The Runaways

Chapter 41 (FINAL)

Hailey

                                -University of Virginia Graduation June, 2014-

                                      -Class Speaker: Hailey Anderson-

            Four years ago today, I got a late start on life but a fresh start on living. Eighteen-year-old me was all about timelines. Getting to school on time. Turning in papers on time. Everything had to be on time, and on time for me meant as soon as possible. Typical overachiever.

But on the morning of the first day of my shiny new future, I was late. Late to a train life didn't want me to catch. So I didn't. Rule number one: never talk to strangers. Rule number two: Don't crash into strangers 'cause crashing leads to conversation. And I slammed into a boy who didn't care about timelines or trains, but a target. When a target's your ticket to surviving, nothing else seems all that important.

All of us lucky enough to be here today are products of privilege. Since the day you were born, your parents had their eyes on your future. They sacrificed and saved so that you could stand on this stage with me ready to use your hard-earned diplomas as diving boards into your dreams. Your future has always been priority number one. But his future didn't make that list.

When it came to his dreams and the world he wanted, he dove into the deep end of an empty pool. We're lucky to be here. I used to think luck was a matter of hard work and determination, but luck is a blessing that always comes in disguise because so few of us recognize it when we have it.

I think about that boy everyday and how lucky I was to learn the things I did from him. How lucky I was to see that the world isn’t made of privilege for everyone, and the importance for everyday people to change that.

So live differently. Run out into the world barefoot so that you know what life's cuts and bruises feel like. Talk to strangers, because strangers can change your life, and you change theirs. On the car ride here today, my mom freaked out because I’d spent weeks writing this speech and hadn’t told her I’d be talking about my kidnapping to my classmates for the first time.

So today is the first day of me being a new me in front of an audience full of friends and welcomed strangers. My hope for UVA’s class of 2014 is that today will be the first day of new starts and new perspectives for all of you. Thank you for listening, and congratulations!

                                                                               ***

            I saw a ghost at my graduation, and I don’t believe in ghosts.

In the last row of the last isle of UVA’s parent-packed lawn was a boy wearing a dusty blue baseball cap, worn-in jeans, and a plain white tee with the dignity of a working class hero. But, like all ghosts eventually do, he stood up and disappeared into a wave of flying caps and shouting graduates.

I’d never had hallucinations, plenty of dreams turned night terrors and misplaced memories, but today was the first time I thought I actually saw him.

There was a traffic jam of outstretched hands, TV cameras, half-hugs, and full-blown compliments standing between me and a mind-bogglingly-close ghost. By the time I got to where I thought he was, a thousand people had filled in the path where he wasn’t anymore.  

While my mom mixed and mingled, I broke away from the crowd and scrambled to find someplace where the world wasn’t spinning. Dr. Greer said anxiety was normal, that being uncomfortable in crowds was something kidnapping victims deal with for years after their incidents. But I had pills for all those things—reds in the morning, white in the afternoon, and blues before bed just to keep me close to normal.