Hey y’all,
There’s a fairly untapped source in my content reservoir affectionately and aptly labeled “hometown trauma.” I love where I grew up, but the older I get, the more I am convinced it could be a standard setting in the Twilight Zone. (Come talk to me about it for five minutes, and I promise you’ll agree.) With that in mind, some of this piece is pure memory, some of it is more about how it felt, and the rest is somewhere in between.
Content Warning: The following piece contains references to abuse, which may be upsetting for some readers. Please read with caution.
Backroading
There are two places outside of town to get lost. It just depends on if you want to get lost with someone or without them. On the South end sprawls a labyrinth of dirt and ditch with plenty of ways in, but never the same way out. This is what the Junior League would privately define as backwater, and publicly never acknowledge. It may be true, but they wouldn’t want to offend. Besides, its inability to be navigated renders it inhospitable for meeting up with trouble in the arms of someone who would only damage the reputation of potential future members, like yourself. This patchwork of unfinished road is better suited for off-key concerts after dark and confessing to the sky with courage from the blunt your ex-boyfriend stashed inside your console. You notice homes dotting the tree line and breathe deeper knowing they aren’t noticing you. Even when you scream into the expanse because the weight of your existence is crushing you again, no one bats an eye. No one turns on the lights. They hear it all the time. Only beware the lone patrol car skating around the edges at 11:42pm. This kind only comes out to get off on pulling you over, and you already know how female adolescence tempts a power trip. When they inevitably catch you trying to catch curfew, resist the urge to summon tears and accept the warning as it is. They’ll ask about the mud on your tires, but they’ll never figure out where all you’ve been. Just don’t look them in the eye, and you’ll make it home in one piece. The North end, however, holds a singular endless loop. Meandering along for miles, this is the road made for building tension. Its sharp curves and damp dirt threaten to spin you out at every turn. Underneath trees that reach towards each other’s touch, you must go more slowly. Besides, there’s nowhere to stop until you’re halfway around, and by then you should know what you’re getting into. There are more homes here, at least belonging to people your parents probably know, but the reception isn’t at all reliable. Even if anyone this far back would call your mom, the odds will struggle to play in your favor. So if you climb into the car with that boy you haven’t told anyone about, make sure you’ve made up your mind by the time you pass the end of your pediatrician’s fence. Or else when he pulls off at the first chance he gets and puts his hand somewhere it doesn’t belong, it will surprise him when you push him away. Then you will learn the importance of clarity in real time as it dawns on you that you are lost with someone who finds it easy to be angry. You took a risk without realizing it, so when he snatches the phone that doesn’t work from your hands and shoves you out of his passenger seat into the dirt, you won’t even fight back. You will let him leave you where you left him, and all of a sudden you will be alone in the worst kind of way. Yet you will stand idle in the abandoned cemetery lot, afraid to disturb the silence with your shaking knees, and wait for him. Surely he will realize leaving you stranded in the back pines is not an offense a boy like him could admit to a father like yours and live. It will take longer than you expect, still unaware of his propensity towards punishment, but you will climb back into his car when he circles back around and ignore how he treats you like something he rescued. The rest of the loop will pass by in silence, and he will drop you off at home like nothing happened well before curfew and without a trace of mud on his tires. Returned in one piece, the illusion of safety still intact, no one will think to ask about where you’ve been. They will just let him see you again tomorrow, and the next day, and the one after that, like nothing ever happened.
Until next time,
Corinne