2 chapter one | survived

I sit on a swing in my front yard, I made this years ago one summer and use to spend house playing here. But the grass underneath it has grown back and this must be the first time I've sat here in years. It has just sat here alone and rotting waiting for a little girl to come back that will never come back. The little girl is gone, grown up long before. Now I sit here all grown up wondering where the little girl has gone.

I just finished cramming Everything I own into my van when a trembling thought came to mind. There is nothing to keep me here. I have no reason to stay and even more reasons to leave. This is my childhood home, the place I grew up in. this is where I learned how to walk, snuck out of the house for the first time, I kissed my first boyfriend around the corner, and learned how to swim in the neighbor's pool. Those memories will be lost t me forever.

But then I begin to smile. Something I haven't done in a long time. There is nothing to keep me here. I won't have to ever see the dents in the wall or the broken windows. I will never again have to walk by the dining room table and remember my head slamming against it, or look at the lock on my door and wonder if I should lock my door tonight, or see the empty beer bottles in the living room or the metallic smell of blood. I cannot keep the smile off my face as I start to drive away.

Normal people usually leave home with tears in their eyes because they'll miss their moms fired chicken or the free rent. And while I have tears in my eyes, I know I will never miss this house or the people in it. Most kids move out to go to college or a new apartment. but of course, what I'm doing is not anything as normal as that.

if I concentrate I can remember a time when I was one of those beautiful children who sang and danced without music, who played in the fields behind their house and would race on swings till my legs were tired. But like any child, I moved on from swing sets like every child has to. I now listen to music by myself with the volume as far as it'll go, until I can feel the beat in my bones to block out the screams. My curtains stay shut to the fields I used to play in. Instead of coloring the walls I go into the city trying to forget my problems and come back late the next day with bloodshot eyes. unusually Once I walk through the door I go straight to the bathroom where I dig through our

cabinet until I find my backup bottle of pills. on nights like those, prayers slip out of my eyes and down my cheek, praying for the night to end.

But today is different. Today nothing is ending, instead, everything is beginning.

Today while I was walking out the door a small folded and unframed picture sitting on the mantel caught my eye. It is a picture of my mother and me. She uses to look at it sometimes, picking it up to trace our smiles with her thumb. Some nights she would press it to her chest and start to cry. I couldn't be older the five when the picture was taken, giggles escape me as she pushed me on the swings. I fell down later that day and scraped my knee, I remember how the stillness of her voice calmed me. I remember being jealous of her gentleness.

I knew even then that I was never going to be like her. That used to make me sad but now it is my only wish.

I almost grabbed it but put it back in a moment of determination, because this is how it has to be; no memories, no goodbyes. I'm ready to leave this place and forget about everyone I've ever known. I'm tired of the memories that linger around every corner of this goddamn house. I am ready to go, no goodbyes or explanations. As I start my ignition I know I am ready to start over.

My plan was fairly simple; drive until I find a place that all the memories can't find me. A place I can sleep through the night, or where I don't jump every time a car door slams. Find a place I can start over in. if it turns out there is no such place then I'll just keep driving. Just keep running.

I had gotten the idea from the stories I was told as a kid. On the bad days instead of reading me a storybook my mother would tell me a story of a town with no memories. She described it as if it was real, a place where people were happy and free, a town where there weren't men with hungry fists and no need to drink. A town that would take all the bad memories and replace them with good ones, no matter how broken you were, this town could fix you. As a child, I would dream it was a magical town made of clouds with people dancing in the streets.

I was too innocent back then. Years later I would catch her mumbling it to herself in one of her drunken ramblings, trying to comfort herself with a story of her own. And somehow if I closed my eyes it was just as magical.

Deep down I knew It was just a town and there was no escaping my life but all I wanted in the world is a place that doesn't remind me of this house. That doesn't remind me of them.