Arrival Time Unknown

My dad asks me to leave the house so that he and my mom can have sex. This was right after they both traipse in from skinny dipping. My mom takes a minute to fain interest in the book I’m reading while I categorize all the reasons that this situation is awkward.
She adjusts her oversized towel, ensuring that her naughty bits were still drowning in terry cloth before clearing her throat and walking to her bedroom. Once I hear the shower begin to run, my dad enters from the kitchen and skips straight to the point.
“So, you planning on going anywhere?”
“No…would you like me to go somewhere?”
“Yes”
I sigh as he exits to join the cast of shower funtime starring my mom as soapy Sally, or something equally twisted.
I begin to contemplate why I’m even at my parents house to begin with and where I’m going to go for a few hours (not that I think it will take that long, but I don’t want to chance an unfortunate homecoming).
So I’m driving. Me and my piece of shit car, cruising the same ‘ol streets. None of my friends live around here anymore, they’ve all moved closer to the University or left the state. I envy the latter of the group. There’s nothing wrong with where I live, per say. It’s just that nothing changes, this town, the people, the weather, it’s all so…static.
I decide on Starbuck’s. What better of a place to go and pretend like you’re studying? I see that the parking lot is uncharacteristically full and remember that it’s a Friday night and high school kids like to gather in mass quantities at any location that allows excessive loitering. Of course right out front is a gaggle of EMO, wrist cutting teenagers who appear to be silently brooding over their tormented lives.
Just as I begin to wonder how exactly it was that I turned into a bitter old hag at such a young age, I realize that a friend of mine is one of the many eyelinerwearingswoopybangs boys sitting among the mass. He’s younger than me and we used to be the kind of close where sex would have felt like incest. And for some reason, I ducked my head and kept driving.
I was suddenly perplexed by my strange act of avoidance. Needing an excuse for my actions and contemplation to get it, I decided to drive to the airport.
I have been enamored with airports ever since I watched the movie Love Actually. I almost want to pee myself with good feelings when they show the seemingly candid footage of people in airports that are reuniting, kissing, hugging and just loving each other in the non-carnal sense. No one pulls a ‘duck and drive’ at the airport.
Now, onto my issues which mostly includes my recent disdain of people. I’ve always found most of humanity irksome, but recently it’s even extending to the people that I love. I avoid phone calls and most outings which might include talking to...anyone.
And I’m not so dumb that I don’t know why this is. Alright, I’ll give a briefing just so that we can all be up to speed, but I refuse to fall in line with the other heart broken sob stories that I want to squish just for existing.
There has only been one person that I could stand constant exposure to without wanting to scream. You know, I’ve never wanted marriage, but for some reason when I had just the right amount of liquor in me, I would pour myself onto him and tell him that he had no choice but to make me his wife. I never knew anyone so well and if a gun were held flush against my temple and I was asked if he had a single secret from me, a wrong answer would mean death, I would have answered with a self assured ‘no’. It was not long until I discovered that with that ‘no’, I would have breathed my last breath.
I realize that I sound disgusting and suddenly want to move on, but I catch myself watching a man and a woman. She is much taller than he and has an ass that is lumpier than a sock full of tennis balls. He is so small, colored with a Hispanic hue, and sporting a thin combtooth mustache that must irritate the woman. Regardless, his arms are wrapped around her upper body and her hands are placed with a delicate strength on either side of his face, all four eyes are closed and I watch their lips meet seamlessly for a series of repetitious moments.
I suddenly want to tear them apart, shoving the little man, whom I could take on without a challenge, to the ground and create a scene to rival a toddler’s tantrum. But, instead of getting into a fist fight with a Mexican and a giant, my attention is diverted to an elderly woman who is tottering my way. I try to look extra grumpy so she’ll change paths, but no such luck. For some reason the empty seat next to me looks more appealing than the twenty other as she lowers herself down with a kind sounding sigh. After a moment of adjustments she turns to me with a jovial face and inquires about whom I’m waiting for. I tell her I’m not even sure what I’m waiting for. She absently pats my hand and tells me not to worry, that I’ll know it when I see it. That’s when I stand up and walk towards the bathroom.
I make sure it was one of those single occupant ones before I shut the door behind me and lock it. My hands brace the sink and I wonder why it is that I don’t look like myself anymore. A few weeks earlier, during a similar episode, I took my roommate’s scissors and cut off the hair that I’d been growing for years. I don’t know why I thought it would bring back the person that I couldn’t seem to find in my reflection, and it didn’t. I turned on the porcelain airport sink to the hottest setting. While the water ran I lifted up the toilet seat, getting onto my knees. I’m not a classic case eating disorder because it’s not like I do this all the time. It’s quite involuntary when I’m upset; I just lose it at the thought of food or drink or my lovers hand up a stranger’s skirt. Like I said, totally involuntary.
I flush the toilet, and submerge my hands into the scolding hot water. In my own twisted way, I wish that I could expel everything with such ease, or keep certain things safe inside with little effort. Sometimes I think that I’m so busy wanting something to change in my life that I don’t even realize that it has. It has changed so much, in the way of parents, friends, what I thought was love, and even a place to call home. I hadn’t braced myself for it all to change at once, and now that it has I don’t know what to do with it all. But within these four walls I feel like I can somehow control all the variables.
What feel like sobs begin to heave through my torso until I decide that I just don’t have the energy. Fortunately enough time has passed that I figure I can depart from the airport, and safely slip back into my parent’s house unnoticed.
Sometimes I sneak into my old room after my parents have gone to bed and curl up on the naked gray carpet. I just stare at the dozens of green glowing star stickers peppering the ceiling. The ones that my mom bought me when I was little so that I wouldn’t be afraid of the dark. I always leave before dawn breaks, and I never sleep for fear of discovery, but only there can I find my brief moments of peace.
I wrap my fingers around the silver arm of the door handle and turn it until I hear the lock whisper a freeing click, taking me back out into the terminal. I glance into the mirror one last time, hoping to see something familiar.