PURE HEROIN

XIV.

14 | Pure Heroin

"I call the window seat!" Juels exclaimed charging past Exodus and sliding into the chair.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this." Exodus grumbled securing her small suitcase in the luggage compartment over their seats before sitting down.

"He won't even know we're gone. Trust me."

Trust her. Right. Because that's what Exodus had been reduced to. Trusting the words of seventeen year olds.

As the pilot prepared them for takeoff, she fumbled with her seatbelt for a moment. This was probably the most annoying thing about flying. Two black straps and a metal loop that somehow needed rocket science to tighten properly.

Exodus had brought a copy of 'Garden Of Edens' with her to past the time, but halfway through the flight she realized that she had not read one page. She had been on the first line for an hour and a half now and the words might as well have been written in a language she didn't know.

Sighing frustratedly she closed the book and ran a hand down her face, Exodus was restless. There was no turning back now, but it was still difficult to wrap her mind around it. She was actually going home.

Home. The word circled comfortably in her mouth like bubble gum, swished around sweetly soft and satisfying. It made her both nervous and excited. In that moment she realised that no matter how far you ran from it there was always an unexplainable force that always drew you back to your roots.

-

Exodus watched the yellow taxi cab reverse from her parents drive way before taking a look around. Besides the spot where a broken homemade swing once was, nothing much had changed. Her mother's peony bush was still the same, struggling and looking close to death as it always had. Parked outside the garage was her dad's Toyota with the same hideous "MY DAUGHTER'S A BALLERINA" sticker on the bumper. Everything felt familiar, but strangely different to her in a way.

She stared up at the house where she had lived her whole life. Where she had lost all her baby teeth. Where tiny hamster, gerbil, and bird skeletons lie in rotted-out cardboard coffins beneath the oak tree in their backyard.

Where, if some future archaeologist goes digging, they'll find the remains of a plush toy: a gray terrier named Toto. Whom she had many great adventures with but one day been replaced by the horrors called 'growing up'.

Exodus walked up to the front door taking a deep breath before mustering enough courage to ring the doorbell. Juels stood behind her lips pursed holding her phone up, trying to fine the perfect angle to take her selfie at.

"Say cheese Exodus."

"Wha-" Exodus turned around only to be blinded by the flash. She glared at Juels before they both were distracted by the sound of the doorknob rattling.

Exodus went still as the front door open wider revealing her father. He stared back at her as if seeing a ghost, as if not quite believing that she was actually there standing before him. She noticed the new dusting of gray strands that lay close to his temples and adorning his beard.

"Dussy..?" Exodus felt her heart constrict in her chest at his nickname for her. She stepped closer to him just as he crushed her to his chest. Needing to believe that this was real, needing to hold his daughter.

Exodus suddenly remembered being very little and being embraced by her dad. She would try to put her arms around her father's waist, hug him back. But she could never reach the whole way around the equator of his body; he was that much larger than life.