ESCAPE TO OREGON

The motel off I-70 stinks of piss and cleaner, but Bellamy curls up on the hard mattress anyway, mud-caked boots laced tight on her feet. 

600 miles sit between here and home. It doesn’t feel like enough. Not when she can still taste the smoke of her father’s Lucky Strikes. She wants to clamber back into Marlowe’s truck and go farther. To watch the tree-filled Appalachian Mountains turn into flat, endless plains. 

To forget the east coast exists. 

“Take off your boots,” Marlowe says, slumped on the second twin bed, her jacket and sneakers piled on the desk chair. The blue glow of her phone illuminates her face. “Stay a while.”

“Don’t want to.” 

“Stay a couple hours, then.” 

Bellamy traces the red and blue squares on the scratchy quilt underneath her, ignoring the burns scattered across the fabric. It’s like the one her grandmother made when she was little. She remembers watching her sit at her massive sewing machine, back hunched, feeding the squares through the needle. She wishes she would’ve brought it, but she left home so quickly that it slipped her mind. 

That’s what Marlowe doesn’t understand. 

They’ve been friends for nine—almost ten, now—years, but Marlowe has never left home on a whim, has never kept a bag packed with the necessities under her bed, has never known what it’s like to run away and mean it.

“I don’t like this place,” Bellamy says, and it sounds too petulant, like a child throwing a tantrum. “It smells.”

“It’s cheap.” 

“Could’ve slept in the truck.” 

“I’m not sleeping in the truck.” Marlowe sets her phone on the nightstand, then reaches for her backpack. It’s overstuffed. Toiletries, clothes, non-perishable snacks. A curling iron. “Hungry?”

A thin strip of moonlight shines through the blinds. It’s late, almost one, but a couple of men linger outside, laughing too loud in the dark, drunk from the bar across the street. She watches the shadows of them through the window. They’re big—tall, broad-shouldered. They don’t sound mean, just dumb, but Bellamy knows better. She wants to reach for the switchblade she keeps tucked inside her left boot. She wants to bolt like a terrified rabbit, and it revolts her.

“It’s not safe,” she says.

“I’m scared” sits at the back of her throat. Chokes her. She swallows it back down like chunks of rogue vomit. 

“Bellamy.” 

She hates it when Marlowe says her name like that, all breathy and sad, like Bellamy disappointed her, somehow. It makes her want to shred the quilt to pieces. 

This has always been their problem. 

At nineteen, Marlowe’s two years older than Bellamy, and the gap gives her an inflated sense of authority. She told her which clubs to sign up for, which classes to take, which colleges to apply for. She even stormed into her house while Bellamy’s father was at the bar to cook healthy dinners for her. “Stand-in mom,” their other friends called her, and Marlowe always took it as a compliment. Bellamy let it slide—kind of enjoyed it, some days—but that authority was going to get them hurt out here.

“Let me drive,” Bellamy says. “You can sleep in the back or something.” 

Marlowe leans back against the pillows, tearing at the wrapper of a granola bar. Crumbs scatter along the quilt. “You don’t have your license.” 

“Who gives a shit?”

“I do, all right? It’s my truck, and you’re basically a missing person. If we get caught, I’ll get into a crap ton of trouble for helping you. You get that, right?” 

It doesn’t work like that, Bellamy wants to say, but she presses her face into the pillow instead. It smells clean. 

They’ve only been gone ten hours. Her father probably hasn’t even noticed yet, too busy getting drunk at the bar down the street. Bellamy never spent much time at home anyway. She stayed with Marlowe or Eliza or Ben. Anyone whose parents hadn’t gotten too annoyed with her presence. When she was at home, she tucked herself away in her bedroom, door locked, headphones over her ears. The sound never drowned out the slam of the cupboards or the shatter of the plates or his voice, slurred, as he screamed about the neighbors. 

“I’ll be eighteen in October,” Bellamy says, words muffled against the fabric. 

“And it’s March, Bel. You don’t think the school’s going to start suspecting something when you aren’t there after spring break? Hell, they’ll call your dad Monday morning. Then what? The whole town will be out looking for you and you don’t even care.”

“I didn’t ask you to come with me.” 

“What would you have done if I hadn’t?”

“I would’ve figured something out.” 

This isn’t the first time Bellamy’s tried to run away.

When she was six, she hid underneath the neighbor’s porch until a hoard of carpenter ants started to crawl across her bare legs. She didn’t have a reason, then. Her father still had a job, and he only drank on the weekends. Her grandmother was still alive. She just needed to be alone, sometimes. To pretend like she could do something on her own.

When she was eleven, she climbed into the back of Aunt Briar’s car after her grandmother’s funeral. They made it to the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border before one of her cousins tattled. Her father hugged her too tight when she got back. He might’ve cried, but the memory is too foggy to be sure. 

When she was thirteen, she camped out in the woods for a week until a hunter found her chasing a squirrel up a tree, too hungry to care what she ate. Her father had just lost his job, then. “Laid-off,” he said. “Just temporary,” he said. “We’ll be fine,” he said. 

When she was sixteen, she convinced a stranger to drive her to Ohio, but they couldn’t take her any further than Columbus, and she didn’t have money for a bus. She had to call Uncle Nick to come pick her up. The drive home was quiet and awkward, and he hadn’t bothered to ask her why she was there. (“My sister— Well, your mom, I guess, did the same thing when we were little. Drove Mom nuts.”) When he dropped her off at the house, her father sat at the kitchen table, beer cans scattered across the counter. He hadn’t noticed she was gone. Uncle Nick hadn’t told him. (“Our secret, kiddo.”)

She thought she could wait one more year. Suffer through the last few months of senior year. Apply for colleges she couldn’t afford in states all along the west coast. Watch her father waste away, more like a stranger than family. 

And then he hit her. 

Not hard. Not a punch. Just his palm against her cheek with a sound that left them both reeling in the dark of the kitchen. He didn’t apologize. Didn’t cry. Didn’t beg for forgiveness. 

He pulled another beer from the fridge, and the crack of the tab made her flinch harder than the slap. 

“It’s one night, Bel. I’m tired, you're tired.” Marlowe crushes the wrapper in her fist. Lobs it into the trash can beside the desk. It misses. She sighs. “Look, Oregon isn’t going anywhere soon. We don’t have to rush.” 

On the nightstand, Marlowe’s phone lights up. 

600 miles feels like a concession. It’s the farthest she’s ever gone, but it’s not enough. Every tick of the clock gives the world a chance to force her backward. 

“How about this: if I get sleepy tomorrow, I’ll let you drive if you go the speed limit and only pass semi-trucks. No stunts. No shenanigans. No NASCAR Bellamy. Deal?”

Bellamy flips over to her back. The mattress squeaks. “I guess.”

She gives it another minute before she swings her legs off the bed and marches toward the door. The men have disappeared, but the silence they’ve behind is almost worse. She checks the lock. Tries to resist the urge to check it again, then does it anyway. When she turns away from the peephole, Marlowe is tucking herself under the quilt, hand under her chin. She looks comfortable. 

“How long do you need?”

“Full eight, baby.” Before Bellamy can protest, she continues. “I’ll buy us breakfast in the morning. Anything you want. IHOP. Waffle House. Taco Bell. Mix-and-match, even.” 

“And you promise I can drive?” 

“Only if I’m sleepy.” 

Bellamy sucks in a breath, then lets it whoosh out. There are two locks on the door. She has her knife. Marlowe has her pepper spray. They’ll be fine. “I’m setting an alarm for seven.” 

“Eight.” 

“Seven.”

“All right, all right.” Marlowe snuggles deeper under the covers, half her face hidden in the darkness of the room. “You win. Seven it is.” 

Despite the remote strangeness of an unknown place, Marlowe drops off to sleep as quickly as she does in her own bedroom. Soft snores escape the cave she’s made from the blankets. It’s familiar enough to lull Bellamy into relaxing on the bed, boots on, fingers curled around the handle of her switchblade. 

 ***

Bellamy wakes with a flinch. 

On the other side of the room, Marlowe fidgets under the covers, one leg dangling off the edge of the mattress. Her phone sits on the nightstand. Its cracked screen lights up with another text message, the buzz rattling against dark wood. The clock beside it reads 6:27.

She reaches for it, clumsy and bleary-eyed with sleep.

It takes her three tries to get the pattern password right.

Another text—almost there!—pops up, then collapses. It doesn’t have a name attached, but the area code is familiar, and Bellamy sits up, too aware of her heart as it thuds in her chest. It takes her too long to click on the notification. To scroll through the thread.

It’s Uncle Nick.

For a moment, she thought that maybe, maybe, her father had shaken himself out of his fog. That he felt bad. That he’d drive all this way to tell her he’d change. That he loved her enough to try, at least. But it’s just Uncle Nick, always so eager to clean up his precious brother-in-law’s mess. 

I’ll let you drive as long as you want.

Bellamy sets the phone down too hard against the nightstand. It rattles the alarm clock, the truck keys. Sloshes the water in Marlowe’s water bottle. 

She told Uncle Nick where they were. She drove this way because she knew he lived close by. She never had any intention of taking Bellamy to Oregon with her.

I want to keep her safe, Marlowe told Uncle Nick.

Time ticks by too slowly in the dark motel room. She sits at the edge of the bed, frozen, switchblade abandoned at her side. She can’t go back home. She can’t stay with Uncle Nick. Aunt Briar might’ve been an option a year ago, but she gave birth to twins last month—no way she has the room or the money to pay for another mouth.

Her eyes slide to Marlowe.

There’s an explanation buried somewhere in her head, but Bellamy can’t get past the sharp sting of betrayal. It burrows holes in her heart. Tells her to get away. To run before Marlowe wakes, before Uncle Nick shows up. 

The bed’s springs creak as she gets up.

Unlike Marlowe, most of Bellamy’s things are still in the truck. All she has to do is unplug her charger and pluck her backpack from underneath the desk. The noise doesn’t bother Marlowe. It would take an earthquake. It would take Bellamy shoving at her until a sleep-fogged eye cracked open. 

She stands in the middle of the room. Looks at Marlowe. Looks at the phone on the nightstand. Looks at the keys right beside it. 

It’s easier to take them than it should’ve been.

No one’s outside when she eases the door open, grimacing at the squeaky hinges. Her switchblade hangs heavy in the pocket of her hoodie. The keys slip in her sweaty hands. She’s never used either, before, as confident as she pretends to be. It makes her feel small. Like she’s six years old again, ants on her legs, her arms, her face.

She unlocks the truck. Climbs inside. Starts it. 

With her hands on the wheel, Bellamy hesitates. 

Everything is so much bigger and quieter now that she’s by herself. Hamilton doesn’t blare from the speakers. The cup holders sit empty. Even the duck hanging from the mirror doesn’t spin with its usual enthusiasm. But Marlowe didn’t want her. Their trip was always going to get cut short. 

She puts the truck in reverse. 

Sam Burnette graduated with a BA in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. Their short stories have been previously published in Pendulum Literary Magazine and Ignatian Literary Magazine.