The Bunny Followed Me Home From School Today.

19

There were these moments when Jo and I wondered what life outside these gates would feel like - the curiosity led us to occasionally cross the bridge back during our final days in high school together - me, a sophomore and her, a senior at Homewood. Although I never want to stay on the other side, and she made up her mind that she wanted to, we'd walk these miles against the traffic that was surprisingly light considering it was eight p.m. in Florida on a weekday when the fathers stayed out late.

We'd go to these low income houses on the other side of town where they sat - foreclosed- because those who stayed couldn't afford, so, we'd settle in pretending that we've moved in. Going inside she'd hold the door for me and I'd follow her into the living room - some, still, fully furnished.

The lights were out and since it was already dark outside we couldn't see much - bumping our hips into the tables and stomping our feet on the leg of couches was our way of knowing the other was there.

"So, who are we this time?" Jo's voice filled the darkness we seemed to be trapped in.

"Australian-natives who just moved to America." I chuckled because it was strange, and odd, but clever in a way that they wouldn't have as much as those who've were born and raised here so I imagined this would be where they resided - sad, maybe, but true.

We both tried and failed at Australian accents, they were particularly harder than British ones which we had mastered, but we still acknowledged that this life was harder for us and we understood that - those from Homewood wouldn't, couldn't, function in the real world - outside our gates.

"What time is it now?" I pulled out my phone but the screen was black - dead.

"Maybe we should leave," I sighed, feeling uneasy every time the wind shook the trees outside the window, hitting the side of the house that was already chipping.

"I honestly thought you were tougher, Syd!" Jo chirped.

I could still hear her voice in the mist of the loud nurses with heavy feet charging down the halls outside the door, her condescending laughter bounced off the empty walls, the one that would leave me bare in the moments we shared before she left - if that's all I have now, it'll do. God, I wondered what she was up to in Australia had she made new friends that felt like family - were they as distant as mom and I are to her or are they close and she would call them everyday just to talk - see them - hug them so they could just be.

Was the life outside these gates everything she'd prayed for?

Was it worth it - choosing to cross the bridge?

"I kind of feel as though this is paradise, it's quiet here," The floor creaked so Jo was walking, the opposite direction of me because the noise started to fade after a while - I wondered where she was going, but I didn't follow. Silence was always a deal breaker for me, noise is sort of poetic, it often mimics the stanzas - short but detailed and essential to telling the story. Noise is poetic. Noise is yellow.

I was soon escorted into the room, it wasn't a regular police interrogation room but I recognized that the differences immediately, it didn't exactly resemble ones on television and since we didn't leave the building I figured it wouldn't - instead, it was duller, the bed replaced with a table full of big things with tangled wires attached, headphone sets and notepad paper, pencils and pens, a lone chair with the back facing the door so whoever sat in didn't face the glass or the table but instead the wall.

Immediately after I was pushed down into that very lone chair the heavy-handed, tough feet, big nurses began yanking at my arms - a nurse on the right pulling the right and a nurse in the opposite direction, it was borderline abuse but I didn't complain, I set my eyes at the wall as they intended it to be and I never moved them.

Quite presumptuous of them, I thought, assuming a pretty girl like me could be capable of killing.