WANT MY MOMMMYYYY!” 

Frank hoisted Natalie higher over his shoulder so he could scoop Tommy up under the same arm. He stalked down the aisle, ignoring the stares and the glares and the buzzing voices from the pews surrounding them, carrying two screaming kids in one arm with his other wrapped tightly around the third, Auntie Rita storming along behind them. He paused at the doors and turned back to find Trev with his back to them, still standing before the closed casket. 

Frank whistled and bellowed, “TRE-VOR!”

Trev turned around, scowling with teary eyes. He sauntered down the steps, whacking over the picture display as he passed by, evoking another chorus of outrage from the congregation.

Frank sighed, shaking his head. “Come on, ya little shit,” he grunted when Trev reached them. He lifted his hand from around Nick to tousle his hair. “Can’t take you anywhere.”

*                                                *                                                *

Natalie made her way across the apartment, taking a longer route to keep under furniture, avoiding the wide open as much as possible, growing ever wary of Trev’s imminent return. She ran under the small dining table, listened for any footsteps out on the patio, then sprinted as fast as she could across the long open space to the nearest armchair, which she stopped beneath for just a moment to catch her breath before running out under the end table to reach the couch. She ran across the rug beneath the length of the couch, pausing again on the other side to catch her breath, in preparation for the final open stretch across the living room and into the entrance nook. She leaned against the couch’s leg, panting for breath, shaking out her blistered and bloody feet to try and speed along her fancy new healing powers. 

Her heart skittered as she heard a familiar song playing in the distance, as if calling to her. 

Her mother’s song. 

The lullaby she thought she’d never hear again, until the somber drive home from the funeral, when little Nicky, his cheek smooshed against her shoulder in the back seat of Frank’s truck, began to hum it softly. And everyone listened quietly for a moment, staring glumly out various windows, all except Tommy, who was huddled up in Natalie’s lap, his face nuzzled into the crook of her neck with her arms wrapped tightly around him. And then, cuddled up with her little brothers in the back seat of their dad’s truck, staring numbly out the window, she softly sang the lyrics she’d been prevented from reading aloud to their mother’s family and friends: 

Miles under the sea and moon

Where rainbows dance and coral blooms

Be still, my darling, in the deepest lagoon

My heart glows for you

Starfish gaze at the galaxy way

Up above in the starry night sky

Oh how they dream to sparkle and shine 

Why must they lay, while other stars fly

Miles away, across the sea

I lay with you, while you lay with me

Be still, my darling, in the deepest lagoon

My heart glows for you

The lullaby they would continue to hum and sing to each other in the following years, so that they’d never forget. That Nick would later spend hours upon hours trying to figure out how to play on their mother’s old acoustic guitar, while the rest of the family bickered loudly over the correct notes, humming over each other, fingers pinched in the air, until they were all satisfied with the version he would play whenever one of them was feeling sad, or lonely, or scared. 

Perhaps he had some intuition that she was in danger, that she was desperately trying to get home. Perhaps on some deep, sibling level, he knew that she needed help, even if he didn’t know why, and so he was guiding the way, letting her know that he was there, which meant that Tommy probably was, too, that they were both there, waiting for her. 

She took a deep, determined breath, and took off around the couch leg to sprint the final stretch to the front door, towards the sound of her mother’s song. As she approached she saw that she could indeed crawl up through the vent, but she wouldn’t even have to go that far, because their cheap ass apartments were such shit, she’d be able to crawl right under the half inch gap beneath the door, itself. But just as she reached the door, giddy with triumph, she stopped dead in her tracks.

She felt them before she heard them; the tumultuous footsteps, coming up the hallway stairs. 

Her heart hammered in her throat as she gaped up at the door, shuddering slightly with every pounding footstep. But it must just be an upstairs neighbor; it couldn’t possibly be Trev—he always came up through the courtyard, like everyone. Always. She was so sure of it that she didn't even bother attempting to hide, or at least get out of the way of the door. Because what were the odds, what kind of bizarre, unfortunate, abysmal twist of fate, would it have taken, not just for Trev to have randomly chosen this one day, of all the days, to come up from the street entrance, but also to arrive at the door at the exact moment she did.

And then a set of keys rattled into the lock above and she could do nothing but back slowly away, laughing darkly to herself because it seemed she had, indeed, been placed under some kind of hex or curse—by the fucking devil himself. 

The knob twisted, and she ducked down as the door came swinging overhead in a sinister gust of wind, to reveal a pair of van-sized Vans sneakers, standing in the hallway on the other side.