Dear Mrs. Wolfe,

    I hope you don't mind me calling you that. It seems as if I'm writing to a dead person right now, and I keep imagining this letter climbing up to heaven and being stuck in your mailbox up in the skies.

    Once you're reading this, I'll be in Minnesota, buying an apartment. I hope your house isn't too far away. It's scary being here all alone. It really is. Nobody here on the bus talks to me, and that makes it even more terrifying. I just want to fill the silence, to distract my thoughts. Nothing but dad makes up the entirety of my mind. I should be excited to buy my first apartment, it's like the milestone of adulthood. When the bus reaches the Minnesota line, it'll be ten-thirty. Dad would be coming home from his daily trip from buying up beer at the Baker's farm. Maybe he'd be feeling generous after our fight from yesterday and bring me a couple ears of corn to roast as our guys night. Then his arms would drop when he picks up a coffee-colored note sitting on the kitchen counter. Immediately he would mumble a wave of expletives, slumping on the torn sofa wondering where he went wrong. But that false regret wouldn't last long, because soon he'd use his swiss army knife to pop open a beer bottle and drink till the clock read the same number. This was how it always went, and don't worry, I'm used to it by now.

    The bus has no air conditioning, but I guess that's what I get for snagging the cheapest one-way bus ticket. Dad would freak out even more when he found out I stole four of his twenties. I swear, when I pulled them out of his wallet, instead of giving off the sweet money smell they gave off the scent of hopelessness. When I thinned his wallet I packed a few mayo sandwiches and tucked it all into my backpack. Then I took a sharpie and wrote your address on the backside of my hand. I even got that picture frame you asked for, of me and dad, sitting on a porch swing. It's kind of fringed at the corners, but the image is visible nonetheless.

    I still find it odd how I could be kidnapped by my own dad. It's like one day someone pops into your life and tells you everything you knew in the figure you love is a lie. That they had a hidden motive. That they never did things out of selflessness. I don't know what love is anymore. Now I question those friends I had in Bowling Green. Did they actually like me, or did they use me like dad did? I'm so utterly confused. Maybe someday things will start to make sense.

    And hopefully one day I can call you mom.

With regards,
Jason Callahan