Runaway Pt. 01

Author's Note:

This is a story for the Highway Song event arranged by blackrandl1958. Runaway is a story about Lacey, a small-town girl from northern Manitoba. Part coming-of-age story, part love letter to Canada, part First Time romance, I am so excited to share this work with you, and would love to hear your feedback.

I will warn the reader now that this is a long, novel-length story and while there are some very (in my humble opinion) rewarding erotic scenes, they take some time to get to. I invite you to get to know the characters and enjoy the journey, since the stories for this event are all about travel and adventure. Chapters have been marked throughout the story and it will be posted in four parts.

Special thanks to the team of people who beta-read and edited this story: BarryJames1952, Bebop3, blackrandl1958, norafares, OneAuthor, and Steve M. This story would not be possible without them. Any remaining errors—factual, grammatical, or otherwise—are my own.

**

The first red flag should have been that Roger said he would meet me in Winnipeg.

"I have an interview the day before, so I'll go down early and you can just meet me there."

The second was the tickets.

"I'll get the tickets on the way there. You get them on the way back. I'll give you yours when we meet at the station."

The third was that he wouldn't pick up his phone when I tried calling him to say I was on the bus to Winnipeg.

The fourth and fifth were the text messages he didn't respond to while I was on the bus.

The sixth was the unanswered phone call when I got to the train station.

The seventh was a photo message from Kristen of Roger with his friends at the Timmy's, back home.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news—that was a lie, she was probably giddy with glee about it—but they're bragging about tricking you into thinking Roger was going to take you to Montreal.

I tried calling Roger again, but it went to voicemail. Seconds later, another text from Kristen.

Did you just try calling him? They're laughing. I'm so sorry, Lacey.

I didn't respond to her, opting instead to text Roger.

Ha, ha. You got me. I bit my lip as I struggled to find the right words. Why?

He didn't text back right away, and neither did Kristen. When he finally did, my heart settled somewhere in the area of my small intestine.

Srsly? Cant believe u fell for it. Just wanted to fuk u, but ur such a fukn goodie 2 shoes. Sry not sry LOL

It was accompanied by a picture of him and his friends inside the Timmy's, flipping off the camera.

You know those movies where some character is sitting on a bench for hours while a blurry montage of people rushing by shows the passage of time? And it's supposed to be all artsy and meaningful and stuff?

I always thought those scenes were so dumb. Who would just sit there for hours on end staring at a wall? I mean, I can certainly sit still and stare mindlessly at things. Any good church-going girl can. Still, I couldn't imagine a single scenario where I would do so simply because of some kind of emotional devastation.

I learned a lot of things about myself that summer. The first was that I was entirely capable of sitting on a bench in a train station, frozen in indecision as I tried not to let the heartbreak show on my face.

A lot of things kept me from moving. Embarrassment. The aforementioned indecisiveness. Betrayal. Take your pick, really. But there I was, the very picture of a trope. The naive small-town girl, backpack loosely clutched to her chest as she perched on the edge of the metal bench, staring at a brick wall as fear and anger and sadness paralyzed her.

The world passed around me. Screaming children scampered by with their families. Old men held their wives' hands as they escorted them to the platform. College students, people my age, plotted how they would sneak alcohol and weed onto the train.

And still I sat.

I could have done the reasonable thing and just bought a bus ticket home, hanging my head in shame as we drove back to that nameless small town. Something inside me wouldn't allow it. The whole thing was my own fault. I had trusted Roger. I had forgiven him. I had turned the other cheek and in doing so, had turned a blind eye to the obvious mistake I was making.

Roger and I grew up in the same nameless small town, the kind that is nothing more than a blip on a map. The kind that are all the same, but all different. Ours was north of Winnipeg, Manitoba, far enough that a trip into the city was more than a day trip but close enough that a bus ran regularly.

In that little town, Roger Swift was the epitome of a heartthrob. He was a hockey boy, of course, like all desirable males are in any small Canadian town. Tall, with broad shoulders and shaggy blond hair, his nose only a little crooked from an errant puck, he played center for the junior hockey team three towns over. Roger's main claim to fame was that he had nearly been drafted into the NHL.

He hadn't made the cut, but he came closer than most. He was a real hometown hero, the kind that could do no wrong.

Somewhere, in a perfect universe that really only exists in romantic comedies, Roger and I would have been high school sweethearts. We would have married at 20, and by 22—the age we were that summer—we would have had one or two tiny blessings bouncing on our hips as we hosted social events and hockey tournaments.

The preacher's daughter and the handsome jock are supposed to end up together. At least, they do in hockey towns where cheerleaders aren't really a thing.

It only works if the preacher's daughter meets certain expected standards, though. You know, the preacher's daughter you pictured when I said I was a preacher's daughter. Perfectly beautiful, with glowing skin and bouncy curls. Chastely innocent in the eyes of the community, her father, and her Father, but willing to exploit God's Loophole since it would mean she's technically still a virgin.

I was not that kind of preacher's daughter, because my father was not that kind of preacher. When people asked what religion I was, I simply said Christian: there was no point in explaining the way the denomination had split off into branches that formed into sects that became the little church my family was a part of. Like my town, it didn't matter. It was better to be nameless.

I was the kind of preacher's daughter who argued the Loophole was void since sodomy was considered a sin as well. Despite what my father taught in his church, I didn't think sodomy was particularly sinful, nor did I think people were going to Hell for having sex before marriage. It's just that people tend to believe you're "saving yourself for marriage" when you start arguing theology with them.

In addition to that, when you look as plain as I did, no one is really aiming to corrupt the sweet, naive virgin. Sweet, naive virgins are supposed to have rosy cheeks and thick lips that are just a little too sultry, breasts that make those modest blouses pull just a little too much. They're not supposed to be gangly, freckled girls with eyes like a frog and hair straighter than a church pew.

All of that meant that even with my willingness to push the book a little on the whole "sex before marriage" thing, no one was asking me to do so.

Despite my fear of disobeying my father, I had been pushing the book on a lot of things. Growing up, I had been friends with a young girl named Delilah who lived down the street. Delilah's family was religious, but they didn't go to our church. Mom said they were Catholics, which apparently meant they were the wrong type of Christians.

I was fascinated with Delilah and Catholics. She would tell me about their services, which seemed to feature a lot less yelling and condemning than my father's did, and about things like the saints.

My father thought saints were false idols. I only knew that because one day, after Delilah had taught me about all sorts of saints, I had made the mistake of telling him what I had learned. He forbade me from seeing Delilah again, cursing her family for corrupting my innocent mind with talk of prophets of evil.

I never told him, but I asked Delilah to teach me about the saints at school. My father wouldn't know, I reasoned, and I couldn't understand why her version of church was evil but my version of church wasn't. Delilah happily agreed, bringing books and stories to me each day. I learned the prayer of Saint Francis, that Saint Valentine wasn't just the patron saint of love but also of beekeepers, and memorized trivial details about even the most obscure of saints, like Saint Blaise, whom I prayed to whenever we had to take our cat to the vet.

I just didn't understand why saints were bad. What could be wrong with asking a particularly holy person for their support in asking God for help? My father said no, but I thought God would understand why I wanted to know more about them.

It was just another way that I wasn't a typical preacher's daughter.

I was not the preacher's daughter that smiled innocently as she stood beside her family at church, but flashed her panties at the boys when her father wasn't looking. No, I was the preacher's daughter who was still living in her childhood bedroom at 22, at least during holidays away from her private all-girls college, the one who unironically wore a golden cross around her neck at all times, didn't wear anything more than lip gloss for makeup, and had never so much as held hands with a boy.

No, not because I was into girls.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Jesus loves everyone.

Despite what my father would say, of course. He's... traditional, I suppose would be the kind word for it. One must honour their mother and father, it's in the Bible.

The Bible doesn't tell you what to do when your father tells his son he's a perverted fag who is doomed for eternity, though, and that if you so much as say Sean's name after he's left home forever, you cause a fight that would be right at home in Revelation. Your father will say it says to stone sinners, but it also says to love each other and that murder is a sin.

It also doesn't tell you what to do when you start questioning what you've been taught, and what you've been raised with. It doesn't tell you what to do when you find out the other girls at your religious college think your beliefs are fanatical, even for Christians. It doesn't tell you what to do when you're too scared to stand up to your parents. It doesn't tell you what to do when you miss your brother every day.

It just tells you to honour thy father and thy mother.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I was talking about Roger, who was the catalyst in this whole God-forsaken situation.

The point is this: the hockey heartthrob does not end up with the preacher's daughter who has average-sized breasts, a turned-up nose, and freckles covering every inch of skin. I was stupid to think, at any point in my life, that Roger Swift had any interest in me. I was stupid to have a huge, dumb, ridiculous crush on a boy who was as mean to me as Roger was.

He'd been horrible to me as we grew up. More than once, he'd stolen my notebooks or dumped my backpack into a snowbank. More than once, I'd turned the other cheek and forgiven him. More than once, I truly believed him when he said he had changed.

The most recent time had been a month earlier.

I was home for the summer. Well, home after graduation, so I guess I was home until I figured out what to do next. My friend Kristen was back, too. We had gone to the same elementary, junior high, high school, and college. I suppose we were friends, but it was a friendship of convenience. Aside from living in the same town and having heavily religious families, we weren't all that similar.

Still, we were going to lunch that day. Convenience is a strong motivator.

Roger walked into the Timmy's with Alex McConnell and Curtis Zakowski just after we had finished ordering and were waiting by the sandwich line for our food. Kristen nudged me.

"Look who it is."

They seemed to be having a similar conversation, Roger nudging Curtis as he tilted his head towards us. Our eyes met across the coffee shop as he glanced back over.

Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn't for his face to light up.

"Lacey Stephens!" he exclaimed, bounding over to us. "Oh, and Kristen, how are you?"

"Fine," she said coldly.

Before I knew what was happening, Roger had wrapped his muscled arms around me. As quickly as the hug had started, it ended, and he stepped back with a hand still resting on my arm.

"Shit, Lacey, look at you. It's been ages. You look great."

Kristen scoffed, but I was flattered. "Thanks, Roger. It's good to see you."

"You... wow." He shook his head, a lopsided grin spreading across his face. "You girls having lunch? Mind if me and the boys join ya?"

Kristen minded, but the Bible says to love thy neighbour.

She had gone home after eating lunch, but I stayed at Timmy's with Roger and his friends for a couple of hours longer.

The next day, we'd met for lunch again, but without his friends.

It was the fifth or sixth time that we'd met for lunch when he planted the idea in my head.

"If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?"

"Oh, I couldn't really go anywhere."

"If nothing was standing in your way. Not money or commitments or anything, what would you do?"

I thought about it for a moment. "I don't know. I've never been any further than Winnipeg."

Roger raised his eyebrows. "Never?"

A blush was creeping up my cheeks. "Nope."

"Never even to, I dunno, like... like Saskatchewan?"

I shook my head, embarrassed.

Roger studied me, intense blue eyes focused on my face before reaching across the table and putting his hand on top of mine. My heart stuttered at the sudden warmth of his fingers.

"Let's go on a trip," he said. "You and me."

"You..."

"Uh huh."

"...and me?"

Roger grinned. "Yeah. Let's go to... I dunno, Montreal."

I tried to laugh, but his hand was still resting on mine and it was incredibly distracting. "How would we even get there?"

"We could take the train."

We planned to spend the Canada Day long weekend in Montreal. With all the stops and train switches, it would take about three days to get there, so we planned to leave on the 26th of June. That left me with just a few short weeks to figure out how exactly I was going to tell my parents I was not only travelling out of the province for the first time, but would be travelling with a boy.

And that the boy was Roger Swift.

I was not nervous without reason. The last time one of his children had done something he deemed a sin, my father had disowned them.

My brother Sean was four years older than me, and the person I had looked up to more than anyone else in the world. He was my own personal hero. As kids, I didn't understand why people thought Sean was trouble. I knew he came home from school covered in bruises and scrapes, and I knew the hockey boys didn't like him, but I thought it was because Sean always did the right thing.

He was forever defending people. When Roger used to steal my backpack and dump my books into snowbanks, Sean would grab him and push him away. When the other boys jumped on him and started kicking him, he'd yell at me to run. As much as I wanted to help him, to make sure he was safe, I was too scared. Every time, I ran.

I didn't know what the words they called my brother meant. When they called him "fag," I didn't understand. When they called him "queer," I thought they meant he was weird.

It was only when I heard my father shout those words at him that I understood.

He left home the same day I heard those words leave my father's mouth, and I hadn't seen him since. He was seventeen when he left.

"Left" isn't the right word, but no one ever told me if he ran away or if he was forced to go.

I was only thirteen, still young but old enough then to know what "gay" was. Young enough that my parents still shaped my thinking. Old enough to question what I was being taught.

No matter what age I was, I was not brave enough to help my brother when he needed me.

It was a Sunday like any other, mid-winter and bitterly cold. Our dad was already at the parish, getting ready for the morning service. Mom was making sure Sean and I both looked presentable, then ushering us into the car as quickly as she could. I played the piano for the church choir, so when we arrived, Sean and Mom headed to the pews while I made my way to the front.

It wasn't a large church. The building was old, made from wood and prayers, and had just enough room at the front for a small choir and an upright piano alongside the altar. There was a single step up to a platform so my father could see over the crowd, and no sound system: it would hardly be needed in a room that small.

From where I sat at the piano, I saw everything.

I saw a boy I didn't really know give Sean a hymn book.

I saw Sean grip the book tightly through most of the service.

I watched him tuck it behind another book when he had to get up for communion.

Mom returned from communion first. Whether she took his book on purpose or whether she just grabbed one without thinking, I would never know.

Sean entered the pew at the same time that she opened the hymn book. She had already started singing, so when she saw whatever she saw in the book, a high-pitched note squeaked sharply from her throat. Sean's face fell, turning as pale as I'd ever seen someone turn, before flushing red from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears.

Why my father came to check on her, I'll never know either. In my memories, Mom tried to close the book and hide it, but he caught her wrist before she could. I never knew if that was what truly happened, or if she handed the book to my father willingly.

What I do know is that his face turned the same shade as Sean's, but his eyes were filled with a rage that I had never thought possible.

We left the service with Mom immediately after it finished, forgoing our usual receiving line aside my father. She drove recklessly across town, tires skidding along the ice before parking haphazardly on the driveway. Sean's eyes were swollen and red, tears trickling down his face, and no one spoke a word.

He was home just long enough to throw some necessities in a bag.

"What's going on?" I asked desperately, but neither he nor Mom would answer.

"Sean, what happened? Why are you crying? Mom, why is he packing?"

"He's packing because he's a sinner. A perverted fag."

I hadn't heard my father come home, and jumped as his voice floated up the stairs.

"Lacey, go to your room."

"But—"

"Go to your room and stay there until I say you can come out."

I should have defended my brother. Instead, I cowered in my room as they shouted at each other, hurling disgusting words back and forth. I prayed, begging God for help, begging Him to make the shouting stop. The whole time, I flipped frantically through my Bible, trying to find the part that said Sean couldn't live with us if he was gay. The pages tore as I read, teardrops staining the delicate paper as my father and my brother screamed at each other.

The house grew suddenly quiet, broken only by the loud slam of a door. I rushed to my window and watched Sean stalk down the snowy street with a backpack on his shoulder. He slipped on a patch of ice and nearly fell before catching himself on a parked car, straightened back up, and disappeared.

My father didn't say I could come out of my room, so I sat there the rest of the day. I watched out the window, hoping that Sean would come sliding back up the street, but he never did.

When Mom finally came to my room, her eyes were rimmed with red. She brought a sandwich on a plate, handing it to me.