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I turn on the engine and say a silent prayer of thank you when it starts I can’t get out of here fast enough

I’m halfway ho rain and vivid lightning, no doubt the reason why, despite it being Friday night, there isn’t a nearby parking spot at my apartrade had motivated me to buy a purse the size of a small suitcase, I cram the box and the journals inside to protect the frohts on in my apartment I can’t shut the door and lock it any faster than I could get away fro aith me over thestalked That aveabout hi wet and despite the fact that it’s August, it’s a chilly fifty-one degrees outside according to the radio announcer

Water is puddling at my feet, and I quickly pull the box and the journals fro theht there in the entryway My tan carpet is a dirt et I start for the bathroorab my cell phone because it just makes me feel better to have it in hand, but I tell myself it’s to call Ella I start a hot bath and dial her nuht knohere to find Rebecca, and to hear she is safe and happy Her phone rings with a fast busy signal that tells e, but I still feel worried I a me insane

Forty-five minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in pink boxers and alikee for my answer to all troubles---a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Boston Creaaze slides to Rebecca’s personal ite by the door with e unit until I found her information Now, I have no choice but to seek what I need in between the pages of those journals Or in the boxthat I can’t open I’ht it with ood friends Ben and Jerry, the stack of journals, and the box on the coffee table The box that I still see no way to open without potentially da it

With no other option, I reach for a journal and flip it open In delicate fe, it reads 2010No month I wonder if this ritten before, or after, the journal Ella had left in es, I try to scan for words that ht relate to a place of e the way The night was hot and e at the clear indication of so far more private than a place of work This woman wrote with such flowery, exotic words Who writes like that? My life changed the day I walked into the art gallery Okay, that has allery is clearly where I need to look for Rebecca But did she work there or shop there? Orfor ed ed me He says he’s simply helped me uncover the real me I don’t even knoho the real me is any o now, both eerous places I know this, yet where he leads-–where they lead – I follow

I frown, thinking of the journal entry of the night before, how I’d read that someone had entered the room while Rebecca had been blindfolded to the bed

How can fear be arousing? How can fear make me need and burn and want? But yet I want, I need, I dare things I never believed I was capable of doing Is this the real me? That idea scares me deep down into my core This can’t be me I am not this person But even nize, I fear the idea of not being that person Of going back to the past Of once again being the good girl with a boring life, pushing paper in an eight-to-five job Never happy, never satisfied At least now I feel so The rush of fear is far better than the defeat of boredo what co one day will be like the last Never anticipation, never feeling anything No I cannot go back So why a forward?

Thunder rolls overhead, joltingat the here rain is pattering on the glass, I absently curl up into the corner of the couch, thinking about what I’ve just read I a the journals, yet I have an odd connection with her words I love the kids I teach, but I feel the ache of encouraging the I haven’t followedmy words to them are hypocritical I understand what it feels like to have each day pass, knowing I’m no closer to my dreams Jobs in the art world are just so few and far apart, and pay so little, that I cannot justify ret trickles froe I am lost in a world that isn’t ht now, it is

Three hours later, the rain has cal on the couch So the way, I’ve read all three journals, which have gone fro up now, hanging on the words of the final entry