A Shot at Freedom (3 page)

David
tapped the cabin again and she let the brake off. The ute surged forward, up over the ledge faster than she intended. At first, she felt a sob escape her throat and then she started to laugh when she realised it had worked.

In an instant, t
he world went white with a thick deafening crack. She screeched, cowering over the wheel, slamming her feet on the brake and clutch. Blinded by the light, the thought occurred to her she might be dead. But when she dared to open one, in spite of the rain, a tree in front of them had burst into flames. Until David opened the door, his face a morbid grey, she worried he too might have been struck. Eager to get him back inside, she skidded over the bench seat to the passenger side, her mouth agape.

“We’re safe here. Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice
,” he told her.

“I
’m not so sure about that.”

Water dripped from David’s long spiky fringe, as he watched the tree burn out, “Everything we ha
ve in the world is in this car.”

“If we lost it we’d be stuffed.”

“If we lost it we would have started all over again. Fresh. Nothing from the old life.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“We would’ve started walking.”

Soaked to the skin, her clothes sucked at her body.
Brooke leaned her forehead against the cool window. The rain drizzled down outside, dripping through the perished rubber seal. She didn’t know what to say.

“I want you to be honest Brooke,” David said, tipping her chin down, turning so she faced him. “Are you really up for this?
”

She took a moment to breathe in and out.
“Why couldn’t we just go the main roads?”

“Really.
Are you up for this?”

“All we have to do is stick together
,” she said quietly.

There was no
question, she would have to toughen up.

Chapter Four

David

Water seeped through the seal around the windscreen, dribbling onto the dash. It didn’t matter that it was summer. Damp, cold wet clothes in a damp, cold wet car would
was uncomfortable on every level. The worst thing was it was David’s car that was rusted and old and letting them down. If they were in one of Brooke’s family cars none of this would be happening. She shook beside him. He considered pretending that he couldn’t see it, but it got the better of him.

David reached over into the back for an old grey blanket. “Get changed,” he said laying it over her.

She threw it back, reaching over the seat into her bag to pull out some dry clothes.

“You don’t want the blanket?” He ran his fingers across it. It was kind of scratchy and had a bit of a wet dog smell to it.

“In a sec.”

David undid his jeans and peeled them off. It was a struggle to get out of them.

“What are you doing?” she snapped at him.

“Getting changed.”

“Use the blanket.”

He looked at her out from under his wet stringy curls. The patterns the water made of the windscreen made the shadows on her face shift and change. He pulled his soaked t-shirt over his head.
After slapping the wet clothes on the back seat, he delved into his bag to grab the only other pair of jeans he owned and a sweat shirt.

“David?”

“I’m wearing my best pair of jocks, lay off.”

“I can’t look.”

“Well don’t look.”

Obediently, she turned her face away but not before he caught her smile.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the chance to change his boxers.  “You can turn back now.” It didn’t worry him at all the way she watched him pull on his dry clothes. “Now get out of your wet clothes,” he said.

“Um.
Can you get out for a moment?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s raining. I’m dry. You have a blanket.” He held her gaze. He’d known her forever. She always lowered her eyes first. It was always a relief when she did. “Is it too scratchy for you?” he asked softly.

“Nup.”

When she pulled the blanket over her head, it reminded him of a game of ghosts they’d once played as kids with her mother’s white sheets fresh off the line.
They copped it that day, but it was fun at the time. Brooke bent forward, the blanket began to slip. He caught sight of her back and forced himself to help hold the blanket in place.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

It was hard not to laugh when her back bumped the roof, then her elbow knocked into the window. “So much dignity,” he said. 

Emerging, her usual smooth straightened hair was straggly and damp and dragged down her face. She brushed it back, smoothing the long fringe with her fingers.

David settled back against the window. It was one of the few dry spots in the cabin. He watched Brooke spread her clothes neatly out on the back seat.

“We’ve got to keep going
. But let’s slow it down a bit,” he said, starting the engine.

“You want to share the blanket with me?” she asked, holding an edge out to him.

He lifted his arm and she shifted across the bench seat and nuzzled into him. Inching forward, he flicked the lights on high, hoping to stay on the track.

She flattened her fingers and palm over his thigh, lifting one finger at a time
, gripping him tight. It was a pattern. He could tell she was amusing herself, passing the time, avoiding how uncomfortable she really was.

“What happens if I can’t make life any better for you? What happens if our life is just one struggle after another struggle, after another struggle…
”

She covered his mouth. “I get the picture. You take on too much responsibility for me David Banks.”

“I can take you back anytime you want.”

“
I’m not going back. We’re free now.”

He shifted and she resettled herself against him.

When David began to trace the cut on his lip, she pulled his hand away. “Don’t. It’ll get infected.”

“Shut up,” he groaned.

The ute plunged and rolled along the muddy track. David felt Brooke relax. In the quiet, flashes of his father kept snapping through his brain like old photos. The tired face of a man sitting on the top step taking one worn work boot off at a time, looking out to the trees, catching sight of David walking towards the house.  It was the rare smile that triggered more memories. He didn’t deserve to die.

It’s what people in town wouldn’t know about his
dad. He worked hard. He tried. It wore him out. He only went to town when he needed supplies. And he only needed supplies when he needed a drink. So it happened a lot. The first few drinks settled his dad’s nerves, calmed him way down, made him laugh out loud sometimes. But he drank them way too fast, and by the time anyone knew it was too much he couldn’t stop. When he couldn’t stop, he lost control. When he lost control it was never good for anyone.

What David hated most about the drinking was that his
dad had no remorse when he woke the next day. It was always business as usual. And regular business was David had to take the bus into town and face a world that lumped him in the same basket as his father, mean, angry and up to no good. The humiliation of it was too much. Regular business meant his mother scrubbed, cooked, cleaned, and worked hard on the farm until her hands split and bled, and deep lines of worry gouged her face. Regular business meant that no matter how hard his father laboured he would know that he could never have Brooke’s mother to go home to. He’d lost her a long time ago, after another careless, drunken night when they were all so young. Drinking destroyed everything.

Brooke tapped at his temple
. “Thinking?”

He smiled down at her. “No.”

“Liar.”

“
What do you think life would have been like for my dad if he and your mum had’ve got together?”

“We wouldn’t be who we are, and maybe we wouldn’t exist. Someone else would be here.”

“Maybe we would have been brother and sister.”

“Maybe
,” she muttered.

“Maybe I wrecked it.”

“How did you wreck it?”

“If I wasn’t conceived, maybe your mum and my dad would have found a way through it and stayed together. Maybe he would have been happy
eventually and stopped drinking.”

“He would have found a way to keep drinking, David. And secondly, for the record, you didn’t have that much say on your conception. It was
pretty much up to your mum and dad.”

“Dad was drunk and gave it to my
mum, probably in some back alley somewhere. Or a toilet. How romantic. Once your mum found out about me, he had no chance with her after that.”

“Your
mum got to have you. She loves you. And she loves your dad.”

“He never loved her back. If it wasn’t for me, she could have been free.”

David knew one thing for sure, his life was a life of
should
s where no one got what they ever really wanted. And all he ever had running through his head was how his birth had poisoned everyone’s life and set this calamity in motion. There was never an end to it. Even when he shot someone, his own father, his dad, the air didn’t seem any clearer.

“There was nothing anyone could have done to make anything different.”

It took everything he had not to fidget, under the weight of Brooke. A part of him wanted to take her home, but more of him didn’t want to. When she was with him, he had a better chance of forgetting all of their complexities and he knew she did too. For a moment, they had each other to think about. Friendship if it’s deep enough and real enough can make you forget anything.

He felt his breath falter when Brooke carefully peeled herself off his chest. She sidled across the seat and reached back into her bag, pulling out her mobile. The screen lit up. She bit her lip.

David kept his gaze on the road. It took everything he had not to rip the phone out of her hand. He didn’t want her to know about the mess he’d left behind. If she did, she’d know how sick in the head he was. Only a sick person could do what he did. David knew he was no good. He didn’t want Brooke to know it.

But then if she knew she might go back, and that might be the best thing in the end.
She should always have the option to go back if she wanted to. In fact, if she did, it might even be a relief. There was no way he could make her an accessory after the fact.

“No messages?” he asked.

“Nothing. No one knows yet.”

He watched her swipe and tap at the screen
. “I’m surprised you’re even getting reception,” he said.

“Oh, there you go.”

“What?”

“Facebook.
Lost my last friend.”

“Did you wipe them or they wipe you?”

“They’re all posting like mad about how disgusting we are. It’s getting out of hand. Pretty cruel. You don’t really want to know.”

“So you wiped them.”
He raised his eyes to the roof, shaking his head. “Facebook,” he tutted. “They weren’t real friends anyway. None of them really knew you.” It was because they’d found out about him, that all the friends had turned on her. They’d hung out together for years and no one knew a thing. Why she suddenly rebelled in the last week of school and told everyone about them was beyond any sane reasoning. “You shouldn’t have told them about us. I’m just a friend. I’m sure they have friends nobody knows about.”

“Who cares? I’m happy
.” She shut the phone down and laughed. “They can all think what they want.” Brooke tossed the phone into her bag,

“Do you want me to take care of your phone?” he offered.

“No it’s right. I want to keep it.”

“Your mother will be ringing you.”

“I’ll deal with it.” She sighed.

He let her curl into him again, pulling his arm around her. He watched her play with his fingers as though they weren’t really connected to him.

“Did you bring your phone?” she asked.

“I gave it to Mum.”

Brooke lifted her head and met his gaze. “My parents have that number. It was my phone. Mum thinks you have it.”

David shrugged. “Mum can handle it. I just wanted her to have a phone so I could call her.”
He reached back into Brooke’s bag. “I’ll take the phones for a while. It’s not going to be fun. Let me deal with it in the beginning.”

“
Your mum must have hated seeing you go.”

It surprised him that she didn’t put up a fight.
“I wanted her to come.”

“I can’t imagine her squished in here with us.”

David smiled at the thought, the third wheel.

“The rain’s stopped
,” Brooke said.

“The main road isn’t far.”

“Turn the lights down then.”

Leave her? Take her. Leave her? Take her.