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Having so many choices is odd, almost confusing thing because for years I had none. I had to accept whatever choices were made on my behalf.
But no more.
Now, I make decisions every day. I'm doing it right now, actually. "Pancakes, please, with maple syrup."
The first choice I made seemed like a very small one, but it turned out to be huge. I decided to run, and to keep going no matter what. And that going led me here, to this small diner.
"Excellent choice." The waitress is an older woman with short graying hair. She smiles warmly before striding away with my menu tucked under her arm.
Staring at the steaming mug of coffee between my palms, I can't keep from smiling.
This morning, I woke up in an empty house just around the corner from here. I stumbled upon it while I was walking late last night. There was a 'for sale' sign and a loose board over a broken window. I managed to pry the plywood away enough to climb through.
I have learned a very important lesson: not all lawyers are bad. It turns out that Mister Brandon was right.
My review was never about how the cops screwed me, or even about the terrible things that happened to Jake that night. It was all about money and nothing more. Budget cuts: two unlikely and beautiful words that mean something totally different when set apart. But together, they mean freedom.
After talking to my lawyer in the hospital that day, he said to be patient. And I was. I didn't care what happened; which was good, because what ended up happening wasn't much. But it was enough.
Just enough to create opportunity. A small window of opportunity.
The court appointed doctors I talked with-the lady with the tight hair bun and the quiet guy with the sodas-they saw fit to side with my lawyer and convinced that last Doctor, Schumacher, to have me moved. And so I got to leave a few months after they let me out of the infirmary, once my weight reached a healthy number.
That window of opportunity I mentioned was less than a foot wide, shorter in height, and it was mounted in the outer wall of the common room that the new place let me sit in whenever I wanted. Moderate security meant I could sit unsupervised. I wasn't constantly watched and restrained like in Canyon View. It was a secured sanitarium, but not a maximum security and I liked it much better. There were still bars on the windows and guards in every room. It was still surrounded by a fence. But the guards wore no side arms. There were no guards in towers with long range rifles posted outside, either.
The place had lots of small windows without bars, though. Most of them looked too small for a person to fit through and were placed on the upper floors. They were the kind of windows with a crankshaft. The glass lifted out at an angle, from the bottom, when you cranked them open.
Even though us inmates were surrounded by guards, there weren't enough present on that early morning in September. It was the eleventh-a Tuesday. The sun was shining bright. Breakfast was being served. The television in the common room should have been turned off when the Andy Griffith show was interrupted by Breaking News. But all anyone saw was that one burning skyscraper. And then a second plane came into view. Everyone froze, some captivated, some shocked. Then the news anchors started talking about high-jacked airplanes. And then they started saying "terror attack."
The entire staff was distracted. Just enough. Just long enough for me to crank the small window open, slip out, and skid the ten-plus feet down the brick face of the building. I was scared at first and hung there until my fingers gave out. The drop was kind of far and I was risking broken bones, but it was worth it.
So when I say it was a small window of opportunity, I mean it literally. Just enough room to land me here, in this cushy booth, drinking coffee with real cream, waiting for warm pancakes. There were some stops in between, of course. Lots of running, at first. Some hitchhiking, too, along with the necessity of stealing. Only what I needed. Like food. Clothes from a clothesline. The occasional newspaper.
"Here you go." The waitress sets a stacked plate of fluffy pancakes in front of me. They're steaming and swimming in melting butter.
"Thank you."
My eyes widen and close involuntarily as I take the first bite. So good. The syrup is so delicious and sweet, it makes my teeth hurt. I wash the bite down with a swig of fresh-brewed coffee. I've died and gone to heaven.
It doesn't matter what happens now. I'm out. I'm free. I am alone. And I'm going to do whatever I have to do to stay this way. To choose what I put into my own body. I can eat or not. I can sleep, or go to the library, or watch TV. I get to choose where I go from here.
I'm still planning on finding Jake, just not yet. I want to take some time to explore my choices first. I know in my heart that Jake will wait for me and he loved me, so he wouldn't want me to make a hasty decision, especially now that I'm rid of . . . the green-eyed past.
It's like I can think clearly. Like finding myself suddenly awake. So until I decide to join Jake in the afterlife or whatever, I'm thinking that I need to keep moving. West has always seemed like an excellent direction, and it will make me feel closer to him to be in the place he was headed.
After breakfast, I plan to walk the two blocks down the road to a giant Wal-Mart. It took a few days, but I've collected enough bottles and cans to buy my very own bottle of shampoo and soap. I might buy conditioner for my hair, too, so long as it's not too expensive.
After finishing the pancakes and coffee, I make for the long hallway around the side of the diner, in search of the bathroom.
In front of the mirror-a real mirror-my image is as sharp as I remember it, though I look different.
I'm a little bit taller. My face is longer and thinner. My cheeks have lost their childish roundness. My hair is still the same style as when I was seventeen. Too long and too straight. Combing my fingers through the tangles, I remember the feeling of each strand slapping against my shoulders as I ran across the open lawn, searching for guard towers that weren't there, heading for the high chainlink fence in the distance. I was terrified, shoving the round toe of each plastic slip-on shoe into the fence: expecting to hear the wailing alarm ringing over my thundering pulse, dreading the sound of pursuit, but there was nothing. Just my labored breath as I climbed.
No one is in any of the bathroom stalls. No girls with black hair and bad attitudes, no greedy eyes peering back at me. I haven't seen . . . that person since that day in the shower and I don't expect to.
I don't need that relationship anymore.
If I have learned anything from this whole experience, it's that I don't know how to give up. I tried before, but I'm a fighter. I can take care of myself now. I can do it. If my mind can make up an entire person and give it a life and a past, dreams and goals, then it can certainly figure out how to survive this span of . . . want.
