I didn’t respond. How could I even begin to describe what Buddy and I had fled from just a short while ago? When I had visited what I believed was the orphanage from which I had been taken, I had made the most shocking discovery of all. I wasn’t really an orphan. My mother was one of my father’s supposed daughters, and therefore, I had inherited that part of him that I feared and hated the most. I had no choice but to hope I could overcome it. I thought that would be possible only if I put great distance between myself and them. But my older sister Ava had made it very clear to me that escaping who we were was not only impossible but dangerous. She claimed we needed one another. There was another species of us, the Renegades, who would prey upon us as quickly and as easily as they would prey upon the normal. It was all a matter of territoriality.
“You need to be with your own kind,” Ava had said. “One of us alone has no chance out there.”
Buddy and I had just managed to escape from the house where all of my father’s daughters had gathered. It was then that Buddy finally believed what I was telling him, but he still wanted to be with me, to love me. He told me how much he believed in me and how much he believed that I would be different if I stayed with him. In his mind, we were some version of Romeo and Juliet, only we would not make any fatal mistakes and lose each other.
After we had fled, we stopped at a diner where he hoped he would convince me. I knew in my heart that if I hadn’t gotten away from him by hitching a ride with Moses when Buddy had gone to the bathroom, he would probably have died a terrible death. How ironic. To keep the man I loved alive, I had to desert him and hope he would forget me. He would always be my true love, but the love I could never have.
“Exactly what are your plans, girl?” Moses asked. “I’m goin’ only so far here.”
“I thought I’d make my way to San Francisco,” I told him. It really was an idea I had been contemplating. I thought I could get on a flight and go east. I had no specific destination in mind. The only thing I could think of was just to get away, as far away as possible.
I glanced at the rearview mirror when another vehicle drew closer.
Moses looked, too, and then he turned to me, looking more worried. “You don’t think the police are after you, now, do you?”
“No.”
“Whoever you’re leavin’ behind wouldn’t want their help to get you back?”
“No, they would never go to the police,” I said.
He shook his head. “T
hat don’t sound good. If you ain’t eighteen, I think I could be in some trouble if we get pulled over, you know.”
“I understand. I’m eighteen, but is there a bus station coming up soon?”
“Yeah, there’s one at the restaurant I occasionally stop at for some dinner.”
“I’ll get out there and catch a bus. You’ve been very kind. I don’t want to make any trouble for you.”
“I hope you ain’t makin’ any for yourself,” he replied.
“I’m okay.”
“You goin’ to family, at least?”
“Yes, I have an aunt living in San Francisco,” I told him. Spinning lies came to us as easily as spinning webs came to spiders. It was part of our DNA. “She’s always been quite fond of me and has invited me many times. Finally, I can go.”
“Yeah, well, San Francisco is a great town. What kind of work do you hope to do?”
“I’d like to be a grade-school teacher eventually,” I said. “I’ll probably go to college in San Francisco.”
“That sounds good.” He looked at me and nodded. “At least you don’t look like some of the girls I see hitchin’ rides on the highway. Most of them look like they’re into somethin’ bad already, drugs and stuff.” He tilted his head a little, widened his eyes, and said, “And you know what I mean by stuff, dontcha? It gets so that everythin’ is up for sale.”
“That won’t be me, ever,” I said firmly.
He smiled. “You sound sure of yourself.”
“I am,” I told him, and thought about something my father had once told me: “We’re high on life,” he had said. “We don’t need any drugs, and we would never lose respect for ourselves.”
No, I thought now. We don’t need drugs, but we’re trapped by a worse addiction. Was I an absolute fool to think I could overcome it? Perhaps my only hope was to fear and hate my father. If I could learn to find him detestable, I could subdue all that was like him in me.
A part of me wanted this very much, perhaps that part of me that Ava had recognized. But despite all I had learned and all that had nearly happened, it wasn’t easy to hate my father. For most of my life, he had been a wonderful, loving parent who wanted me to benefit from his years of wisdom and knowledge. I simply had no idea how many years there were, but despite what he was and what he could do, he rarely appeared to be anything but gentle and kind to me. I couldn’t just forget all of those wonderful private moments we’d had together, our walks and our conversations, and the way he would often comfort me at night when I was small. Even now, even after all I had seen and done to enrage and disappoint him, I couldn’t believe that he would hate me as much as Ava insisted he would. Of course, I understood that if I succeeded in escaping, I’d have no one but myself probably for the rest of my life, however long that would be.
“It’s good you’re goin’ to be with family,” Moses said, as if he had somehow heard my thoughts. “Family’s important. People without family just drift from one empty home to another. Whatever your parents did to you, you can’t forget they’re your parents,” he warned. “That’s like a seed forgettin’ the tree from which it fell.”
A philosophical truck driver, I thought to myself, but I didn’t laugh at him. Someone who spent so much time on the road by himself surely had to be comfortable with his own thoughts and comforted by them. How many times had he revisited his own youth, agonized over his own mistakes? With the darkness around him and the glare of passing cars carrying people to places he could only imagine were warm and friendly, he must surely have felt the pain and weight of loneliness most of the time.