Head on a Stranger’s Knee
Rating: G
Archive: Just let me know where
Feedback: Is delightful - lina_wilson@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: I just make them dance
Summary: “He wanted me to stop asking questions.”
Author’s Note: Just another quick piece. The title and quote are from Ben Fold’s Five “Evaporated” This is Donna’s POV, between joining the campaign and going back to Dr. Freeride.

~*~

They didn’t understand why I had to leave. They didn’t hear the fights, didn’t see the way he tried to destroy me. They didn’t have to put up with his suggestions every day. He always had a suggestion for me, some way that I could make myself better. He had problems with the way I wore my hair, my clothes, even my shoes. Sometimes he wanted me to improve my way of speech, my general knowledge on things I couldn’t care less about. He wanted me to stop asking questions.

We went to a party with all his friends from Med school, and I realised that I had never met most of these people, even though Geoff has known them for years. I had been too busy paying the bills to meet them casually, and Geoff didn’t usually take me to parties, because he wanted to spend time with me alone, he didn’t want to share me with other people. So I had never met these people, and I wanted to know them, since they were part of his life. He pulled me aside to tell me to stop asking questions. “Smart girls, Donna, don’t need to ask questions.”

But I was smart. I was doing really well before I dropped out. So, all right, I’d changed my major a few times, but I was only 17 when I started and what 17 year old knows their own mind? Let alone, what they want to do for the rest of their life? Anyway, I was getting good marks, and I had a good grade point average. And I read heaps after I dropped out. I was 19 and I didn’t see my friends much, so I read a lot.

I had friends in college. Lots of them. I was in the Drama society and most of my good friends were there. It’s just, well I moved in with Geoff, and I spent all my free time with him. Then I dropped out, and I was working all the time, and there was no time to see my friends. Anyway, I had grown up things to worry about. I was too old for drinking games and Homecoming dances.

I was friends with the woman who lived in the apartment next to ours. Cheri, that was her name. She would invite me to dinner when Geoff was studying late. She had a son called Tyrone, but he lived with his grandmother, and I never got to meet him. His picture was all over Cheri’s apartment though and she went to see him every second weekend. She said that I was good company, that I helped her smile. Sometimes she wiped my tears away after I had a fight with Geoff.

She understood when I said I had to leave. She helped me pack up the things I needed and helped me jam them into my little car. She made lists of things I couldn’t forget and made tapes of songs for me to listen to when I drove. She gave me a list of every cheap restaurant and Bed and Breakfast between Wisconsin and New Hampshire. She stood next to me when I called my parents.

They didn’t understand. They thought Geoff was fantastic, that he had saved me from waffling my way through college. That he had saved them a packet of money on my tuition. They wanted me to marry him, to settle down and have children. He was a doctor after all. What girl didn’t dream of marrying a doctor? And they wanted grand children so badly.

But my imagination had been caught. There was this guy who was running for President and he was stealing all the headlines. He was a former governor, and his success so far was so unexpected, and he really cared . . .

So I came to New Hampshire. And I walked into the first empty office, which just happened to belong to Josh. And he took me on. So I’m working on a political campaign, and it’s exciting, but I’m totally out of my depth here. We’re moving at a hundred miles and hour. We’re moving too fast.

I rang my parents. They said that Geoff really missed me, that he was sorry I had to leave. They said that he would forgive me, that he would be happy to take me back again. They said that he’s thinking of moving to a new place, and he wants my opinion. They said that he really wants me to come home.

They think I’ve lost my mind.

“Slumped over in a vacant room, head on a stranger’s knee
I’m sure back home they think I’ve lost my mind.”