The Desert Standoff

sneak into her room at night with a knife. She is free. She has finished high school and she is on her path to freedom. To a normal life.
Suzi and Natalie have it all planned out. They have spent the entirety of their friendship planning this out and all of the places that they want to go. Suzi has a car and after college they are going to go on a cross country road trip until they find the perfect place to live. It doesn’t even matter which state, or what town, they just want to go and drive until they find a place that speaks to their souls. They are going to go and never look back. They are going to find a new home, to start a new life, and nobody but Suzi’s parents are going to know a single thing about it. Those two marvelous humans have been kinder to Natalie than just about anybody else that she could ever think of. She doesn’t know what she would have done with her life if she hadn’t become such good friends with Suzi. She owes everything to her and her family.
Presently, the girls are attempting to figure out which of the locations they want to visit first. The way that they see it, each summer of college they have to come home for a short period of time to spend with Suzi’s parents. They have already said that if they could officially adopt a legal adult named Natalie then they would, but that she is always welcome in their home. Natalie knows they mean it. Then their goal is to knock out as many of the states and towns and locations as they can for the last month and a half or so of summer before they need to head back to campus for the following year. They know it’s next to impossible to see everything they want to, but they also figure that as long as they can get a feel for the states and how hot their summers are, they will be in for a good start if nothing else.
The laughter finally dies down and the two are lying on their backs, half hanging off of the bed. “There really are a ton of boxes. I told you my mom was going to buy the mattresses, you didn’t have to get your own. Really, it’s no trouble.”
“I know it’s not, but it’s mine you know? I know it’s sort of a weird thing to say and all, but I just feel like the bed needs to be mine ... and nobody else has touched it. Like I earned it,” Natalie admits softly, hoping her friend doesn’t find it silly.
Suzi is quiet for a moment, thinking. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want from your house?”
“No. Mother broke my sewing machine about seven months ago so I don’t need that. There’s nothing left there for me anyway.”
Suzi has never been to Natalie’s house. They always stay in her house. Partly because it has running water and food and partly because Natalie doesn’t want Suzi anywhere near her mother. The stories Natalie tells are enough for Suzi to know better than to press the subject.
She tried to go over there once. Suzi knocked on the door with the intention of returning something of Natalie’s that had been left at her house. Suzi’s parents were waiting at the curb in their car with the windows rolled down, which is a very normal thing for people to do. However, Natalie didn’t live in a normal house. Mother answered the door half dressed, her robe hanging open and her dirty, ruddy skin on full display. Her hair was a rat’s nest piled atop her head and she came out brandishing a whole vacuum. She lifted it over her head with the thing powered on and proceeded to chase Suzi across the unkempt lawn. Suzi’s father had to get out of the car to scream at her to stop. Eventually, the power cord on the vacuum snapped with a jolt of electricity Natalie’s mother was hauled backward in the yard where she lay, exposed and screaming at some unseen devil for tripping her. Suzi’s parents never asked Natalie about anything regarding her homelife again. Instead, they just started doting on her in any way they could. Natalie can never explain to them just how grateful she is to them for everything they have done for her. She just hopes they know. They have to know.
“Okay. As long as you’re sure,” Suzi answers.
That’s how it normally goes. Suzi probes and then drops it if the subject matter starts to feel just a little bit too uncomfortable.
“We’re going to have a new home soon anyway, isn’t that right?”
Suzi rolls over and drapes her arms around Natalie, her cheek pressing firmly into the soft cotton covering her friend’s shoulder. Natalie nods, attempting to picture it in her mind's eye. A bedroom all to herself; an apartment that belongs to the both of them, free to work dead-end jobs or not or just do whatever they want.
“That’s right.”
Soon everything is going to be better. She doesn’t even know what she wants to study in school, but she knows that she's not going to waste this chance in the same way that she wasted high school. She is going to do more than the bare minimum. She’s going to figure out what she wants to do with the rest of her life now that she’s being given the chance to actually explore it. She’s going to be able to break the mold and actually make something of herself. She and Suzi both. She can’t wait.

  7 The Car
S he’s dead.
Somewhere in the back of Natalie’s head it is starting to register. Her best friend is dead. He hit her too hard. Now he isn’t going to be