Free...Free As A Bird

Free...Free As A Bird

A Short Story

Sweetly I looked over my shoulder and smiled at her she did not smile back. I was in the front seat of the car and she was in the back. I was not mad at her, but she was mad at me. I did not understand why because we had been friends for a few years now and I did not do anything to hurt her. I was just caught in some situation I could not fix. I turned on the radio and my mother looked at me funny so I turned it off. Again silence. Finally I spoke, “Come on why are you so mad? I don't get it! Just tell me. What did I do!!!” My mother pulled the car over and pulled me out of the car. “Do you not know what happened!?! And don't yell at her! She is trying to get over this.” I looked at my mom very sternly. “What do you mean by that. I haven't heard anything!” “Shh...! Be quiet!” She explained it all right there on the side of the road. I started to cry a bit. “But how did he die? How did she not tell me? Why wouldn't she?” “Maybe she thought you knew or that I told you-” “-But you didn't! Why not!” “I thought you would be the first one to know her father died at war.” “Don't...just don't talk to me anymore.” I crawled into the back of the car from my seat and looked at Jane. “You did not tell me! Why!?!” She looked at the floor and did not acknowledge me a bit. “Hey!” I yelled. She looked up. “You don't...You won't...You will never understand will you?” I look angrily at her and then confused. “What do you mean. I thought your father just died at war. Isn't that all? Is there something you're not telling me!?! Tell me!” I shook her violently. She looked up at me with a demented look on her face. “I don't need your abuse.” I was shocked. I sat in my seat and looked at my mother crying outside. I was mad. I turned again to Jane and looked sharply at her. “I don't ever want to speak or acknowledge you ever again.” I started to cry because I knew Jane so well and I had a good friendship with her, but this was the last time I was probably going think of her as a friend. “But I can't do that to my.....” I had to take the highroad. What else was I supposed to do? “......Friend.” She looked confused at me and sniffed. Then she broke into a smile. Things were still bitter with us, but it was better to forgive than to regret. My mother walked back into the car and gave me a piercing look . I halfway expected her to look at me and say she hated me, but she held it back. I was always jealous of Jane. She was nicer, prettier, thinner, and smarter than me and all the boys were crazy over her. My mother, it seamed, loved her much more that me. She would rather have Jane as her daughter than me. She even wanted me to be named Jane, but my father insisted I be named Penelope. My mother hated that name and wanted Jane, but my father won. I thought that name sounded like a pig's name and it is like that on book and/or movie where the girl has the pig nose that has my name. I am fat and piggish like in the face and I think if only I was named Jane I would have such grace and elegance as her, but no. I looked at Jane from the rear view window. I admired her, but hated her so much that I wished her and my mother died in a fiery car wreck. I wanted to be alone forever. I don't understand why Jane thought I would not understand her father's death. My father died too. Well he never died....He just left...because my mother's constant bi-polar episodes. He left me too though. I sometimes wished I had never been born or I had run away when I had the chance. I had wonderful daydreams of me killing the both of them and going to jail happily ever after. Why did I choose to be nice to Jane? Why am I still here? I want to leave I do. I unsnapped my seatbelt and opened the car door and ran free. I ran free. I looked back while running and my mother....she was smiling and then Jane crawled in the front seat. Then they were both laughing. I cried and kept running. Free...Free as a bird. I thought at any moment I would awake from a bad dream, but it was not a dream. This...This is real! Free....Free as a bird! I flew away forever!