That Summer Night

From Teen To Todd

Hi everybody,

you can find the rest of this story on Amazon!

You can read the rest of my book on Amazon for $1.30usd.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08P5SB21B

Just search on amazon : delayed dreamer that summer night

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To feel helpless is to feel powerless , it is to grow-up only to be told you will be born again.

-DelayedDreamer

It was a sticky dark summer night. I was a passenger in my dad's Volkswagen Cabriolet we were on our way back from the movie theater. I didn't know what it was but today felt different I looked out on city street, couples on their way to the club passed by and others strolled by looking forward to enjoy their Saturday night. Well, Sunday night since it was almost 11:59pm.

I looked at the street lights, scenery and people as if it all knew to me. When I got tired of looking at the dark streets I looked around my father's rugged old car. Oh gosh he wasn't kidding when he said he had it for decades, I thought .

His cassette player in his car was jammed with a tape entitled "mix tape to my honey" he never told who that honey was. But I knew it couldn't have been by mother cause if it was he would have ripped the tape out with his bare hands. My mother left not only me but also my father out to dry.

My dad met my mom in Italy when he and his buddies went on their high school graduation trip, he fell in love with her and promised to marry her when he graduated university.

When he came back to the USA she announced she was pregnant with his baby. She didn't have a visa and her parents wanted to kick her out, so they had to get married right away. A week after she delivered me she disappeared without a trace.

He called her family in Italy they said she never came back. He searched for her looking because he needed answers and finally he found out she had family in Texas so he drove down to only find out she married him to only to get to the US.

So that's basically the story of my horrible mother, I realized I had zoned out on the cassette and began looking at the blue stain on the passenger side two back seats. My father says he can't seem to get rid of the car because every fault has a story and he doesn't want to miss a chapter.

"what's wrong with you?" my dad says breaking my fixation on the back seat.

I turned around and look at his brown eyes "when are you gonna get rid of this crappy car?" I ask him.

" Never and if you're bored turn on the radio" he says harshly.

I turn on the radio and turn it to my favorite station. Just as my fingers leave the dial my father's hands whoosh in and change it.

" Hey you said I could turn on the radio" I attest

"Turn it on not change the station" he says with a smirk . He does things like this just to annoy me,

" When you get your own car then you choose the station " he continued.

"That's your fault not mine every time we go to the dealer you argue with the sales person and leave" I said

"That's called negotiating ok" he defended.

"It's called embarrassing your daughter " I protested.

"How was that embarrassing?"  he asked me.

"You called the man a racist cause he wouldn't give you his employee family and friends discount" I told him.

"I don't remember such a thing" he said.

"Am the only 19 year old I know without a car " I said.

We bickered some more after that but that's the only thing I could remember saying.

The last thing I remember seeing was a dark and lonesome highway atop a hill we rarely take this way because the road was so narrow and twisty that it was shocking it was made into a road. It was so dark the street lights must have not been working.

We were mid way through the highway when the car started to jerk back and forth, until it finally came to a stop.

I remember my father getting a flashlight out and popping the hood. This happened all the time so I knew what to do so I got a flashlight and got out of the car too, I walked pasted my father and the car to go get help.

I must have been temporarily deaf because I didn't hear the huge truck coming till it whatever I could do or did was inevitable but I still tried. I turned around seeing the truck head toward my father's car as he unknowingly looked under the hood of his car. I had already walked so far up the road but still I ran back I think I shouted my father's name and got out my flashlight to shine in the drivers window shield to get the drivers attention to stop. SCREECHHHHH,

No I remember now the last words I said, except it was a shout like that of a lost toddler looking for her father "DADDY!"