Fast Car

For a long time now, I have wondered how best to say this. Somehow I know I'll never get it right. Presently, you are a thousand miles away, and I'm struggling to keep things sane over here. There must be a million things on your mind right now, 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've always done. I cleaned the house, pressed his shirts,  washed the baby. It was while she fed that I heard it play on the radio. The first bars I couldn't mistake, so I gasped, nearly dropping her. I sat still in shock for the rest of the song, clutching her to my chest, ignoring the kettle hissing, the phone ringing, the world moving.

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

There is so much I never said to you, and for that 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 to town full of the shine of the city, all talk of bigger things and hope. I hated you for it, but it confused me why you were here in the first place. So I entertained your endless questions, and all your stories.

But I soon started to notice how those awkward silences became more comfortable, and that your eyes shone differently when you were out late with me. The day you  kissed me, I remember thinking 'this can't be right- you are so different from me!'.

It was another year later that I realised we were just two shades of the same colour.

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

In your eyes I saw the eyes of somebody I could trust. I never expected to fall in so deep. 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 we would leave, and where we would go. 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 cash from the extra shifts I took at work.
That morning you asked me to come with you across the border, I couldn't believe you even though I knew how serious you were being. I wanted to do it, believe me, I did. I was ready. I had been ever since you mentioned it the first night we drove out of  town. 

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

Cathy