Never in her life did she dream she would be here. Sitting in her old, faithful truck, keys in the ignition, staring up at the door she'd just walked through. For the last time. She'd left her beautiful, perfect, two-bedroom, second story apartment for the last time. What she also referred to as the dingy house of horror to the 2 friends she had secretly been talking to behind her horrid boyfriend's back. And he was still up there.
It was an unusual feeling, knowing she'd never step foot in that building again. Now what? She thought to herself. Now what are you going to do? She didn't know. She needed to turn the truck over and drive away. Forever. Drive away from his abusive, money-hungry hands. Drive away from her dangerous job, away from this dangerous, dirty town.
Kelly Blake met Dean when she was seventeen years old. She was in high school at the time, and he was twenty-one. With a car. A nice car. A stunning red modified sport car.... I’m sure that car caught every gal’s eye that night on the strip. But her's was the only one who caught his. Oh, what a charmer he was right away, too. He gave her his number, they went out a few times, and she was hooked. She'd moved in with him only a month later, right after her high school graduation, and just months before her eighteenth birthday.
Kelly's daddy always told her to avoid a man in a sports car. "A girl like you, Kelly.. You want a man with a big, strong pickup truck. Stay away from those boys with the fancy, schmancy sports cars". But how was she to know how terribly wrong it could go? That everything sports-car-guy ever told her were mearly sweet lies to entrap her and swing her up into the dangerous life revolving around his job. Where she discovered that the law, true law enforcement, was a tricky thing underneath the pressed uniforms and the shiny badges. Its a nasty circle of threats and lies, all truely focused on one grimey goal: Money.
She hadn't been allowed to have friends. And anybody she did manage to befriend behind his back, he would only find out and drive away with tricky schemes, leaving them believing she was crazy. She wasn't allowed a phone either. Her family was not able to get in touch with her... Except through him. His goal in life seemed to be to keep her to himself. How dare she have thoughts and a life of her own!
It wasnt supposed to be like this. She grew up happy. She had a wonderful, caring, supportive family. She had a good job, she had great country hobbies that kept her satisfied and in shape and contented. Why was she in such a determined hurry to leave all this? When she met Dean, it was like she'd dropped everything and jumped into his arms. She was a strong minded individual, she always had been. So nobody quite understood how the following years managed to happen in the first place.
Now, only two years later, she sits here, willing her fingers to let go of the steering wheel and turn the key. "Just do it, Kel" She squeezed her eyes shut... Turned the key. Done. Okay, now drive! She slammed the truck into gear and she drove.
She didn’t know where she was going. She only knew that she had to get out of there. So she drove. She drove and drove and only stopped to get gas and take short power naps at rest stops and eat what little she could afford with the little money she'd stashed in her pocket. And three days later, this is where she wound up…