Mickey’s POV:

As soon as the door to the principal’s office slammed shut behind me, I walked straight to the open chair. Principal Adkins was sat in his usual desk chair, keeping his gaze on me as I moved through the room. My mom was slouched in the chair next to the one I was going to have to sit in while a middle-aged police guard was stood to the side.

I winked at him and gave him finger guns before dropping my bag to the floor and sitting down. “What up?”

“Mickey,” my mom sighed in what was supposed to be a scolding way, but only came out shaky as she nearly burst out into tears.

“What y’all need me for?” I leaned back completely and put my feet up on the principal’s desk, nearly knocking over his coffee cup. He shouldn’t have put that there if he didn’t want it to get knocked over by somebody, it wasn’t my fault.

Principal Adkins briefly looked at the soles of my shoes, but ignored them, instead focusing back on my face and he leaned forward and brought his hands together. “I think you know what’s been going on.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” I nodded and grinned. “Alex told me that I was apparently missing, which makes no sense. I’ve been here every day the entire day. How the hell can I be missing if I’ve been coming here all the time? To be missing I should be out in Nebraska or somewhere.”

“You haven’t been home for ages!” My mom explained, looking exasperated yet also very tired. “You disappeared from your room! What do you expect?”

“I’m nineteen, there’s no rule that forbids me from not living with you,” I snorted, shaking my head at her. “So, you can go move to whatever bullshit town you want to go next, but I’m staying here. Nothing’s stopping me.”

“How about we talk this through and come up with a compromise?” The principal suggested, giving a short glance toward the policeman. I knew it was him telling the other that things could get rocky from here.

I nearly started laughing. Did they really think they could reason with me? I had made my decision, there was nothing that would change my mind. “That’s absolute bullshit.”

“Just please come home,” my mom whimpered, nearly begging me, as she wiped her eyes. Of course she was. She was trying to guilt trip me. That was most definitely going to work.

“I’m just fine where I’m staying.”

“Mickey, please.”

“I think we’re done here,” I interrupted and put my feet back down, reaching out to get my bag again. “Can I go back now? Or are you guys going to disrupt my academics just for some petty conversation? There’re a thousand things more important than this.”

“Just please let me ask one question.” This time she was actually begging, being supported by the two other authority figures in this room. I stopped for a while, waiting for her to continue. “Where have you been staying?”

“At dad’s,” I answered simply although calling Michael that still made me want to cringe. He would never be my father figure, but I knew that calling him one would hurt my mom. After changing my surname to ‘Kingsley’ and not wanting to do anything with that monster, I practically said that she and Garry were the only parents I had.

Apparently it worked, because her face fell even more. “At… dad’s…? Mickey… don’t go running back to him.”

I shrugged, not feeling bad at all. “I mean, I did grow up there. I know where everything is, it’s my childhood home, he's never there either. It’s really not that different.”

“Just--”

“What? Are you going to tell me to come back with you, with my ‘family’? He’s the one family member I’ve known the longest, so don’t you dare use that bullshit family-card on me.” I could tell that she was going to try to defend her every action, but I wasn’t going to take that.

“You know I couldn’t do anything about that. I lost custody over you, I couldn’t just fix that quickly,” she attempted to justify, just like I was expecting. So, as soon as the first four words left her mouth, I was stood up, with my bag hanging from one of my shoulders again.

“Yeah, ten years seems like a reasonable amount of time,” I sarcastically snapped back and opened the door to let myself out.

I promptly slammed the door shut so nobody could easily follow me and stormed out of the administration office. I knew the same woman who had given me my timetable on the first day was staring at me in shock as I stomped past, but I couldn’t give a fuck about what other people were thinking. There was only one thing on my mind, and that was that I needed to get out of here.

Alex was waiting at the lockers opposite of the glass door I came out of, but even he didn’t matter anymore either. In just a few minutes, I was going to have left this place. Even his bright smile that turned into a frown didn’t make me hesitate. I rushed past him as well, going straight for the doors that lead to the parking lot. I didn’t even care that anybody who wanted to see me could see me leave. Skipping class wasn’t anything unusual, the only surprise they were going to get was that I wasn’t going to be coming back that following Monday.

“Mickey!” Alex shouted after me after I had managed to open the door and enter the calming mid-October air. “Mickey, wait!”

I ignored him completely and bee-lined it to my car. With my keys in the front pocket of my backpack, I managed to unlock the vehicle in no time. My bag was thrown onto the back seats while I got into the driver’s side myself. I reached over myself to put on my seatbelt and put my keys into the ignition, nearly believing I was ready to leave. There was just one more thing to do. But before I could get to that--literally get to it--the passenger side opened and Alex climbed in.

I gave him an unemotional glare, waiting for him to catch on. “Get out.”

“No,” he scoffed and shook his head. “Where the hell are you going?”

“I don’t know, now get out.” I continued to stare at him, occasionally glancing outside the window to emphasize my point.

“No.”

“Fine, suit yourself.” I shrugged and leaned over his body, taking the entire length of my seat belt.

He shuffled further back into the seat uncomfortably, making me roll my eyes. Did he really think I was going to give him a blowjob at a time like this while in the school parking lot? Even I wasn’t that stupid. I had to bite back a remark, deciding I was just going to keep ignoring him if he continued to get in my way, and pulled out a book containing many maps from all around the states.

After moving back into my seat fully, I opened it up to the first page where there was a map of all the states. I closed my eyes and randomly placed my finger somewhere on the page. Once I went to check where I had landed, I nearly groaned.

“No, not Texas,” I whispered under my breath to myself, “too many annoying family members.”

I repeated the process, this time selecting a completely different area. When I found my finger right on Des Moines, Iowa, I was content. I had never lived there before, so there was nobody to irritate the fuck out of me. Despite having accused my mom of always running away from her problems, I decided I needed my own fresh start. As much as I had liked it, I couldn’t spend any more time here.

After flipping to a page showing the east, I kept the page open with my left hand and used the other to open the glove compartment. Although it was full of weird shit, I knew exactly where to find the sharpie. Once I had it in my hand, I clicked the compartment shut again and opened the pen with my teeth. Finding out where about we were now, I traced the highways I was going to have to take. I could always open the map for Iowa later when I was further.

Since I did first have to go somewhere else, I shut the book with a loud thump and threw it on what I still considered an empty passenger seat. Alex yelped out an ‘ouch’, the point of the spine having hit him right on the thigh. I didn’t feel any remorse for my actions. If he didn’t want to get hurt, then he should have gotten out of the car.

I turned my keys in the ignition and put the car in reverse, speeding out of the parking lot.

“Woah, woah!” Alex clutched the sides of the seat as he stared at me. “Where the hell are we going?”

“We? You mean me? ‘Cause you’re getting out right now.” I promptly braked before I actually got on the road, making us both fly forward until our seatbelts stopped us.

“The hell I am!” He crossed his arms, still waiting for me to answer his original question.

I breathed out loudly and started driving again, swerving to take a left. Other people were so lucky that they weren’t on the road as I was driving to my destination, there would have been so many accidents. It just happened to be in between busy hours; everybody was at work or at school. Only the occasional car was going in the opposite direction.

As soon as we were at Michael’s house, I took my keys out of the ignition and went to the front door. Despite it being obvious that he wasn’t home, I opened the door without needing any keys. It wasn’t like there was anything obviously valuable inside the house. Plus, he often came back too drunk to fit the key inside the lock. It was just easier for him this way, so also easier for me.

Except, Alex decided to follow me again. I ignored the fact that there were two broken beer bottles beside the table next to the recliner, I ignored the single dirty dish in the sink, I just plainly ignored the empty mess there was and went to my bedroom instead. I wasn’t there to stay though. All I needed was to collect all my belongings again. Luckily, I hadn’t unpacked anything and only needed to stuff the stuff I had worn into one single plastic bag. However, once that was done, I picked up everything in one go and rushed back to the car, only stopping to grab a stash of cash behind the empty expired cereal boxes in a broken kitchen cabinet.

Alex was stood in the middle of the downstairs floor, taking in his surroundings. He looked at me sadly as I went past and threw all my stuff in the back of my truck, not caring that everything would get wet if it started raining or that anybody could easily steal it. When I went to close the front door again, Alex was already doing it. While he was stood there, I took my chance to try and shake him off by getting into my car and driving off before he could get in. But he knew exactly what I was planning. I had never seen him sprint so fast, he went even faster than that one time my car broke down in the rain and he forced me to get ice cream with him.

He managed to get in before I could even lock my doors.

“Alex, get the fuck out!” I screamed, gripping my steering wheel tightly. “Go home, go back to school, I don’t care. Just fucking leave!”

“Why do you want me to leave so badly?” He shook his head at me.

“I don’t want you here!”

“Me listening to you saying that hasn’t gotten me this far. I sure as hell am not giving up now.”

“Alex, leave,” I urged as I saw the beat up Toyota come down the road in the rearview mirror. If he was going to make me wait any longer, everything was going to go wrong. My whole non-thought-through plan would go in the gutter.

He just sat there and put his seatbelt back on, staring out in front of him. Before I could force him out, the old car passed me and went up the driveway to my left. I tried to get my car to start, but the engine kept stalling. Whenever I wanted to get out of there quickly, it always decided to fail me. The only thing I could do was make sure the doors were locked by now. Michael got out of his car, a cigarette in his mouth, and came toward my car.

He was furious as he screamed, “Mickey, what the hell are you doing out of school?! Get your ass back there! Are you fucking trying to fail again?!”

Before he could finish his rant, I finally got my car to start and sped off. As soon as I had left the neighborhood, I turned on the radio as loud as possible when I realized that the only actual sound in the car was the engine. With it at nearly full volume, Alex also couldn’t talk to me anymore. Although I knew that I had to give him one last chance to get out and turn around, I was too annoyed to pull over and go through the same thing again. It was his fault that he had to follow me, now he was finally getting the consequences.

And just like that, I started my way towards interstate 70.

Notes

I found this new song that's so fucking awesome and it sort of fits with a chapter I have planned for later and it's just perfect. God, I just want to write it!!! Maybe I should tease the song and have you guys guess what's going to go down ;) Hit me up if you're dying to know. THE SONG IS SOOOOO GOOD.