This Is A Story About Mistakes

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“You said you were with two other people at the time of the abduction?”  The woman asked.

“Yes, but they were… distracted.  They didn’t see anything, they just heard it and thought it was a tantrum, too.”  My voice shook and my hands stayed close to my face; wiping my eyes, my nose, pulling at my chapped lips, rubbing my temples, moving my hair.

“What made you think it was a tantrum?”

“Well, I guess it was mostly because the girl was that age, ya know, where they have tantrums a lot.  I have a little cousin that age and he’s a momma’s boy, so whenever he’s left with his dad he yells for his mommy and my uncle just gets really frustrated, and that’s what it looked like when Valerie was…”  I trailed off, not wanting to say kidnapped or abducted.

“So the thought of abduction never crossed your mind as you witnessed it?”

“No, ma’am.”

            Everyone was asking too many questions, and my already fragile mental stability plummeted.  I had panic attacks whenever I was overwhelmed, and while I used to love being in the center of huge masses of people, I became ultimately afraid of social situations.  I barely made it through the last month of school, and I would’ve called in sick for graduation if my mom had let me.  My mom was sympathetic for me, but I think after a month she thought I’d be over it.  Boy was she wrong.  If anything, I became more and more of a wreck as time went on. 

            The kidnapping was a big, nation-wide story and it went on for six weeks, and during those six long weeks I went through multiple of those memory-therapy sessions in order to try to remember what I’d seen.  The sessions did nothing but further ingrain the terrible experience into my head, but, as the only witness, I was their only hope.  After six weeks, they found the little girl’s wrist, femur, and jawbone in a field.  The next week, they found half of her pelvis, her heel, and two of her ribs on the side of a creek bank.  Week after week, they found more and more pieces, but they never found the man who murdered her.  The man whose face I could not recall.  The man that took her right in front of my eyes.  The man who I let get away with it. 

            I went to the little girl’s funeral and I could feel the eyes in the back of my head.  People were staring at me.  How did she let that man go?  How did she not know something was wrong?  Would little Valerie still be here if she had been of any help at all?  I felt so helpless, so stupid, and so, so sorry.  After the service, I went home and threw together a small bag of clothes and I stuffed in my small pencil case of cash I had collected from birthday cards and waitress tips, which wasn’t much, and I would use half of it on gas to get to where I was going.  I left a note for my mom, the word sorry appearing frequently along with many I love you’s and I’ll be okay’s.  I told her I needed time, and I told her I thought I could maybe be okay in the end but I knew I was lying to myself and to her.  The biggest and hardest lie I told was: I’ll be back.  I never planned on going back.  I knew this would be a one-way trip.  I never ever wanted to pass over the creek where they found her ribs and I never wanted to see the field where they found her jawbone and I never ever wanted to have to pass by that little mall where Valerie was last seen alive where they also installed video cameras.  I didn’t want to remember that I couldn’t remember.

            I drove south west from my home in South Dakota.  I had never been to Colorado, but I found it appealing, with its mountains and national parks and legalized marijuana.  For the drive, I put on some CDs that a boy had made for me because he had a crush on me.  We went on one date, but my life was interrupted shortly after when Valerie was kidnapped.  I liked him, and I wished I could’ve gone on another date with him, but it was too late now, and all I had was his CDs.  When I finished the last song on the last CD, I pulled over and smashed them to pieces and relied on the radio for the rest of the trip. 

            I bought an ancient device called a road map once I made it to Denver and searched for a specific little town I’d heard about before: Leadville.  My friend back in freshman year used to go there every year with her family for a camping trip.  I spent half of the rest of my money on one more tank of gas, three boxes of granola bars, a pack of hot dogs, a pack of buns, a case of water, and a stack of fire wood.

I stopped again in Leadville and followed a local’s directions to the camping grounds.  It was packed and I had a tough time finding a vacant campsite, but the place was humongous and I finally found a nice spot near a lake.  I parked my car in a patch of sunlight that managed to peek through the trees and changed in the back seat.  While it was eighty degrees in Denver, it was in the sixties here, and since the sun was setting, the temperature was dropping.  I got my campfire started and opened my pack of hot dogs and buns.  I had taken about twenty ketchup and mustard packets from a McDonalds on the way from South Dakota, and they were slightly inflated from the elevation.  While I was stuffing the last bite of my third dog in my mouth, a boy walked into my line of site.

“Hi,” he said shyly, glancing back at his campsite.

“Huwoh,” I replied with my mouth full.

“Do you happen to have a lighter?  Ours got smashed and it’s getting dark,” he trailed off, steeping closer to my fire to warm his hands.

I swallowed my hot dog and started to search my pockets, “Uh, yeah, lemme find it real quick.”

“Are you here alone?”  He asked as I started searching my car.

“Yup,” I replied, finally presenting him with my zippo, which had a green marijuana leaf on the side.

“Do you want to join us?  We have marshmallows and an extra lawn chair,” he motioned in the general direction of his campsite.  I watched as he discovered the leaf on my lighter and he chuckled a little.

“Uh, sure, if that’s alright with you,” I was taken aback by his invitation.

“Of course it’s alright with me, I just asked you,” he smiled and I felt my face get hot.

            My fire was already low, so I collapsed the pyramid of logs and separated them, and the stranger applauded my safety precautions.  He introduced himself as Joey.

“Nadine,” I shook his hand.

“I like that name,” he replied. 

            He started to lead the way to his campsite and I followed him, regretting accepting the invitation.  I was nervous that it’d be a big group and that they were partying and that I’d get anxious and have to rush back to my car for my meds.  But when we arrived at the circle of people around an unlit fire, I was relieved to find that they were calm and manageable.  I was offered and politely forced to accept a drink, and I chose a can of flavored beer.

“How old are you?” One of the girls asked.

“Eighteen,” I sipped nervously.

“What are you doing out here all alone at eighteen years old?”

“Uh, just bumming around.  I’ve never been here but my friend used to come all the time and she would go on and on about how much she loved Colorado.”

“Hey, you should go to Hanging Lake!” A guy exclaimed.  “We went there today and it was beautiful.  It’s, at most, a two hour hike and it’s incredible the whole way.”

“How far is it from here?” 

“It took us almost two hours, but it depends on traffic.

“I’ll look into that, thanks.”

            For another hour they talked about places I should go and other campgrounds I could stay at and everything would fit my tight budget.  After finishing a second beer, I dismissed myself and headed back to my car.  I checked one more time that my fire was alright and then curled up in the back seat of my car with my dad’s old, heavy-duty sleeping bag.

            I felt much lighter now that I was out of South Dakota, and it was nice for once to not have people’s eyes on my back.  I also decided that if I could restart my life, I’d want to live in Colorado, and if I could manage to hold onto my sanity, maybe I could live in Colorado someday.  But I did not expect a future that extended for more than a little while.  I just didn’t think my sanity would hold for much longer.