Welcome to Travel Time Stories with Shannon. I'm Shannon, your host from Texas, and I wanna thank you for being here with me today. If you're new here, this is the podcast where I share real stories, the good, the messy, and everything in between, real journeys and real healing. Some weeks I'll bring you along on my travel adventures, the shenanigans and lessons I've learned along the way. And other weeks I'll dive into my personal life story, adoption, trauma, healing, and transformation. Most weeks. I share a little of both because for me, travel and life are deeply connected. Both shape us, both change us, and both leave us with memories that last a lifetime.
This week I'll continue my story of my life with David, the calm before the storm.
So grab your favorite beverage and let's get into it.
Last week. My story ended with my first meeting with David at a party in Pickwick. His words to me, see you around as I left that party had burned in my mind and filled me with a longing I didn't understand yet, and I hoped he was right. Weeks later, rebellion carried me straight back into his path. The night I decided to run away. Wasn't born from one fight or one rule. It was the slow burn of rebellion, anger and heartbreak, catching fire all at once. My parents had grounded me again. Taken my car keys and clipped my wings. I can't even remember what I'd done this time, but I'm sure I deserved it still I was 16, raw from the truth of my adoption, furious at the world and convinced I could survive on my own. So I climbed on my bicycle. The kind of plan only a desperate teenager could believe in and pedaled toward my friend Christie's house. The wheels spun like a drumbeat of freedom. I told her I was leaving for good, that I wasn't coming back. Her eyes lit up with a mix of fear and excitement. She didn't hesitate. She said she was coming with me. We wanted to go to Pickwick to meet up with some guys. We knew, but it was too far to bike. Somehow we scraped a ride from a coworker who dropped us off, like it was just another teenage adventure. We laughed like it was freedom, not realizing how fragile the night really was. The hours were blurred. Music, another party The kind of night that feels endless until it isn't. When it was late, people started to scatter. Christie drifted off with some friends. I stayed behind with a guy I barely knew, telling myself I could spend the night there because I couldn't go home.
The rebellion in me was louder than the fear. Morning came hard, a pounding on the door, sunlight spilling through. When I opened it, my breath caught. It was Christie and David. My heart slammed against my ribs. He was the boy I'd been dreaming about since the first party, the one I'd replayed in my head every night, and here he was again. But standing next to Christie, my stomach twisted. Anger, flaring with jealousy. Of course, he'd chosen her, why wouldn't he? But David wasn't there to flirt or to play games. His face was sharp with urgency. He looked at the guy, I'd been with his voice cutting through the haze. Do you know she's 16, that she ran away, the guy stammered and said he knew my age, but not the rest. Christie in tears confessed. She told David everything. He'd gone to his aunt who insisted we had to go home before things spiraled out of control. David wasn't the reckless party boy. I thought I'd fallen because he was the protector again. Pulling me out of a fire. I hadn't realized I was in. We ended up in his aunt's living room, small and safe, compared to the chaos of the night before. She drove us home herself, promising my parents we'd been safe. My dad's face, when we pulled in, it broke me. He'd been driving all night, searching every back road, talking to every kid in town. Relief poured off him in waves. My mom's anger was sharper. She lit into me words like sparks grounding me for life. Christie's mom called me a bad influence, said Christie couldn't be my friend anymore. The sting of that rejection cut deep because Christie had been my safe place now. I'd lost her too. But through the shame, the anger, the embarrassment, one thought pulsed in the back of my mind, David, he'd seen me, saved me. And for the first time since Carl broke my heart, I felt the dangerous tug of something new. After the chaos of the runaway night, life at home was on edge. Mama was still furious. Daddy was quiet but watchful, and Christie was gone from my world cut off by her mother's decree. I carried the weight of shame like a second skin, but underneath it all, there was this restless hum in my chest. David. Christie had mentioned him, how he wasn't with her, how he'd given her his number when she offered to pass it along. I shook my head if he wanted to talk to me. I needed him to choose it, not me. So I told her, you can tell him if he wants to talk, he can call me. I tried to sound casual, but inside I was buzzing.
Days passed. Every time the phone rang. My stomach flipped every time. It wasn't him. I told myself I didn't care, but one night it was him. Hey, his voice was calm, low and smooth in my ear. My whole body went rigid. My hands shaking so hard. I had to grip the receiver with both hands. It wasn't small talk. He didn't waste time. He asked about me, my family, my friends, my music, and what I dreamed of. He told me about his own life, about his past marriage, his little boy, his injury at work. He was older, more experienced, and I should have been intimidated. Instead, I felt seen, heard and important. We stayed on the line for hours. The cord stretched across my bedroom floor, tangling me up while Sarah, my friend, who was staying with us, whispered jokes and pointed at the clock as it ticked closer to midnight. Still, I couldn't hang up. I didn't want to. That week, every night became the same. Me sneaking the phone into quiet corners, our voices weaving a thread between us. I'd never had a connection like it with Carl. My first love I'd felt dizzy, giddy, naive. With David, it felt heavier. Deeper, like he was pulling me into a world bigger than I understood. One night he said he wanted to see me. My heart skipped, but I knew the rules. Mama and daddy would never approve if they knew his real age. I told him I'd said he was 19, not 23, and just go with it. I warned him my voice barely was a whisper when I told him this. He chuckled, not offended, just amused that laugh. It was dangerous, warm, reckless, and it made me want to follow him anywhere. When he pulled up outside my house, headlights, washing the gravel road, I slipped out my window. Sarah promised to cover for me, but when I came home, she was asleep and I had to shake her awake to help me climb back in the window. My pulse was still racing when my feet hit the bedroom floor. For a moment, I thought I had gotten away with it. Then mama's voice cut through the dark. I know where you've been, but it was too late. The line had been crossed. David and I were already a story in motion.
The first time David took me out with his friends. It felt like stepping into another world. He and his buddy James pulled up in his red Ford Thunderbird music spilling from the speakers, and I climbed in with Sarah riding shotgun beside me. Mama's rules were clear. Curfew at 11, no later. But I had bargained my way into this and I wasn't about to waste it. My first impressions of James were that he was a good looking guy. He was tall with dark hair and a mustache. He seemed nice, but he did give off a vibe of arrogance, which I didn't like. He was not just David's friend, but also his cousin. We drove down winding back roads until the night opened into a clearing where flames from a bonfire licked the sky. The air was thick with smoke, laughter, and the kind of energy that made me feel like anything could happen. David's friends were older, louder, rougher around the edges than the kids I knew from school. They smoked, they drank, they moved through the world, like rules didn't apply. I was naive, but Sarah was more sheltered than me, so it shocked me during the bonfire when someone brought out a special cigarette and asked if we wanted to partake, and Sarah said, yes. The memory of my sister Dawna's addiction burned hot in my chest. I shook my head, muttering no thanks, and shoved my hands in my pocket. But Sarah, sweet, sheltered, Sarah surprised me by taking it without hesitation. My heart sank a bit, but I said nothing. I was a smoker of regular cigarettes and had been since I was 14 years old. Back then, they didn't check IDs and kids could buy cigarettes for their parents, and my sister would send me in the store to get hers all the time. I would steal a few of my dad's cigarettes too. I wanted to feel grown up like them. My sister Dawna would let me smoke with her, and I always felt so cool. I had a special bond with my sister Dawna, but her drug addiction ruined that over the years. She lived with us when I was little and she would go off for weeks or longer at a time, and mama would cry and look through the obituaries in the newspaper to see if she was there. Seeing my mom blame herself for my sister's addiction was heartbreaking. I remember my other sister Jill and her husband going out on the streets trying to find Dawna, and when they did, she looked so horrible and they usually found her passed out in a drug house or selling herself on the streets. So when someone brought out the special cigarette, all those memories came flooding up. David must have seen the worry on my face because he leaned in, close his shoulder, brushing mine. Don't worry about them. He said softly. His voice grounding me against the chaos. Then he handed me a wine cooler, my drink of choice, the only thing I'd ever touched besides beer. I took it grateful and let the fizz bubble across my tongue. The night blurred into music and firelight Sarah giggling as she twirled with David's friends and me sitting with him at the edge of it all for a moment, it was perfect. His presence was magnetic, steady protective, pulling me into his orbit. The world felt dangerous, but with him, I wanted to believe I was safe. The ride home was anything but safe. Six of us crammed into David's car, the smell of smoke, clinging to our clothes. Sarah was wild, laughing so hard. She nearly tumbled out the window. I yanked her back in just as we passed. The cop car parked on the shoulder and she shouted, look at the pretty blue lights. My blood turned cold. My heart hammered the rest of the drive, every passing headlight, a threat, every second, stretching too long. By the time we pulled up to my house, I was nearly sick with fear, but fear didn't stop. Sarah from stumbling inside, slurring her words. As mama waited in the kitchen, the second her eyes landed on Sarah, I knew we were caught. I tried to shield her mumbling excuses, ushering her toward my room. But Mama's Stare burned through me. I'd crossed another line, and this time I wasn't the only one paying for it. Still in the back of my mind, one thought pulse louder than my guilt. Louder than my mama's disappointment, and louder even than my own fear. I'd went out with David and I knew I'd do it again.
That was how David entered my life, like fire and smoke, both protective and dangerous. He had saved me, or at least that's how it felt then. But looking back, I see it wasn't just protection, I was falling for, it was the thrill. The mystery, the way he seemed to step out of the shadows exactly when I needed someone, and that was enough to pull me in deeper than I ever imagined. After the night of the bonfire, I was grounded and Mama forbade me from seeing him David and I found each other in secret. We talked for hours on the phone. Our voices like a thread pulling us closer. We met after school hidden away in his car, listening to music until I had to hurry home to avoid getting in trouble. This time of secrecy and sneaking around was so thrilling and it added to the allure of our relationship. Once my punishment was over, there was no stopping us. We were on fire seeing each other all the time. We spent most evenings and weekends together, usually surrounded by his friends, but sometimes with my friends too. Later. As our relationship continued, my friend Lynn started dating James, so the four of us spent a lot of time together and got into some crazy mischief. I still vividly remember our first kiss. It was at night sitting in his car. I felt electricity coarse through me. Not figuratively, but physically. His hand behind my head pulling me in slow, his lips soft, and sure my body immediately reacted to his and my arms wrapped around his neck to hold the embrace. It started soft and slow, and then burst into a flame of passion. My heart was beating so hard, I thought I might die. Our tongues danced together, like familiar partners. Instead of a first encounter, I felt like I was being pulled into another world. This was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. It seemed like time stood still and the kiss went on forever, and when we finally parted, we were both breathless. This was real and it was the beginning of everything. Just as the world with David was beginning to bloom, another world collapsed.
My daddy fell gravely ill. At first, he was in the local hospital, but when paralysis spread through his body, the doctors transferred him to Memphis Guillain -Barré Syndrome. They said months of treatment, dialysis, and physical therapy ahead. The paralysis had started in his feet and made its way up to his vocal chords before they could stop it. We were told to expect that he may never regain the use of his legs and that he may never speak again. This news shattered my world because Daddy was my everything. He had always been a big, strong beacon to guide me home and keep me safe. I never imagined not having him in my life or seeing that as a possibility. I fell to my knees asking why and begging for him to recover. Mama moved to Memphis to be near him, leaving me and Sarah at home with only my mom's cousin Carlene, checking in from time to time. For the first time in my life, I was essentially on my own. It terrified me, but it also gave me the freedom to see David as much as I wanted. And with daddy's illness, I was lost and needed. David. In those months, David became my anchor. We talked every night, traded mix tapes. Ours was, can't fight this feeling by REO Speedwagon. He brought me flowers. Helped around the house even stood by me when Mama returned for breaks. His family, his grandmother, his mother, his aunt welcomed me as if I were already theirs. I needed that love and I clung to it.
Tune in next week as I continue my story of life with David.
Thank you for joining me today on Travel Time Stories with Shannon. This episode took us further into my story with David. If you're looking for connection, encouragement, and a reminder that no matter what you've gone through, you can keep moving forward, then you're in the right place. I hope you'll subscribe. Leave a review and tune in each week and join me on this journey. And if you know someone who might connect with these stories, please share this podcast with them too.
Together we're creating not just travel memories, but life memories, and I'm so glad you're here with me. I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment or email me at lamkintravel@gmail.com and remember whether in travel or in life, keep making memories that last a lifetime.
Until next time, I'm Shannon and thanks for tuning in.
