Left Handed

7

I'm on the road. I'm on the run. That sounds really exciting but let me tell you something: it sucks balls.

Well. Currently I'm not running, per se. Currently I'm in a tourist diner. You gotta love tourism. It doesn't really matter where you go in the world, you will find a bit of American culture everywhere. I'm at a Mexican one. If that doesn't shout USA, I don't know what does.

It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon and there's a lull in customers which is great because when I came in my heart was racing and I cried.

Now I'm eating a pizza. I don't think I'll have money for anything else but we'll see.

I'm all the way in the corner of the room. There's a guy eating by himself and a family of two dads and a daughter and a son. They are English. The son currently explains to one of his dads that Mexican and Spanish cuisine aren't the same just because the language is the same. That's the sort of mistake you make once around my mom and never again. She really loves Mexicans (including their food) but she's a very proud Spaniard.

I'm going to call my mom now.

I'm not going to call my mom now.

What am I doing?!?!?

Oooh. I have an idea. I'm going to call Cristina.

Brilliant plan. Worked out perfectly. I called Cristina and she was all like, "Hey girl, how have you been?"

And I'm like, "Why didn't you visit me in the hospital, bitch?"

No. It didn't go down like that at all.

"Hey Cristina, Tracy here," I said (for real this time).

After she apologized for not visiting and after we exchanged some small talk, she said, "I heard you busted out of the hospital.

"Yes, I did," I answered. "I will tell you later. Was someone looking for me? Like the Police or a nurse?"

"Dude, the Police was here," she said. "I didn't think anything of it at first since we were in an accident but then they got permission to disturb classes and interview us. Like, your friends."

My heart did a skip. Despite all the shit I've been through these past days, simply hearing that word, friends, made me a little happier.

"What did they ask?"

"They wanted to know if any of us knew where you were. Then they wanted to call you but we all called each other. That was fun." She laughed. "Seriously though. Are you alright?"

I sighed. I wondered if I should tell her the truth. Probably a bad idea.

So I told her some of it. How I woke up in the hospital without an arm. How.. yeah... I guess that's all that happened. I did not tell her about Alex visiting me. I can live without that whole clusterfuck of gossip. And of course I didn't tell her about the new arm.

"I'm confused," she said when I finished. "Why would you run?"

"I don't know. I didn't feel safe anymore. You know how it is. Listen, I need your help."

"Anything, darling," she said immediately.

"Get me out of here."

And so I'm waiting for Cristina to drive here to pick me up. In the meantime I might as well try to find out what else my arm can do.

It shoots.

I went out to the back of the restaurant. There's a small backyard and behind that a grassy hill with some trees at the top. I went to the trees and sat down.

I already knew that I can hit really hard. What else? Maybe I can beam stuff like a Jedi. I pointed at a nearby stone and concentrated on making it move.

Nothing happened. I emptied my mind.

Nothing happened. I attempted to sit in a yoga position.

The stone zoomed off into the clouds. No. Nothing happened.

I extended my middle finger so that now I pointed with two fingers. A thin beam of laser light shone out of my index finger to a spot next to the stone. Excited, I adjusted the beam so it hit the stone. Then, intuitively, I extended my pinky.

The stone exploded. Luckily it was only a small explosion I guessed it had something to do with the software in the arm calculating the size of the target.

I looked at my hand and barely caught the top of my index finger irising shut.

I looked for another stone and repeated the combination. Same result.

Did I receive some kind of experimental military weaponry? Why me? And why on Menorca instead of Los Angeles or New York like in the movies?

One thing is for sure: I now know why the Police is looking for me. Soon it will proabbaly be the military. I'm going to have to prepare. No way someone takes this arm away.

I'll go down the hill to wait for Cristina.

Cristina came. After some hugging we are finally driving home in her car. By home I mean her home. I'm going to get a message to mom but I want to be sure I won't be discovered before.

"What happened to the rest of the team when the car crashed?" I asked Cristina.

"We all got out of the wreck. No one else was hurt. Weird, huh?" She shook her head. "Anyway. We all wanted to come to the hospital with you but the ambulance guys said they could only take one. Manu insisted. He's cute that way."

Uh-oh. I played it cool but inside I'm anxious. She's going to give me shit for this. Boys are so stupid. Maybe Manu likes me after all. Or was he just chivalrous? Now I will have to confront him and that's going to be hard. I get sweaty palms thinking about it.

Life seems to be getting more complicated by the minute. I need to speak to someone I can trust. My mom. Or some other friend. Maybe Alex. For now I want to get to Cristina's house and take a long bath and then sleep.

Tomorrow is another day.