Happily Ever After... Maybe

[Friday]

I looked up and up the walls of my so called home to the last window where I could see the light burning through the drawn curtains. I bit my lip and ducked down by a statue in the garden as I saw the shape of mother's form in her nightgown outlined on the curtains.
I let out a sigh of relief as the shadow passed on after the much too long for comfort pause. I could hear the sound of him on the darkened street and I knew he was waiting for me. I kept telling myself that this would be the night that I didn't go to him. That I would stay at home, like my mother wished. That I would stay out of trouble.
"Claire!" I heard my name called from the street. It was just in a normal tone of voice, but the loudness of it in the silence made me flinch and dart a quick glance to the high window making sure no one else, namely my mother, had heard.
I sighed again, no this would not be the night that I stayed in. Just the sound of his voice calling my name sent tingles along my skin, and warmth that spread from the depths of my belly. I shivered, and not from the cool night air.
I stood up from my crouched hiding place and straightened my shoulders, and without another glance at the high window, I left the garden behind and walked out into the street.
I could see him standing with arms at his sides squinting into the dark. I felt my lips curve up in a smile invoulntarily just watching him. His air was sticking up in every which way, evidence of those strong hands being brushed hasitly through it. I could see the broad shoulder slightly straining against the confines of his shirt, which was tight enough on him I could see the edge to his muscled back. His broad torso tapered to narrow hips, and even though I couldn't see his eyes, I knew they were that startling gray that could hold me captive with just one glance.
He must have heard me move, for he turned his eyes to me, making on the darker shape of my form against the dark of the moonless night.
"Claire," he said again, this time quiter and for a moment I thought almost tender. "Come on, I'm waiting." Of course, the tenderness was all in my imagination. He didn't even wait for me as he turned away.
I sighed and climbed up onto his bike behind him as he pulled on his full faced helmet over his face. He handed me the extra and I reluctantly pulled it down.
So he wasn't the knight in shining armor on a gallant steed. But he was as close as I was going to get.
The bike roared to life beneath me, and the silence of Tremont St was lost. I coould feel it rumble and the adreniline already being pumped through my viens. I placed my hands on his hips, and saw the flash of his hand and the bike jumped forward, roaring down the street going much faster than the twenty five mile an hour speed limit.
No, Max was definitely not a prince charming. But he supplied me with all the adventure and romance I could ever want. It was a shame the romance of it all only went one way. It was all I had though and I was going to cling to it.
I couldn't be sure, but I thought I heard the loud screech of my full name be screamed at the top of a very angry woman's lungs. But it didn't matter. I was already gone. There was nothing she could do until morning light. No, in this moment I was not Claire Elizabeth Weatherford. Those seven syllables were lost to the wind in the dark night. I was simply Claire. Wild and crazy and as untameable as a wild stallion.

[Friday]

Chapter 1

I quickly pulled a hand up to cover my yawn, keeping one slit of an eye open to watch the prwoling poweress of the woman who paced the floor in front of the overstuffed arm chair that I was precariously perched on. The was the worst of it. The waiting for her to say something. But I was more than used to it. So I sat there, waiting in nervous anticipation as she paced, with pursued lips and wringing hands.
I fiddled with the hem of my dress that I had quickly changed into that morning. I had pulled my hair out of the pony tail that had constrained it and now my brown hair hung in loose, disarranged curls that fell slightly past my shoulder. I wasn't as made up as I would have liked to have been. It would have to do though. Slipping into my room through the window, I'd had about enough time to shut the window and draw the lacey curtains when my mother had burst in displaying the ferocity of a angry mama bear.
Now hear I was, not ten minutes later, sitting in the drawing room as my mother like to call it, feeling waves of frustration and disappointment and anger radianting from her like heat does from a heater.
I looked up when the sound of pacing feet abruptly stopped. My mother was standing in front of me, her hands on her hips with that frown, that seemed to be a permanent fixture on her face when she was regarding her delinquint oldest daughter.
"Claire Elizabeth," she started, and I sucked in my breath, preparing myself for the scolding that would follow.
"I'm done."
She shook her head at me, and I knew I was in for it. There was no raised voice, no stamping of the feet. She stood quietly, just shaking her head at me. I swallowed the sudden lump that had formed in my throat. For once in my life, I was scared of the punishment about to be dolled out to me.

[Friday]

"Claire," I could here the pleading note in her voice, that told me she was at the end of her rope.
"I've tried everything I know how to do. Taking away your car, your computer and phone privliges, but none of that really matters to you. I forbid you to leave the house, except for work, school, and my errands. I've created list of chores, which you've performed to the letter. Yet, you still see reason to sneak around with that boy. You sneak out at night, and do lord knows what. The police have showed up with you in the middle of the night, and yet you still leave the next night...."
I had the decency to look down at my feet as she went on and on about my list of misdemeanors. It wasn't that I was a bad kid. I was relatively good by the standards of the people I hung out with. My mother however was against Max, and was against him so fiercely that nothing I did would make up for it.
I performed all the chores I was asked, when I had been in school I was in the top of my class, my grades always high, I was at every event my mother insisted me go to.
I just snuck out some nights, well, most nights, and hung out with the delinquent Max, who's crotch rocket was just a death trap for me. My mother didn't understand, what pull he had over me. The rush his presence gave me was like a drug, and I was addicted.
"....I'm sending you to your Uncle and Aunt," my mom finished and her words pulled me from my thoughts faster than anything else she could have said.
"What?"
"Claire, were you not listening to me? Typical typical. You are being sent to my sister's house," she said moving about the room. Her tone was saying that she wanted no arguement. Well, regardless she was going to get one.
"But, Anut Sherry lives in France, I can't go there!"
"Oh yes you can young lady, I think time in the French country side is exactly what you need. That and it wil allow you to practice your french, which I know has been extremely under practiced as of late. They will be thrilled to see you and I don't think you can get into much trouble in a french vineyard."
"But-"
"No But's Claire, you leave next Tuesday. A week from today. I don't care what you do between now and then, but you are leaving for France then. Now, go do whatever it is you do, be here for dinner, we have company and someone I want you to meet."

[Friday]

Since my mother had told me to do whatever, I left the house. It was the first time in days I had been out of the hosue during the day under my own will. It was strange to me to be doing whatever I wanted to do. I didn't really feel like driving so I walked down Termont St. and around the cornor to the small park that was for use for the neighborhoods inhabitants.
I sat down on the swings and the chains creaked with my weight, and I let out a sigh that was lost on the cool summer breeze.
France. That was my punishment.
I loved France. It's where my mother was born, where all her family was. She had lived there until she had married and English man, and then had moved to this quite little town of Lapeer, Michigan.

[Friday]

I wasn't really sure why my parents moved here. While there was quite a few familes of European descent here, it was none that my mother knew. One old German man that my dad was associated with. I had the personal belief that it had something to with inheriting the old man's money. But I could be wrong.
That didn't matter though, what mattered was that in a week I would leave my small town of Lapeer behind and be stuck in France for however long my mom decided to leave me there. I didn't even have the hope of school starting in August to bring me home in a month. Therem/][was no telling how long I would be left there.
No cell phone, no car, no having my own room. While usually that would bother me, it wasn't those things that I would miss. No, there was only one thing that I would really miss. And it wasn't so much of a thing, but a person.
M'ax. I would miss Max. Max, the boy that had inexplicably stolen my heart, and yet, I was nothing more than a passing thought for him. A distraction in his night time rides, but more than that, I was just along for the ride with him.
I could still remember that first night with Max. I had been sitting here in this very park. That had been at the very beginning of summer. I was out of highschool, and ready to find something new. I had been tamed my whole life, doing whatever I was asked, and had never done anything to defy my mother. But sitting out here on this swing at midnight, the roar of Max's bike had caught my attention.
I had never seen a bike in our neighborhood, it was such a foreign idea to me, I couldn't help but watch as he cruised by. I couldn't help but notice the broad shoulders, the strong arms, the total control that was all heightened in the moonlight. And maybe that was why I was so drawn to him, the way the moonlight made him seem magical. Like he really was a prince charming come to my rescue on a firey steed.
In any case, Max found me sitting on that swing in the park that night. He asked if I wanted to go for a ride.
An hour later I was on the bike of that bike flying down the highway with the wind plucking at my clothes, and my heart pounding. I'm not sure if it was him or the bike I fell in love with, or maybe just the way he made me feel. But now I was in love and couldn't bear the thought of leaving his side.
But I was going to France in a week, and Max was not in France. It was the thought of losing him that made the silent tears roll down my cheeks. But this was not the magic of the moonlight. This was in the full sunlight with the sun shining. It was too nice of a day for me to be breaking my own heart, but there was no choice. I was leaving Max in a week. I needed to get over him, or if I couldn't get over him. Make him never forget me.