I dunno about anyone else who writes, but I find that ideas tend to hit me as scenes entire scenes or chapters. Not necessarily complete ones -- they're often incomplete, with bits and pieces missing -- but scenes or chapters. When that happens I open up a new doc in the word processor, bang out as much of the thing as I can before I lose it, and save the thing. If I have some clue as to what's going on I'll have a separate file with notes, character sketches, plot points, and suchlike things, as much of the story as I can think of so I don't lose it.

Unfortunately this leaves me with a bunch of partially done things that I may never get to, or that aren't even really stories. (Since a story needs characters, settings, and plot, as well as a beginning, middle, and end) Some of them may become stories some day, but a lot of them probably won't. Orphaned little things, forever destined to languish on my hard drive unseen. (Not that this is always a bad idea)

Also unfortunately, since I don't do this for a living I've far more of these partial stories than I'll ever have time to finish. Writing a full story takes a lot of work, and I'm not the fastest writer on the planet even at the best of times. That means that even if I keep banging away at Word, these things accumulate faster than they get depleted, and always will.

Anyway, with Yankee coming to an end I went and trolled through my scrap folder, and came across this thing. It was inspired by Kit's "Tapping", which I rather liked, but like a lot of the things that're half-started it came from me reading the story and going "Oh, yeah? What if he said 'I don't think so?'" It's not the same story as Tapping, nor even the same start going in a different direction, but that's the inspiration.

If someone wants to adopt this poor thing, have at it and good luck. As is my standard habit (as my editors occasionally find) there are extra blank lines scattered in this. Those are the spots where the story skips ahead a bit. There should be transition text, but there isn't, either because I don't know what it should be, or my brain's running ahead of my fingers enough that it's better to skip ahead than to lose the thread I'm following.

Time to go

"What are your plans for vacation?"

This question caught me off-guard. Dad never talked about plans. Hell, since Mom died he rarely talked to me at all.

"Um, we have a few practices scheduled next week, then the band's playing at Beth Tisdale's party Friday night." Beth's family always threw a big end-of-school bash with live music and everything. This year Bobby convinced her to let us play.

"Oh." He sat and thought for a moment. "Well, they'll have to get along without you this time."

"What? I play guitar and sing lead on half the stuff we do. I can't just skip it."

"You're going to have to." No explanation, of course.

"Why? We planned this out last month. I told you almost six weeks ago. I can't skip on it now, it's too late to get someone else."

"Well, you're going to have to. We're going to Phoenix to go house-hunting."

"We're going... where? Why?"

"Phoenix. One of the jobs I interviewed for back in March has come through, so we're moving."

"Wait, March? It's June."

"These things take time. One of them was going to go through, I just wasn't sure which one."

"Or when?"

"No, this is the time. We were going somewhere right after school ended to house-hunt, I just didn't know where."

Bastard.

I glared at him. This was so like him -- just up and do something without so much as a by-your-leave or any notice. What's worse is that he knew -- he knew -- weeks before I told him about the gig that we were going and he didn't say anything. He hung me and my friends out to dry on purpose. Utter f**king bastard.

"So you knew about this more than two months ago and you're only just telling me now?"

"You have plenty of time to pack, we don't leave until next Thursday. I don't see the problem."

That was the last straw. He's been doing this since mom died -- making decisions that affect me without asking me, consulting me, or even telling me he'd made the decision. Just dropping the f**king bomb. 'Oh, yeah, by the way, I decided to completely screw with your life and I let you think you could do stuff I knew you couldn't.' If I stayed any longer I was going to go ballistic, and there just wasn't any point.

I don't see the problem. Total, utter, complete f**king bastard.

Dad stuck his head into my room as he was getting set to go. "We're not leaving for a week," he said. I don't know if he meant it as an explanation or an apology, but it sucked either way. "You have time to get ready, I don't see what the problem is."

I just looked at him. I was furious and he had no clue. "When you see the problem, we'll talk. Until then, go away."

He handed me the airline ticket, and I looked at it. Nonrefundable paper ticket. How... luddite. "Do you see the problem?" I asked him. I'd only said these five words to him over the last week. He was obviously tired of them, and the irritation in his voice was shading over to anger.

"This is a good move for my career. I've told you that. More responsibility, more money, more prestige. It will set us up..."

I ignored him and walked out the front door. When I was outside I ripped the ticket into shreds and set the pieces on fire on the cement front step. Dad made it to the doorway just in time to see things catch properly. He was probably going to blow up, but I didn't care. I just walked away.

Dad was furious. "Dammit, Oliver, it's time you grew up!" Grew up? f**K him grow up.

I've known I was attracted to guys since I was thirteen. That scared the shit out of me, since I knew what happened to guys who liked guys. I hoped, desperately hoped, that liking girls would come, but it hasn't, and if it hasn't by now it isn't going to. I was never sure exactly how Dad'd react to it, and I never had any way to bring it up in conversation, so I did the only thing I could think of. I kept my mouth shut and made plans to leave in a hurry if I had to. Too many kids got beaten up and tossed out, left to fend or die. That could be me, and there was no way in hell I was going to just die.

Dad had left the household finances to me since I was fourteen, and most of the household errands since I turned sixteen. I didn't even need his signature on things, what with electronic bill pay and debit cards and all. I've been sweeping money aside and saving most of what I was making from my job, and over the past three years I'd managed nearly eight thousand dollars. The bills and statements I didn't want him to know about went to a post office box he didn't know of, and my car was, while a total piece of crap, paid off and I had the title.

I've been on my own since Mom died, and I'd done more growing up than I ever wanted to. I had cash. I had a car. I had a very good fake ID, good enough to get me work. I'd taken enough shop classes to give dad fits, and I'd helped out two neighbors when they put additions on their houses. I could fix a car, lay piping, string wiring, handle myself with woodshop and machine shop tools, and help put on a roof. I wasn't an expert, but I wasn't useless, and I could do more than most of the idiots I'd seen working construction.

Time to grow up my ass.

Wednesday was the last day of school, and I'd still not said anything but my five words to Dad. He'd replaced the plane ticket, but I didn