It wasn't the best decision, running away again. But I wasn't in quite the right place to be making the best decisions. I'd been off my meds for awhile. Ashley and Joey just wouldn't get off my back about it, but they didn't understand. I didn't need to be on those stupid meds. I was fine.
Sometimes I thought I was fine. Sometimes I thought I was fucked up beyond belief. Nothing had really been resolved. Nothing. Not my mother's death, my father beating me, his death, Manny and the abortion, the bipolar thing, Ashley saying she didn't want to be around me. Nothing was resolved.
I walked along, and the light rain started to fall. I could barely feel it. I was running away for so many reasons. I was making Joey and Caitlin fight. Caitlin thought I should be able to do things, to be a somewhat normal kid. Joey thought I was crazy and unable to function without him. He watched everything, always asked about how I was and if I was taking the meds and all that shit. I couldn't take it anymore.
I wasn't afraid being out here. It was because I didn't care what happened to me. If Ashley didn't want to be around me at all then what did it matter? What did I matter? She was everything to me. I wanted to spend every day with her, every minute. I loved her unconditionally. But she needed a break from me. She was going to England because of me. Beyond the ocean, beyond the horizon. She was gone.
The buildings, the high rises were all getting shiny and wet, and I sidestepped puddles. I was numb. I could just stay away and it would be better for everybody. It would be better for Joey and Caitlin and Ashley. I could take a hint.
Down one road and then another, and I was alone. The buildings were rising around me. Who cared? Not me. Then I heard someone behind me and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Suddenly whoever it was slammed into me and I fell to the ground, just like when Spinner tackled me in the school the other day.
"Stay down, kid," this gruff voice said. I was laying on my stomach on the wet sidewalk and I could feel the cement against my cheek. I felt the weight of this guy on top of me and then I heard this noise, some kind of a click and felt cold steel against my throat.
"What the fuck?" I said, afraid to move because of the knife against my throat, and when I said that he pressed the edge of it against me, it didn't cut but I felt the pressure of it. I closed my eyes, felt my breathing start to speed up, felt my heart racing. This guy could kill me.
"Just. Stay. Still," he said, each word its own sentence. I was laying perfectly still, trying not to even breath. I felt light headed with fear. I could imagine the pain of bleeding to death on this sidewalk.
He lifted up just a bit but the knife didn't move from its spot. He was patting me, feeling for money, for a wallet. I felt his hand in the pockets of my jacket and jeans. I closed my eyes. I didn't have hardly any money, maybe 20 bucks. Would 20 bucks be enough to not get killed?
"Don't turn around and look at me," he said into my ear, and I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the cold steel of the knife pressed against my throat. Don't kill me, I thought, don't kill me. The knife went away and then his weight lifted off of me and I heard him leaving. I laid there for awhile, afraid he wasn't really gone and he'd come back to finish the job.
When I was certain he was gone I stood up, and my clothes were all wet. I could feel it soaking through to my skin, chilling me.