New Comm Ave

Jenna Brown is a junior at Chapman University. She is a Business Administration major with an emphasis in Marketing and a minor in Leadership Studies, but thoroughly enjoys this writing thing. At 5’1”, her towering stature has led her to dream of a career as a player in the WNBA, or as America’s Next Top Model. Her sarcastic humor and outspoken nature can be attributed to her roots in Jersey (thanks Keenan’s!) and Woody Allen. She enjoys frozen yogurt, rain, and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

All I hear is the roaring engine, deep and angry like his voice had been. A chorus of communicating bugs arises from the surrounding hills that I have seen so many times before, but now hide in the depths of the engulfing darkness.
I know they are there, but their seeming absence makes me feel even more lost, alone, and hollow than the moment I stepped out of the truck and slammed the door. Will he come after me? I can’t see clearly through my tears.

“You can’t do any better, Jen.”

Is the air this thick or is it just this hard for me to breathe right now? I can already feel the bruise forming on my shoulder. Reaching back, I touch it and recoil; the pain is more than physical. He pushed me. He actually pushed me. Keep walking, Jen. No railing, no lights, just my feet and the path that should only be followed by thick rubber tires. I never thought I’d be one of those girls. How could I let myself get into this situation at fifteen-years-old? I read something like this in a magazine. Eighty to 85% of girls 15-24 years-old have been in this situation or one that was worse. I’d become a statistic.

Few cars passed while I stared out the window of his lifted, gray pick-up.
The glass was cold as I leaned my head, swarming with doubt, against it. My friend’s words bounced around in my mind like a ping-pong ball between two paddles. My palms grew moist, clamped tightly in my lap. The three lanes of the Toll Road became one as the world shrunk and folded into me. I had to confront him.

“Why was her car outside your house again?” I asked meekly.

Silence.

His fierce eyes seared through the windshield as I waited for him to speak.
My heart thumped loud as his knuckles turned white around the steering wheel.

I felt the world shifting toward the right and realized we were pulling to the side of the road.

“What are you doing? Why are you stopping?”

My breath shortened and quickened, my heart raced like a jackrabbit, and my mind reeled with the possibilities of what was coming. What do I do? The wrath was unleashed before I had time to react.

“I told you to never ask me these ridiculous questions again and here you are listening to your dumbass friends as always! You stupid bitch! I can’t believe I waste my time on you, but I do because no one else will! YOU CAN’T DO ANY BETTER!”

Bam! My back punched against the armrest on the door, and my shoulders hammered into the window. The pain was there for an instant before my body numbed. I couldn’t feel. The noise sucked into a vacuum. Frozen in time, our eyes locked: his in fury, mine in fear. His eyes revealed his true self for the first time, at least for the first time I was willing to see. He had been the cause of every moment of self-loathing and insecurity that filled my life for five months too long. His palms held me steadfast against the door while his eyes faded to horror as he realized what he’d done. An apple-sized lump worked its way up my throat.

Tears dropped down my face like acid rain, each drop another sting of pain.

“Let me go.”

Air hissed over my lips, psssss, barely allowing the words to escape. His arms dropped to his sides, weighted with dumbbells of guilt. I gathered my purse and still in a complete cloud of dizziness, opened the door, dropped my feet on the pavement, and slammed the door without looking back. If he tried to yell after me, I couldn’t hear him, nor did I care to. It was my time to walk away from this.

The projector shuts off as abruptly as it started. I’m going to follow the pavement as long as his headlights will take me. What does that sign say? TOLLROAD ENDS ¼ MILE. Just a quarter mile on legs that are growing heavier and heavier with each step toward the light that is Oso Parkway. Eerily, no cars pass as I make my way.

My stomach churns like butter and fear trickles up my spine, shooting like lightning to a lightning rod to every nerve in my body. I am completely and utterly alone. This road that I’ve driven on five days a week for two years, these barely visible hills that I’ve passed by so many times before, these bugs that have clicked and buzzed every night without my notice are now my sole companions.

The roar of the truck engine fades to a purr and the headlights are no longer visible while the truck idles and I reach the lit, un-manned tollbooths.

I know he will wait there. He will wait until I leave or until I beg him to drive me home. But that won’t be happening. I will never step foot in that truck again.
Lead fingers plunge to the bottom of my purse and somehow come up with a cell-phone. I call the first number on my redial.

“Hey, it’s me,” I stutter. “I’m going to need you to come pick me up.”

I can’t hear what she replies over the deep, heaving sobs erupting low in my chest, but I manage to choke out, “I’m at the end of the 241 South.”

• 2009 Fall
• Personal Essay