Expression of Love

A friend gave me a prompt, "Expression of Love" for a writing assignment. At first, I only had the idea in my head, but then I started writing it in a small notebook. This is the revised, longer version which I posted briefly before on my personal IG account. Thank you for giving me brain juice!! (─‿‿─)

Tires hit gravel, and I woke up with the wind brushing hard against my face. Everything was pitch black; no light but the moon and passing vehicles. Barely conscious, barely feeling the warmth of my seat, I sat up properly to take in my surroundings. My feet couldn’t reach the floor at the time as I was still too small. I looked to my right, raising my head– the glistening neon signs and the kilometer mark by the side of the road made me realize we were well past our hometown. Not much could be made out in the darkness, and I was almost drowning from the air coming through. Perhaps he grew eyes on the back of his head, noticing my silent plea– my father rolled the window back up, but only slightly. The air conditioning was too weak and there were no other ways to bring cold air inside the truck except through a small slit on the window. It didn’t take long for me to come to my senses afterwards. A blink or two and a small yawn, feeling the bags beside me that my father used as a cushion for my head. He was silent, and eventually, so was the road. Nothing passed through, and the radio was turned off. There were no tree lines to be seen, only wide fields on either side of the road. When I asked where we were going, I was met with an incomplete answer. It was hard to decipher what he had said until I looked through the rearview mirror, directly staring at him.

My father’s face glistened slightly as headlights brushed past him.

His wrists, resting upon the steering wheel as if all of his muscles went limp.

His seat was tilted, slightly reclined. Slowly blinking, mindlessly driving. Pale skin and sunken eyes.

I left that short trance when he reached for the compartment and I could hear the wrinkling and shuffling of plastic.

It was vanilla wafer sticks— I knew from the orange packaging that was barely visible through whatever light passed through. As soon as it was within my reach, I took it from him almost instantly. After handing it over, he started driving faster, eventually stopping at the closest gas station to refill the tank and rest inside the convenience store. As he looked for supplies and whatever else we needed at the time, I took the chance to step down as well and head towards the bathroom, leaving my wafers out in the open, small crumbs getting on my seat. I looked at my reflection– unkempt hair, mismatched socks and loose pajamas, and the very same eyes as the ones I saw in the truck’s mirror. Not long after, I followed him across the different short aisles of the store, helping him pick out what to buy. When I noticed that he bought my wafer sticks again, I then rushed to grab a small box of raisins from the back of the store without my father’s knowledge and shoved it in my pocket before running out of there. Whoever was at the register probably noticed and didn’t care enough that a 7-year-old shoplifted.

We sat on the pavement outside of the store, and he handed me the small packet. I opened it, forgetting that I left the one I was eating inside the truck. The air felt dry and warm. My father opened and handed me a cold bottle of fruit tea before clicking open a can of coffee he bought for himself. The night dragged on with how silent it was, until I heard his voice for the first time in the past hour.  

“We won’t be going back there. Not for a while, anyway.”

I took another good look at him. 

There was red under his eyes. Hidden underneath the collar of his shirt was a rash, or maybe a bruise. It looked painful and new. 

Something inside me understood, and didn’t prod any further. The atmosphere was thick; underlying messages scattered throughout the two of us, communicated by simply knowing one another. I didn’t say anything– I couldn’t. But then, my father opened up the conversation once again.

“You really like those wafers.”

I nod.

“You can have as many as you want when we get there.” He said, opening a packet of his own and putting two between his lips. I remember giggling to myself, imagining him as some sort of walrus. As I looked down and through his eyes again, I noticed even more things– subtle things that would never have crossed my mind had I not been staring intently. 

The truck had a noticeable scratch on the side. Multiple. It etched off the graphics, making it illegible. My father’s shoelaces were tied together twice. I couldn’t stop paying attention to the world around me, to keep me awake and to help those gears turn. 

“The wafers were from a prize”, I said, brushing my thumb across the bottle I held, the condensation slowly trickling down on the concrete floor. “I was at the carnival, I saw huge mascots and balloons and darts.”

“Really? Was someone with you?” 

“Mom. She didn’t like it there. ‘Said the mascots smelled funny. She didn’t like the wafers too. I hid it under the bed so she wouldn’t take it away like my toffee.”

“Toffee?”

“Mm. I won another prize. I won a lot. There were many fun games, but I liked looking around more. Do you like carnivals? I went home early because- because mom didn’t.

–What’s your favorite snack?”

“Dunno...I don’t remember.”

Hearing his answer, I left the raisins in my pocket. I never gave it to him, and he never found out about it. But deep inside, I knew. He liked those raisins a lot.

The rest of the drive was quiet. I found myself accidentally sitting on the wafers I left, but couldn’t remember much else after. I probably slept through most of the night after getting back. Because after I woke up, the air was crisp and the sun had yet to peek through. My father opened the radio to fill the silence. Long rides with the truck were never boring; after finding a feminine magazine underneath the passenger seat, he told me it was mom’s, and asked me to throw it out the window. The box of raisins in my pocket got squished, but were still closed tight, fortunately. But I couldn’t hand it to him with how the box looked, and ate it secretly instead.

The road was still quiet, surrounded by tall trees. A small peek through them will show an outline of a nearby town. It was larger than where we used to live. An hour passed by, and we drew closer to the town until we arrived. We spent our morning at a motel. It was the only time my father got to rest during our trip. The plan was to only stop to ask for directions, but the exhaustion of driving for so long got to him, I suppose. Amidst all of it, something in my mind remembered my father’s favorite snack. Perhaps it was the guilt of stealing it from the store, or never giving it to him and having it for myself instead, or the fact he often handed me my favorite wafer sticks whenever he got the chance. While he was still out like a light, I snuck around to find loose change, eventually getting out of the motel, towards the pickup truck. I looked through the hidden compartments, behind the seats, perhaps there was a hidden allowance for me– anything that could allow me to buy him new raisins. I saw a convenience store peeking through the short rows of houses and buildings; Not far enough to miss, and so, I ran off. Being in such a hurry made me forget to shut the door. It was a mess that I left my father to find. Not long after, I arrived back at the motel, having found his prize.

It was rare to see my father in such disarray. Unkempt hair, mismatched socks and a sheen on his face. This time, he breathed shallow breaths, like something was buried in his lungs. I could only imagine what was running through his mind; Maybe he thought the truck got ransacked, and I was taken away from him. That my mother found us, or someone else did. He wasn’t an emotionally closed off person, but it was never to an extent where I’d find him speechless, shaking, while holding packets of wafer sticks.

There were no words to exchange. No apologies. Sweat ran down my back as I held the box of raisins. I knew my father feared losing me the most, but at the time, all I thought about was how he forgot about his favorite snack.

“You– you never forget anything. Like you always pick me up from school, and you like carnivals, at least I think? But but I know you like raisins!”

My father’s pulse catches on his throat. The snacks he held were carefully placed back inside the truck, in the driver’s seat, and he placed his hands against his face for a moment, taking a deep breath. I drew closer.

“Mom gave you raisins when you were sick. That one time. You like raisins a lot, I see it when you drive.”

“Yes…Yes I like raisins. Please don’t run off like that again just to get me some, I didn’t know what to do– where to look for you, how you bought these in the first place, I…” 

He held me close, and that was the longest he spoke in the past 12 hours. I felt the tremble in his voice, in his breath. There wasn’t anything that followed his stammering. I kept pushing the box towards his chest, thinking it would stop his heart from beating so fast. He only exhaled deeply. After regaining his composure, we sat at the back of the truck together and ate vanilla wafer sticks and raisins. There was nothing to look at but my father’s face; Red under his eyes, a bruise, stained purple hidden under his shirt collar, hands that rested on my shoulders like all of his limbs went limp. Back against boxes, leaning, pale and sunken eyes. 

The sun peeked through, illuminating the empty street; nothing but the sound of gravel and the soft brush of wind against our faces.