Finding Love | ✔️

four

/lilac wine, I feel unready for my love...

~ Lilac Wine, written by J. Shelton /

♡

I've been walking the whole night without a sense of the time. However, the sun begins to rise, and everything seems a bit clearer. I've made good pace, and I feel that I'm well out of the vicinity of the orphanage. Whether I'm out of town, I don't know.

I continue to trudge on during the day. My legs hurt and my back feels like a thousand men are hammering on it, but my brain keeps urging them to keep going. And they listen, because we work together.

I use my thoughts to keep me company. I think of my Mother, whose face I don't remember. My faceless mother. I try to imagine what she would look like. Probably tall, like me. Beautiful, thick hair, big and innocent eyes.

But, who am I kidding? I will never know my Mother, let alone what she looked like. My vision begins to be clouded as tears stream down my cracked face. The sad reality hits me again, and again.

I think of Arghie too, and how she's been at the orphanage all her life. I think of how hard she has had it, always being the kid no one wants to adopt because of her disease. Too high maintenance, they used to say, like she was a dog. We don't want her to die on us, the others would say. I used to listen outside the office door, where Sister Ingrid and the other nuns has "discussions" with many potential foster parents. They would have them in hushed tones, but I would still hear what they were saying. About me, about Arghie, about the other kids.

Arghie. She's much tougher than any of us. It's not that she'll walk around with a permanent fixed smile, pretending that she's always happy and acting like nothing that has happened bothers her - because it does. It's just that she has a face of an angel. She will smile, she will cry, yes, and no matter how many people have hurt her, her angelic face is guarded with an impenetrable steel wall. She can't be cracked. She's a tough nut.

But then again, isn't that what the orphanage has taught us all to be? To build up walls so high that no one can go through us or get to us, because behind these walls lies our vulnerable selves, our child-like innocence and constant longing.

The orphanage taught us to keep these parts locked away, so that no one can know that we feel something inside. We're as tough as steel.

I keep chanting this to myself to provide motivation. I'm as tough as steel, I'm as tough as steel. I remembered to take some little food from the store with me, but it isn't much. Stale bread rolls and salty meat is all I have. I munch on a few bread rolls, but tell myself to save the rest for later.

I continue to walk, directionless, yet I feel like I am going in the right direction. I also continue to eat, drinking from any tap I lay my eyes on. I avoid any stares from strangers around me. I stop often, sometimes for a long time and sometimes for a short time. But I just keep going.

The area around me is getting quiet, and the number of buildings has considerably decreased the farther away I walk. A couple of hours later, I'm still walking. I feel as if I'm about to collapse as the sun begins its descent. Then, a sign greets me.

|YOU ARE NOW LEAVING PATRICKTON! THANK YOU FOR STAYING HERE.|

There are two feelings that go throw me as I read this. First, there is the inevitable euphoria that steams through my lungs, seeing that I'm really and actually leaving this town. I'm leaving all my woes and worries where they started in the first place. I love the feeling of happiness that I'm getting right now, and I begin to laugh. Loudly.

The second feeling, though, is some sort of spite because of the second part of the sign - thank you for staying here. Thank you for staying here? If only you knew, I say to the sign. I am glad to be leaving, so no thank you for having me here.