Chapter Twenty-Five: Into the Night
Manny raced through the streets, terrified at the thought of her parents finding her. Terrified at the prospect of going to Viviana's, going to a psychiatric hospital, going away and never seeing any of her life again. She felt as though she wasn't Manny. She was just some strange girl with amnesia who thought she was Manuela Santos, but was really just doing a really horrible impersonation of her. She was imitating herself. She messed everything up for the real Manny Santos. The real Manny was somewhere out in the vastness of the world, wondering just how everyone confused her with this lie of a human.
She had moments of near-clarity where she just didn't understand what had happened to her. Why she began smoking, cutting, dreaming about women. Why she fell so hard for a girl who so obviously just thought of her as a friend, little sister, whatever.
The darkness of the sky was suffocating her. Manny wanted to look up at the stars and shriek, shriek at them for what they did to her. What cruel hand of fate they dealt her. As if it was all a joke, as if her life was just some prank. Some way to amuse the stars, the sky, the sun. Something to watch so they wouldn't become bored with humanity and collaborate to destroy the planet.
Her breathing became faster and faster, and she feared she would begin to hyperventilate. Violent sobs threatened to rack her body, make her lose all will to run. To run to her freedom. She knew if she let her emotions win, she would collapse and never stand again. Never have the ability to pull herself together and taste her emancipation from a place that would never accept her again.
But it burned, burned deep inside of her. Her legs threatened to give out, her entire body becoming one large lightning rod for misery. Time was abstract, lost. She had no idea how long she had been running, but it felt like forever.
Manny ran from her parents, her school, her friends, and the direction her life was taking. But more than that, she ran from herself. She thought maybe if she ran until her body gave out and the running killed her, she would never have to feel again.
She wouldn't have to be Manny.
She could escape from Manny.
No one understood. No one understood her need to be free. To run away from herself. No one would grab her hand and run with her, help her get away. They were pulling her back, pulling her into a person she didn't want to be. Their selfish desire for her misery, their false conceptions of who she was or should become, there was no one for Manny to hold on to and know they'd always be there.
Her right leg finally began to shake violently, and Manny fell to the ground. She put her hands out in front of her, scraping both they and her right knee. A tiny shriek tore from her throat, and she wished for more. She longed to just scream, but knew she couldn't.
The tears finally won, beat her, and she started to sob. Loud, pitiful sobs, as if her soul was trying to leak from her throat.
Manny sat for a moment in the middle of the street, crying, but the realization struck that if she stayed, she'd surely be caught. She forced herself to stand and limped down the street, still crying, forever crying. Her vision was blurred and becoming less and less reliable. When Manny felt the ground change from pavement to grass, she collapsed again, and couldn't find the strength of will to pick herself up one last time.