Again- I run. The cycle of my life consists mainly of running- From my life, my future, my family. I can't help myself as I blindly crash into other guests and valuables. It's disorienting, and for a moment- I'm lost in the crowd. My chest constricts and I get dizzy, but I can't stop running. There's a door ahead, I must reach it. I don't stop to look behind me for to see if I'm being chased, but I run like there's a mountain lion tracking me down.
The marble vanishes from underneath my feet and is replaced with soft grass that gets kicked up and torn as I tumble along blindly. Uncertain safety is mine. I run and run and run until I've cleared a couple of blocks and I'm out of breath. Exhausted, I sit down in the street for a moment
Earlier, Sarah looked as if should would've killed me. She breathed one word- my name- her whole body becoming a muddled red blob. She and I stared at each other for one long moment. I felt small. I felt scared. My reality shrunk. She made me feel so trapped. I shake my head, disappointed, as I get up. Brushing myself off, I try to distract myself with something else like the sound of a distant restaurant or the cobbled road. But I can't.
Our encounter means several things. Horace is never going to come back to my shop. That's money lost. Sarah's going to stalk me even more, now that she knows for certain that I'm in the city. That also means she's going to get our parents out here. Just the thought of it sounds so juvenile. She's always been at kind of person though.
She's always wanted me to suffer, always been the one to push me the hardest to conform. I don't think it was ever out of jealousy, but a deep seated, pure, constant miserable state. Sarah just feels the need to share it with others.
She'll bring my parents here. Inside I feel the urge to pack up and run again, but the cost is too great- I give up my dreams, I give up my shop. That just can't happen. Yet, what happens when they come for me? Will they yank me up like a weed, right from the root? If I go I lose myself. If I stay, I cannot predict the out come. I'm torn, between what it is that I so badly want, and my instinct.
At first I am afraid to go home, but I do, because, where the hell else am I going go. I have no real friends in the city. I know a grocer. I have clients that I speak to on occasion. I have my boss.
I open the door tentatively, and tip toe my way through until I'm certain that I am alone. I lay down face first into my bed and cry. I am thoroughly irritated at myself for being so indecisive and weak. Shouldn't I know that I know what I know?
The soft blankets call to me gently, and wrap around my body with ease. They soothe my soul and lull me into a sleepy state. I kick off my shoes and do the rational thing, sleep.