Free Running Wide Open by Lisa Nowak Page B

warm, but it reeked. The map kiosk offered a little protection from the rain, but it was too exposed. Finally I decided on a hemlock about a hundred yards from the parking lot. The spreading, densely-needled branches almost swept the ground, offering a decent amount of shelter. I curled up under it using my duffle bag for a pillow. Within five seconds, I knew how much sleeping on the ground was gonna suck.
    Shit, maybe this whole idea had been a mistake. But how could I have stayed? Race had bitten my head off, jumping to conclusions just like Dad. If I hadn’t left, he would’ve thrown me out anyway. Anyone could’ve seen that from the look on his face. At least this way it was my decision.
    You’d think that at 2 a.m. a person could sleep anywhere, but it didn’t happen. My body ached from the fight, the ground dug into my hip and shoulder, and my feet felt like I’d been wading through a Slurpee machine. Around me, darkness closed in despite the lights in the parking lot. The thought of all that farmland and wilderness bordering the rest area gave me the creeps. Who knew what kind of wildlife was out there, waiting to snack on a city boy? Cursing the chain of events that had led me to be shivering under a damn tree in the middle of nowhere, I curled into a ball and waited for the sun to come up.
    A wave of anger rolled over me as I thought of my mother in Phoenix, no doubt snuggled up in some warm, cozy bed. I hoped she suffocated in her goose down comforter. I hoped she flunked out of the bartending school Dad said she’d enrolled in. The idea of her lending a sympathetic ear to some wasted boozehound made me laugh. She never listened to my problems. For years now her attitude had been, you’ve got a roof over your head, food in your belly, and clothes on your back. Don’t expect me to take a personal interest in your life, too.
    Resentment bubbled and roiled as I remembered all her screw-ups. But a tiny, honest voice told me to get real. I wouldn’t care so much about the mean things she’d done if I didn’t have good things to compare them to.
    When I was really little, maybe two or three, Mom had been my best friend. She’d been so beautiful, so charming, and I’d been willing to do anything to make her happy. Every night when she tucked me into bed, she’d snuggle close and tell me stories. She didn’t read them from a book. She made them up—fairy tales in which she was the beautiful queen and I was her brave and noble prince. But somewhere along the line that changed. I guess I stopped being cute and sweet enough for her. Or maybe I wasn’t brave enough. Maybe she was right, and I was too much like my dad. By the time I was in kindergarten, it seemed like I couldn’t do anything right. I was too noisy, too thoughtless, too moody. Every once in awhile the old magic would come back, but then I’d do something to set her off again.
    For years I tried to win back that closeness, stuffing my feelings away, giving her treasures I’d found, setting the table without being told. But none of it worked. Even now there was a part of me that hoped she’d wake up one morning and start loving me again. Sometimes, for a second, I almost thought she had. But whenever we started to form a real connection, she made some offhand comment that told me she didn’t have the first clue about who I was. Since when aren’t you good at math? You’ve always loved math!
    I tried to sweep the thoughts of her from my mind, but they swarmed back like mosquitoes, only scattering when the sky started to brighten in the east and I finally dozed off.
    Traffic pulling into the parking lot woke me a couple of hours later. The sun had emerged, coaxing wisps of steam from the asphalt. Stiff and cold, I brushed hemlock needles off my clothes. The mirror in the bathroom was one of those sheets of polished metal that don’t give you a real image, but I could see that sleep had smashed my hair into a ridiculous wedge. Wetting the gel