Mistake

Chapter Three

I wake up with a terrible feeling, the sheer terror when you wake up in an unfamiliar place and frantically try to link it to the last things you remember. I look around, then remember my foot. I stop frantically searching for a solution of my rude awakening and zero in on my foot.

It seems better, but I definitely won't be running for a while. I take of my improvised cast and brace for the worst. Its color is closer to my regular skin, but not yet. The purples are mostly gone, leaving in their absence a light green/yellow. Hooray for no more not-quite-zombie feet!

Oh crud. I think my sarcasm is broken. I look around at my surroundings, again. Looks like I'll be here for a while. I'll definitely heal faster if I'm off my feet, or at least not running.

"Guess its just me and you, cat." She looks at me like I said something beneath here and looks like she's been insulted. Are all cats this way, or did I just happen upon the only moody one?

Great, now I'm talking to myself. Just watch, three weeks and I'm crazy. Or more crazy, take your pick. I'm just your average girl with a twisted/sprained/might-be-broken ankle in the cave with a pompous cat.

Speak of the devil, the previously mentioned has suddenly turned into a cuddly, warm-hearted softy with huge brown eyes. It must be breakfast time.

I dig through the bag again, pull out Lady's food and set it aside, sorted through the mess in my bag to find something worth eating. I chew on a old granola bar that seems to have been at the bottom of my bag for quite some time, but gnawing on it gives me something to do. There is no worst prison than inside your own mind. Well, I suppose someone else's head may be worst, or perhaps some extremely effective, prolonged torture, but you get the point. I don't enjoy talking to myself.

I finish the granola bar, throwing the wrapper in my bag with one hand, rubbing my jaw with the other. The last thing I needed was to get a toothache.

Is it possible to die of boredom? Lets just say, I'm on its hit list.

I start messing with a bit of thread that is coming out of my shirt. Its one of those things that sticks out, but everytime you try to rip it out, it just gets longer and the rest of the stitch gets tighter. It drives me insane, and I end up ripping it out.

How stupid can I get? I finally find a task and put all my effort into making it simple. The smart thing to do would've been extending the process as much as possible, so I have more time before, I'm sucked back into be trapped in my own thoughts..

There is a point when running away becomes surviving, where it hits you; WHOA! I'm all alone in the world, and suddenly everything you see has been put into a new view. See that store? Earn enough money and you could buy something there. No co-dependence, no begging for a candy bar. You go in, buy it, leave, then go about your business. I crossed this line when I was nine. Of course, I ran away from the orphanage I grew up in at eight, but I didn't get use to the 'trust no one' dealio for at least a year.

I had a good childhood, I suppose. I wasn't very popular or anything, but I had friends. Or at least people who wanted to be my friend. I was too distant to really have any close friends. Schools was pretty easy for me as well. I wasn't a genius or, heaven forbid, an idiot but I was smart. I had a whole average life set out ahead of me. People who loved me, things they expected me to do.

But if I had stayed, or even if I go back now, it would never be right. I would still have this nagging feel that I feel now, wanting to know why. I want to fit all the pieces together, to have my mother explain to me my begining, and my father's end. I need to know, and that need controls me. My biggest fear is that I don't know what I will do to fufill that need, how far I will go to get an answer to my question.

Lady bumps my foot again, sending me reeling back to reality. I throw the first thing I can grab at her, which ends up being the cat treats. It bumps against the cave wall and opens a bit. Lady eats her fill, and I carefully arrange myself to sleep.

I fall asleep with Lady purring next to me, my mind exhausted from my personal breakthrough, and suddenly, through all the stuff thats happen in my past and all the things I worry for my future, for that one second, my world is at ease.