thirteen

Last week.

When I left the van it  was still dark.  The sky was turning a little bit grey, but not too much.  I'd decided that I would accept the invitation of the family down the lane and try fishing with the dad and two sons.  They'd offered a pole and bait the evening before and urged me to try catching breakfast.  Xena and I had made their acquaintances at the bait and food shop at the entrance to the  park.  One conversation had led to another, and before we knew it we were invited for supper and then the invitation to fish in the morning.  This was all before the church bus pulled in next our camping site.

The sun came up and the four of us starting casting our lines into the water off a small dock halfway around the lake when we could hear some kind of commotion back towards the campsites.  I hadn't caught anything, much less one of the sunfish the others were landing in thirty second intervals when all of a sudden the van drove through the trees almost into the water.  Xena was driving.

Something had to be wrong for Xena wouldn't drive in front of other people, nor would she have me drive in front of others.  We'd already agreed that our parent were out looking for work and we were left at the lake for a few short days until they came back. That story got us by and even when adults looked at us with a little concern we were left pretty much alone.  My size certainly helped us get through the winter and into the spring.  Although Xena was small for her age of 14, I was quite tall for being the same age.  I'd been measured at 6 feet when I was 13 and it'd had been close to a year since then.

I could see the urgency in her eyes, even from the dock, and quickly put my pole down on the dock and went to the van.  In the few seconds it took me to get there she'd already moved over to the passenger seat and was staring back through the van windows, back towards the campsite.

"Go!  Go, go, go..", was all she said as soon as I opened the door.

"Go.  I put everything in the back.  We can straighten it out later.  Go"

I barely looked at her and concentrated on putting the van in drive and heading back up the sloop to the road.  We continued out of the park and onto the highway. 

"Continue west," I asked.

"South, then west, and then south and then west again."

I waited until she explained.  I waited most of the morning until we came to a small town where we needed to fill up the van for the day.  I pulled into the quick trip station and got out and started the gas with the credit card Xena made me carry.  It had her name on it, how it got there I didn't know, it just appeared one day after a stay in the medium sized town.

When I finished with the gas I stuck my head into the window to ask if she wanted or needed anything.  That's when I first saw the side of her face that had been away from me all morning.

"Xena!"  I quickly went around the front and opened her door.  She stared straight ahead while I looked at the red and purple bruise on the right side of her face, from her forehead to her jaw.

"A cup of ice would be good," she said. "Maybe an aspirin or something," she added.  She gave me a five dollar bill and continued staring straight ahead while I hurried into the store and got a cup of ice, a bottle of her favorite green tea and a tiny bottle of generic type aspirin.

"Let's go," she said when I gave her the ice and aspirin and tea.

"They're surely following us by now."