OUT OF THE RED ↝ dave grohl

thirty-one.

DECEMBER, 1990, SEATTLE, WA

A FEW DAYS before Christmas, Dave made good on his promise to take Reagan to Seattle. Or rather, they took her car, but he drove, speeding fast with one hand on the wheel, tapping his other hand to the radio the whole way there.

Reagan would have normally listened to him as he chattered on and on, registering every word that he said, but her mind was elsewhere throughout the hour long drive.

She sat with her legs crossed in front of her, chewing her thumbnail and stealing glances out of the window as she thought about Kimberly and the warning she'd given only a few nights prior.

At first, Reagan had been inclined, or at least hopeful, that her mother's words had been said with good intentions. Reagan was her daughter after all, and it would make sense for a mother to want to protect her daughter and the fragility of her heart.

But she'd tossed that theory aside just as quickly as she'd whipped it up. She was twenty-one years old, not fifteen. She was an adult, specifically one who had yet to be in a serious relationship, making her less of a cause for concern and more of a laughingstock.

Kimberly didn't care about something so trivial. She wasn't worried about Reagan's feelings, or the precarious beginnings of her first real relationship.

Reagan had decided that it was all because of her mother's intense manipulation over her. Reagan's time was usually occupied by her job, the job she had to help support her family. If that time was interrupted, surely Kimberly would be angered by it. To her mother, Reagan's first priority was, and always would be, caring for their family.

Worst yet, Reagan's fears had spiraled even deeper. She imagined that Kimberly saw her relationship with Dave as something more — as if Dave were going to steal Reagan right from the Abner household.

Which, she supposed he could one day. Any man that Reagan invited into her life posed the threat of giving her a new one to live. Eventually, she'd marry and move out of her childhood home to care for herself and start her own family.

It made Reagan bitter to think that Kimberly wouldn't want that for her. No, Kimberly wanted Reagan to stay put right where she was. She'd donate her paychecks for the rest of her life, caring for her family up until Kimberly and Richard's retirement, in which she'd then care for them as senior citizens. It was all apart of a plan, or at least the one Reagan assumed her mother had hatched ages ago.

She didn't want to have to think about it. Least of all, she didn't want to picture Dave as the man she could potentially spend the rest of her life with. Not because he wasn't worthy, but because she was a realistic girl and knew they'd only been dating for a few months. That wasn't enough time to conclude those kinds of decisions, and besides, they would drive her crazy with a kind of longing that she was unsure she was ready for.

Yet, knowing Kimberly was perhaps worried about the whole thing filled Reagan with a fiery vendetta. She had plenty of reasons to love and be with Dave, but if pissing her mother off was one of them, then so be it. She would relish in irritating Kimberly. She deserved it, if that's how she viewed her daughter. Like a piece of property.

Once Dave and Reagan arrived in Seattle, Reagan forced herself to stop thinking about Kimberly and focus on her date with Dave. For once, she was letting him take her out and there was no way she was going to spoil it.

They browsed the city for a little, weaving in and out of shops holding hands. If it weren't for the cold nipping at her cheeks, Reagan would have blushed. She usually thought holding hands in public was an overt display of affection, but with Dave, it felt different.