Passport.
Driver’s license.
Social Security number.
Suddenly, the door opens behind me and I jump up.
Five men with guns point at me. I know them all.
“What are you still doing here?” asks the smallest of them.
“Where is she?” I ask him.
“You were ordered to leave,” he says harshly.
“I need to know that she’s okay.”
“She’ll be fine,” he says dismissively. “Leave now, or we’ll burn this down with you in.”
I stare at him, weighing my options. But there is no way I am up against the lot of them.
I grab my stuff and throw it into my backpack.
I walk past him and run forcefully with my shoulder into him.
“When anything happens to her, I’ll find and kill you,” I whisper at him before I walk out the door.
I step onto the street into the darkness of the night, where three black Range Rovers are parked in front of our front yard. It’s cold. I walk between the rows of the same triste houses.
Walking away from everything I ever had.
One backpack is all that’s left of my life.
As I reach the corner, I risk one glance back.
Coldness spreads through my chest, not from the cold air outside, but from the knowledge of what I am about to do. What I have to do.
And right this moment, as I look down the dimly lit street with its dull charm of conformity, I leave behind with the only person I ever loved, I promise myself a single thing.
I will never, ever love anyone again.
The next part of my life will be unapologetically mine.
I won’t live for anyone.
I won’t let anyone close.
I won’t ever feel the dread I feel right now ever again.
1
AMELIE
PLAYLIST: GOOD GIRLS (ACOUSTIC) – JOSIE EDWARDS
Manhattan, New York
Today
