Now on with the show!
A week later…
The mundane chatter that bounced around the breakfast table had Buffy wishing she would go permanently deaf.
“And then I told Mrs. Howard that there was no way I was sticking my finger into some dead reptile. Eww!” Harmony screeched as she pushed her bacon around her china plate.
Amphibian, you airhead, Buffy thought, taking a sip of her orange juice. She didn’t know why she had to eat with her father and the evil step twins anyway. They never addressed her or asked her how she was doing in school. She might as well have been invisible for all the times she had been spoken to at the table. Or at any other time, come to think of it.
“I can’t believe they would make you do something like that. Surely we could get Mrs. Howard to give you a pass on your biology exam. Couldn’t we, Hank?” Missy turned to her husband, who was currently paying even less attention to them than Buffy was.
“Hank? Did you hear me?”
Hank folded his copy of the LA Times and set it next to his plate. “Yes, Missy, I heard you. I know Bob on the school board. I’ll give him a call. How’s that?”
Missy beamed and turned back to her daughter. “See, no problem.”
Rolling her eyes, Buffy set her fork down. “May I be excused?”
She waited for a response, but after a minute or so no one answered her. Pushing back her chair, she started to move away from the table.
“Where are you going, Elizabeth?” Her father’s stern voice made her stop dead in her tracks.
“Um, I’m finished. I was going to go back upstairs,” she replied softly.
“Did you ask to be excused? I don’t remember hearing it.” They were all glaring at her now like she had interrupted something really important by leaving the table quietly.
Buffy chewed on her lower lip. This was one of those times when nothing she could say would keep her from getting yelled at. Again. “I’m sorry.”
“Whatever, Elizabeth. You must have learned your manners from a barn animal,” Missy said with a contemptible expression marring her newly Botoxed face.
“Yeah, ‘Lizbeth, like a big fat cow,” Harmony added.
Missy and Harmony didn’t bother her much. Sure, they said horrible things to her and made her life a living Hell, but on most days she was pretty adept at ignoring their cruelness. They were too ignorant to know better, she figured.
Her father, though, was a horse of a completely different color. All of the verbal abuse and physical attacks cut her to the bone. How does someone hate their own child so much? So much that they would have preferred for that child to have never been born at all.
“Just go away, Elizabeth. I don’t want to deal with your sulking today,” Hank told her before picking his paper back up and ignoring her again.
Taking that as her cue to leave, Buffy left the dining room and made a beeline for the stairs. She felt like she couldn’t get away from them quick enough. She always felt like that.
Shutting her door, she moved to the small desk in the corner of her room and sat down.
Everything was going as planned and for the first time since her failed attempt to run to Sunnydale, she felt like she might actually pull off her escape. She had bought the bus ticket three days ago and had already packed what she needed. The only thing left to do was to get out of the house tomorrow without anyone knowing.
That part was going to be tricky. Her bus left at five o’clock in the evening which only left her an hour and a half to get all of her stuff and get to the station. School let out at three-thirty and her father usually came home early on Mondays which made her window of escape even smaller.
She thumbed through the address book for the millionth time, finding his name in blue ink written in her mother’s perfect handwriting. The doubts started coming to the surface again, but this time she couldn’t will them away.
What if he didn’t believe her? He could call her father just like Jenny had and she would be back where she started, probably worse off if history was to repeat itself. The possibilities of rejection were endless in her mind and the harder she tried to banish them from her thoughts the worse the scenarios were becoming.
She had debated whether or not to call first, but she knew her chances were better if she explained things face to face. It was easy to put things out of your mind if they weren’t right in front of your eyes.
Sighing, she closed the book and moved to pack it in the black duffel bag she had chosen to use. It was large enough to fit all of her clothes and necessities, but not so big that she couldn’t carry it around easily. She decided that it would be better to pack light anyway. That way if she had to run again, she wouldn’t have too much stuff to lug around.
And she would run until it killed her. There was no way she would ever let Hank touch her again. That was a promise.
Monday flew by. All the while, Buffy’s mind was preoccupied with the intricate plans of her escape.
Right now, she was running with Plan A, which if all went well would see her through to Las Vegas. She also had Plans B through F, although, she wasn’t quite sure F would work since it depended on some superhero in a cape to come save her.
The bell rung for dismissal and she sprinted out of the classroom. The driver that usually picked Harmony and her up from school was normally there early and she prayed that today he was on schedule. There had been a few times he had been kept by traffic and that was an obstacle she did not need.
Running out the front doors, she spied the shiny black Lexus sitting next to the curb awaiting its passengers.
“Thank God!” She breathed out in relief. She made her way to the car and opened the door then jumped inside.
“Good afternoon, Miss Elizabeth,” the driver said with a smile. Frank was a pretty nice guy. He always had a smile for her and never treated her like the red-headed stepchild that some of the other staff did.
“Hey, Frank. Was traffic bad today?”
He scrunched up his nose, “nah, it was pretty smooth. Why? You got some hot date tonight you gotta get ready for?”
“Yeah, right, Frank,” she snorted out.
He chuckled a little. “Well, as soon as Miss Priss gets here, we’ll be on our way.”
Speaking of Harmony, where the Hell was she? Buffy peered out the darkly tinted windows. Scanning the front of the school, she spotted her gabbing it up with a group of senior boys.
What is taking her so long? How long could a conversation with Harmony actually last? It’s not like she had that much to say beyond the latest Gucci handbag and Orlando Bloom’s new movie.
“Can’t we just leave her, Frank?” Buffy asked desperately.
“If only I could, sweetheart. But the bossman would be none to happy if I ditched her.”
Crap! She reached for the door and hauled herself out of the car. Marching over to the group, she tapped Harmony on the shoulder.
Harmony whipped around to face her. “What! Geez, get away from me and don’t ever touch me again.”
“Harmony, we really need to get going,” Buffy told her.
“Whatever. I’ll leave when I’m good and ready to. You’ll just have to wait.” Harmony turned away from her and proceeded to finish whatever ridiculous point she had been trying to make.
“Harmo-”
“Get away from me!” Harmony screamed at her.
Taking a deep breath and setting her jaw in determination, Buffy grabbed Harmony’s wrist and yanked her away from the boys. She pulled the struggling girl down the grassy hill towards the parking lot.
“Let go of me, bitch!”
Buffy’s grip never faltered as she finally pushed Harmony into the car. Frank must have gotten the hint because as soon as Buffy shut the door, he put the car in drive and sped off.
She dodged Harmony’s lame attempt to hit her and slapped her across the face.
A hand to her cheek, Harmony squeaked out, “you’ll be sorry when I tell Daddy.”
Later, she would recognize this as the point where she had no restraint left to keep in the words that she had been swallowing down like bad medicine for years.
“He’s not your Daddy,” she spat out. “Your daddy left you for a better family and you had to steal someone else’s. Kid yourself all you want, Harmony, but he will never be your father.”
They made it back to the mansion in record time and Buffy wasted no time getting herself into the house and up to her room.
She had left Harmony sobbing in the back seat, but she didn’t care. Her only thoughts were reserved for the task at hand and she made quick work of gathering her things. The transit bus would be arriving in fifteen minutes to take her to the Greyhound station and if she didn’t hurry she would miss both.
Slinging her duffel bag over her shoulder, she practically flew down the stairs. She had almost a mile to run to get to the bus stop and she couldn’t afford any haste. As much as she had wanted to say goodbye to Frank and to thank him, she couldn’t spare another second.
She ran down the long drive and out the gate. The unfortunate thing about living in such a posh neighborhood was that the transit system was relegated to the outer edges of the small community.
Her breath started coming in short pants as she pushed her legs to run faster down the sidewalk.
The stop was coming into view and she knew she was going to make it. There was a small gathering of people waiting for the incoming bus and they didn’t seem to take notice of her as her feet slammed against the pavement in an attempt to get there just those few moments quicker.
The bus rounded the corner and freedom loomed towards her. She could feel it. It was so tangible she could almost touch it.
And then her heart sank.
Her father’s blue BMW was racing to get past the bus before he got stuck behind it. There was no way he would miss her.
Swallowing back the panic, she kept running. Only a few hundred feet more and she would be that much closer to escaping her father’s malicious hold on her.
She knew the moment that Hank recognized her. The BMW came to a screeching halt as his tires slid across the blacktop.
The bus was loading and she was almost there. The smell of diesel and rubber greeted her nose like it was the sweetest thing she had ever smelled.
“Elizabeth!”
Not sparing him a glance, she put her hand out to grasp the side of the bus so she could pull herself to safety. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her father tearing out after her and it only made her move quicker.
She stepped onto the bus and fumbled with her duffel bag to get her money out.
“Elizabeth! Get back here!” Hank yelled, getting closer to reaching her with every angry step. “Get off of that bus, now!”
Buffy looked to the driver with fearful eyes, hoping that she would hear her silent plea. She continued to dig for her money, but wasn’t making much progress when she heard a loud thump against the bus. Oh, God, she thought, this is it.
“Elizabe-”
SQUEEEEK!
Buffy turned around to see the bus doors shutting on her father just before he could get to her. He pounded on the Plexiglas door with furious determination. The bus driver put the huge vehicle into gear and moved away from the curb. Hank continued to try and gain access as the bus shoved along.
Finally grasping her wallet, Buffy quickly fed the money to the automatic payment machine. She glanced at the driver and felt her dry eyes moisten with tears.
“Thank you. Thank you,” Buffy told the woman, who returned with a warm smile.
“Us girls gotta stick together, right? Now go take a seat, sugar.”
Buffy nodded and thanked her again before moving to the back of the bus and sitting down. Staring out the dirty window, she could make out the distant form of Hank Summers taking his frustration out on his car.
“Goodbye.”