I think I know why it is so hard. When I sit down to start typing my story, I find myself simply unable to do so. I’ve tried so many times now. Each time I just stare blankly at my word document page and my mind goes blank. I think I now know why. By telling my story, I will be reliving it. The feelings, the overwhelming emotions, the heartache, the pain… I’ve moved beyond all of it many years ago and so this isn’t so simple a task, after all.
I’ll try though.
However, I am moderating comments or even considering disabling that feature. Reason being, there are some cruel people out there that enjoy crushing people. So I’ll say it only once: If you don’t like what you are reading, please click on that ‘x’ at the far right corner of your browser window. If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all. It doesn’t matter what opinion, judgments you have on my story. It all has already happened. What’s done is done. Choices have been made and whether right or wrong is irrelevant. So if you don’t like what you’re reading, move along and find somewhere more worthwhile to spend your time at. That is all.
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I stood at the subway station. A great fear gnawing at the pit of my stomach. I climbed up the stairs to the railway platform and walked towards a bench. I couldn’t sit, though. I waited anxiously for the train to arrive. My backpack heavy and I could feel my chest hurting with each breath I was taking. I kept telling myself to breathe.
The train was still nowhere in sight.
“Please be here soon.” I kept thinking to myself. “Please…”
I glanced down from the railway platform and saw a lady hastily striding to the train station. My eyes widened and my heart started beating fast and hard. I could barely breathe. I felt my mind trying to grasp the situation that was unfolding before me. I recall telling myself to run down the stairs and just run to the next train station. But my feet weren’t cooperating. The train was still nowhere in sight! I was babbling incoherently, my heart beating fast, I could tell people nearby were wondering what was going on. I’m sure I heard someone ask if I was alright, but I cannot recall properly.
I spotted a police officer! He could surely help me, no? Just as I approached, the lady appeared. She told him she was my mother. Tears were streaming down my face and I kept shaking my head. Words would not come out. The police officer asked me if she was my mother and I numbly nodded. He asked if everything was ok and I again, numbly nodded. I could not find my voice.
This lady grabbed me by the arm and dragged me down the stairs and out of the train station. She was furious, I could tell. She was upset, I could see that.
As we were walking up my block I found my voice and I meekly said, “Let me go. Please let me go.” Tears were still streaming down my face. She did not let go of my arm. She said nothing.
“Let me go.” So simple a phrase, so deep a desire.
We marched up the stairs to my home. To our home. To the home I grew up in and the home I only ever knew. I felt nothing at that point. I felt like a part of me had died. I felt cold and far away from ever feeling anything ever again.
My mother took me up to her room and made me sit on her bed. She picked up the phone and called my father at work.
My mother explained what had happened. She was so upset. My father told her he’d be right home. I was told to go to my room and wait. And so I waited.
The second phone line, that was in my room, kept ringing. It was the dedicated line for internet access and was the number I had given to my friends. That line kept ringing and ringing. My mother told me not to answer it. So I sat on the chair at my desk, hands on my lap, backpack at my feet, feeling numb and void of all emotion, waiting for my father to come home to deal with his 18 year old runaway. Running away gone awry.