THE VISION IS A PLACE | ✓ {complete}

Chapter 13 - white tiles and florescent lights

    It was hectic inside the terminal. There were TV's mounted on the walls, all playing different News stations. The President's face appeared across almost all of them at once, like a carnival hall of mirrors.

I followed the signs to the bathrooms and locked myself in the family one, immediately tossing my pack down and drinking from the tap, using my hand as a cup. The water tasted metallic, half from the pipes and half from the blood and desert earth still on my hands. I rolled up my sleeve to clean up around the duct tape that seemed to still be holding everything together. I couldn't bring myself to peel it back and look just yet. Unless I had to, I'd wait.

The pink soap smelled like strawberries. I lathered it up my arms and washed my face, scrubbing at the numbers on my hand until it they were gone. Looking at myself in the mirror, I wondered whether or not I would pass as middle class kid traveling for pleasure, or if strangers would assume, as the driver had, that I live like this; it made a big difference in the kinds of interactions I had. It was a truth I hated, but I wasn't doing myself any favours by ignoring it, so I made every attempt to look the part. It made everyone more comfortable that way, so I brushed my hair and put on deodorant and tried not to look so...sad, I suppose.

I kept glancing over at my guitar case. I still hadn't looked inside.

I knelt on the floor next to it and undid the latches. "Please be okay," I whispered as I slowly lifted the lid.

I exhaled once I saw the wood wasn't damaged. Besides the crack on the front from the time I fell off my bike, it seemed fine. Just to be sure, I walked my fingers up the neck, feeling each fret under the strings like a doctor checking a spine. Everything was how it should be. Relieved, I sat back against the wall.

My heart was beating fast. I had to calm down. I figured it was just the nerves of being in a new place. I'd run away from things before, but it never felt like this. I always had a 'somewhere next'. This time, I had nowhere. I didn't know what my next move was supposed to be. I was a different person. I couldn't go on living the same way I always had been and still believe that, one day, I would figure out how to be happy like this. Something had to change, because I had changed, but I had no idea how to do things differently. I was scared I'd never stop living my life like a person with no attention span in a library, jumping around from book to book with no real plan, opening to random pages, and staying in each story for only a minute before picking up another one.

It's kind of unsettling how easy leaving becomes when you do it enough. It becomes as easy as dropping a feather onto a breeze; as easy as staying awake until everyone else is asleep and then simply, walking off and not looking back. The trick is to not think too much about it. Don't think too much about the people or responsibilities you're leaving, or the promises your abandoning, and don't let yourself believe you could have ever been needed by them, enough to be missed. Don't let anyone get too close to you; that way, you're always replaceable, and when you leave they won't know where to look. And, always leave a note. It's always better to be written off than to be searched for, even if that means writing something in the note you don't mean. Write whatever you need to write so that they want to forget about you. Often times, the truth will do just fine. Oh, and make sure they know you didn't steal anything. That's important. And if they have a way to contact you, or send you a letter...don't open it. They'll sometimes want tell you horrible things about yourself; things that, over time, you'll start to believe, even if you think you're strong.

Eagle would have been reading the note I left for him and Anastasia just then. I was sure of it, and knowing that put a pit in my stomach that I thought might never go away. I imagined him reading my words out loud to her and the two them analyzing each sentence, tearing me apart. I felt embarrassed, as if their opinions of me were somehow public, or worse: true. I could see them plotting a way to find me. That's what made me most nervous of all. They must have felt scared, too. Scared that I would I tell someone what happened; scared that it could ruin their lives.