Chapter Two: The Debt
600 Words
Chapter Two: The Debt
“A man you owe?” Kylie repeated, disbelief dripping from every word. “What does that even mean?”
Chris grabbed her graduation bag from the bleachers and started toward the gym exit like the conversation was already over. Like uprooting her entire life was normal.
Kylie hurried after him. “Dad!”
People turned to stare as her heels squeaked across the polished floor, but she didn’t care anymore.
“You don’t get to do this!” she snapped once they reached the parking lot. “You can’t just send me away because you’re tired of dealing with me!”
Chris unlocked the truck with a sharp click. “Get in.”
“No.”
His jaw flexed.
For a second, neither of them moved. The summer heat wrapped around them while distant laughter echoed from the football field nearby. Somewhere behind her, music had already started playing for graduation parties.
Everyone else was celebrating freedom.
Kylie felt like hers had just been stolen.
“I’m eighteen,” she said, her voice shaking now. “You legally can’t force me.”
“You’re right,” Chris answered quietly. “I can’t.”
That caught her off guard.
He finally looked at her then, and for the first time in years, Kylie saw something other than anger sitting behind his eyes.
Fear.
“You don’t understand what’s happening,” he said.
“Then explain it to me!”
But he just opened the truck door.
“Please,” he muttered.
The word hit harder than yelling ever could.
Chris Morgan never said please.
Kylie stood frozen for a moment before climbing into the passenger seat without another word.
The drive out of town felt unreal.
Her graduation gown was crumpled in the backseat beside unopened cards and flowers she suddenly didn’t care about anymore. Outside the window, familiar streets blurred together as Chris headed toward the interstate without hesitation.
Neither of them spoke for nearly an hour.
Kylie kept her forehead pressed against the glass, arms crossed tightly over her chest as anger simmered beneath her skin. Every few minutes she glanced at her phone, rereading texts from friends asking where she was.
Lake party starts at 9!!
You disappeared
Is your dad seriously making you leave??
She ignored all of them.
Finally, somewhere past the state line, she broke the silence.
“What did you do?”
Chris kept his eyes on the road. “What?”
“You said this Nolan guy is someone you owe. So what did you do?”
The truck rumbled beneath them.
For a long moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer.
Then—
“Years ago, before you were born, Nolan’s father helped me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” Chris admitted. “It’s not.”
Kylie let out a frustrated breath. “You always do this. You say half of something and expect me not to ask questions.”
His grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“There are things you don’t know about me.”
She laughed bitterly. “Clearly.”
Darkness slowly swallowed the highway as the hours dragged on. Cities turned into empty stretches of land, then hills, then mountains cutting across the horizon.
By midnight, Kylie’s anger had dulled into exhaustion.
She stared out at the endless black sky above Montana while her father drove in silence beside her.
And for the first time since graduation, fear crept into her chest.
Because Chris Morgan looked nervous.
And if something could scare her father…
Maybe she should be scared too.
- Writer
