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"Still, you had to be the one to do it and you did and you're going to do more." I insisted.

He laughed and continued to eat. He looked up at some dark clouds on the horizon.

"I hope that storm keeps acing the other way." he said. "We're making good time now. I'd hate to have it slow us down."

"Maybe we shouldn't rest too long then." I said as he lowered himself to the grass again and closed his eyes.

"Just a little longer." he said. "Just a little..."

I sat there, finishing my sandwich and drink. When I saw what looked like a blackbird on the other side of the stream. I couldn't help but think about Mommy and feel bad for her again.

"Harley?"

He didn't respond so I turned and looked at him. His breathing was regular: his eyes were closed. I was thinking about calling Mommy, but what if she started to cry? What would I do?

I rose and walked to the water. The gurgling sound was mesmerizing and the water itself looked so clear, fresh and cool. I felt like wading in it, baptizing my

self in its natural goodness and washing away the darkness that had settled in me ever since Duncan Fields trapped me in his car.

Perhaps that was another reason why I was taking this trip with Harley. Perhaps I was running away as well and trying to leave behind the innocent and emotionally wounded girl who was just soaking herself in self--pity every day. I knew everyone was trying to help me, to get me to feel better, but it was impossible to look into Daddy's eyes or Mommy's or Mrs. Geary's and not see the sympathy and sorrow they felt for me. It was truly as if I had become a marked woman, stained forever. Ironically, it had been only Aunt Alison who left me feeling as if I had merely been scratched. But that wasn't a remedy for me either.

Years ago, it seemed, men and women treated sex and love like halves of the same wondrous experience, the most important experience of life, perhaps the very reason to be. Somehow, sex for people like Aunt Alison and Duncan Fields had become a game, a toy, a pleasure to be had and discarded at will. People used people merely to satisfy themselves, and love, love was forgotten or thought to be just another temporary thing that might or might not be there for us. Why think about it, put any effort into achieving it or finding it? First of all, that required personal sacrifice and actually caring for someone else more than you cared for yourself. Second, it took far too much trust and risk. You had to bare your soul to someone.

The Duncan Fieldses of the world thought they were very clever. I'm sure. They strutted through each day looking for conquests, building a bank account of satisfied lusts and thinking this was what made them wealthy, special, even desirable, but surely they were destined to wake up later in their lives and look around to discover they were all alone and their lives had been nothing much-- a dream, streaming by like this water.

I looked ahead to where the stream turned and disappeared and wondered where it ended up. Was there some beautiful lake waiting? Did it have to rush over rough waterfalls first? Did it splinter and trickle off into smaller and smaller streams that eventually dried up? It wouldn't be dammed up here and kept. It would find a way around and follow its destiny.

It was what I had to do. what Harley had to do.

Somehow, deep inside herself. I was sure Mommy understood.

"Hey," Harley said coming up beside me. "Why did you let me fall asleep? If it wasn't for that nervy squirrel coming up close to me..."

"I thought you needed the rest," I said.

"Yeah. I got enough. C'mon. We'd better get going," he said. He glanced at the water.

"It's beautiful and so peaceful." I said.

"I know. Maybe there's something like it waiting for us ahead," he said smiling.

"Maybe."

I followed him back to the motorcycle. We put on our helmets and moments later, we were flying over the highway, neither of us trying to talk, the wind whistling by, the world around us flowing past so quickly, it resembled the very stream we had just left.

An hour into our ride, a state police patrol car came onto the highway and tracked behind us. Harley saw it in his mirror. I could feel his body tense up.

"Don't keep looking back at him." he shouted. "I'm going to take the next exit."

He did so and I held my breath. Would the policeman follow us off? Had Daddy and Uncle Roy done just what Harley had thought and called the police? How disappointing it would be for us to be turned back before Harley had met his real father at least. I thought. I didn't look back. We followed the ramp to an intersection and quickly turned left as if we knew exactly where we were going. Then we snuck a look and saw the patrol car had not followed. Both of us let out trapped breaths and Harley slowed down. He brought the motorcycle to a stop.

"I thought that was it for sure," he revealed. "I wasn't going to stop if he put on his bubble light. I would have tried to lose him."

"What will we do? What if he's waiting ahead because he realized who we might be?"

He took out his map and studied it a moment.

"We'll stay on this secondary road for a few miles. I'd say we're only a couple of hours away now, even with all the detours," he concluded.