Us Against The World

Chapter 16

As we walk further and further, I begin to process what had just happened. I stop walking and Jexton does too. I jerk away from his hold and step away from him. "Farrah." Jexton says and I give him a disgusted look and he steps toward me. I shove him away and he falls to the ground. He looks up at me, and I shake my head and step back even more. I kneel and pick up my mother's gun then stand again. Jexton says my name again and apologizes. I continue to shake my head and turn around and run as fast as I can.

"Farrah!" Jexton yells. I ignore his pleads and continue running until I can't breathe. I look around and find that I am lost in the woods. What am I to do now? I have no food, no water and no companion. I am alone—too alone—but I'd much rather be that than be with the very boy who took the last thing in my life that actually meant something to me. Then again, my mother took his.

I don't have my bag.

I don't have my father's letter.

I don't have my necklace.

I have absolutely nothing left, besides this gun. 

And just when I thought I couldn't lose anything else, I lose my mother, too.

I fall to the ground once again, crying. I want to yell—to scream until my voice disappears and I want to run. I want to run as fast as I can and as long as I can until I escape the shitty place that I call reality. The messed up world that I refer to as 'home.' I have absolutely nothing left to lose besides my sanity, and that scares me to death.

I look down at my mother's gun and think about my choices. I can shoot myself and get this all done and over with- be with my mother and my father once again- or I can wait it out. I can let myself suffer. I don't want to do either of the two, but just as I make my decision, I find a name scratched onto the side of the gun. Darrel Wrights. My father. Just then, I realize that I cannot give up. I have to keep pushing forward.

My mind wants me to be strong and keep pushing onward, but my body won't let me. I continue to cry, as the thoughts replay and replay in my head. 

When I run out of tears, I sit on the ground, shaking. I stare at the muddy, leafy ground trying to generate what I no longer have. Trying to process the things in my mind that I want to believe aren't real. I want to pinch myself and slap myself and punch myself until I wake up from this chaotic, horrible nightmare.

I want to wake up to my mother calling me for breakfast. I want to wake up to a kiss on the forehead by my father. I want to sit in my father's big chair and look around the office that I was never allowed to enter. All the little things that I took for granted I want back more than ever. I'd give anything to sit in my room and sleep on my bed. 

I'd give anything to have last night's dinner for breakfast because we didn't have enough food or money to have something new everyday. I'd give anything to sit in the living room and read books with my mother and catch up on all the little things even though we knew everything that went on in each other's lives because we could never leave.

But most of all, I'd give anything to rewind. Rewind back to the night I ran away and rethink all the possibilities and things that could and would go wrong. I wish that I  could go back and tell myself all the things that are going to go wrong so that I would rethink about leaving in the first place- that things are not going go the way I had expected and planned, and if I still went, I would tell myself to ignore the boy and don't trust him no matter how much he helps; because he was the root of all of this. 

Then I think about Jexton.

What was I thinking to trust him again? I should have known he would do the same thing again. I feel so stupid for falling for his stupid words. For trusting him again when I obviously shouldn't have. I should have escaped that hostage cell and ran away by myself. If I'd have known any better, I would have done just that.

But if Jexton was so for everything his father was doing, then why didn't he just kill me on the spot? Why didn't he shoot me when my mother killed his father? Why didn't I shoot him when he killed my mother? We were clearly enraged and wanted to kill each other, but why didn't one of us shoot?

Then I start to realize.