Fast Car

For a long time now, I've wondered how best to say this. Somehow I know I'll never get it right. Presently, you're a thousand miles away, and I'm struggling to keep things sane over here. There's a lot that's probably been on your mind, but if you have the time, here's this.

Sometimes we get lost in where we are now, and forget just how far we've come- good or bad,  where it all began.  Today I did  the same thing that I'd always done. I cleaned the house, pressed his shirts, and washed the baby. It was, in fact, while she fed, that I'd heard it on the radio. The first bars I couldn't mistake, and I gasped, nearly dropping her. I sat still in shock for the entire song, clutching her to my chest, ignoring the kettle hissing, the phone ringing, the world moving.

Now I'm here scribbling this late into the night. I'd spent the rest of the day searching in the attic all alone amongst my old stuff for that CD, and I couldn't believe my luck. It's playing now on repeat...it's helping me do this.

There's so much I never said, and I'm sorry.

When you came to town, I was angry and tired...always tired. So it was simple, I was awful to you. And then you came full of the shine of the city, all talk of bigger things and hope. I hated you for it, but it confused me so- why you were here in the first place. So I'd entertained your endless questions, and your stories.

And then I'd noticed the awkward silences were becoming more comfortable, and that your eyes shone differently when you were with me. The day you'd kissed me, I remember thinking 'this can't be right- you're so different from me!'

It was another year on that I realised we were the same.

You'd lost your mother, I never knew my father. This town was the only other home you and you're dad had ever known. And without her, there just wasn't enough to keep you in the city.

In you're eyes I saw the eyes of somebody I could trust. I'd never expected to fall so hard. We both knew we needed to leave this place at once, or live and die this way.

It fascinated you, how I could conjure up these fantasies of how'd we leave, where we'd go, what we'd do. Not knowing I only had them because of you; because with you, I felt like I could be someone.You had a car, and I had a little from the extra shifts I had begun taking.  And that morning you'd asked me to come along with you, across the border. I didn't believe you, even though I knew you were serious. I'd wanted to do it, believe me, I did. I was ready- I'd been ever since you first mentioned it the first night we'd driven out of the town.

Yes, it was as we drove, the radio played this song, and it was ours and we were in love.