Remember the Past

Chapter 17

We decide to walk through the night and we talk as we go. "Thank you for saving me." I say. "What happened?"

"I drove the car off the ledge. When it was sinking I exited a window because they would have seen the door open. I swam to the edge of the water and hid under the ledge until the helicopter flew away. Then I saved you and here I am." He is sarcastically cocky and it makes me smile.

I don't know how he does it, but he is always able to make me laugh and smile. We don't have much now, just what's in my average backpack.

We walk in silence until dawn. Colin's clothes are dry now. Sometime during the night we had stumbled upon a road and now we're following it. Who knows where it will lead

I ask Colin without shifting my gaze from the pavement in front of me. "What is the point?"

Colin looks at me. "The point of what?"

I shrug, knowing what I means, but not how to express it. "I left my school. I an no one out here." I take a shuddering breath as I think about my dream, about the boy, who just wanted to be free.

Colin smiles. "Well, then. There you have it. You're finding yourself. Who you are."

"Why does it matter so much?" It came out ruder than what I meant. It sounded like I am annoyed by Colin's help, like he was pushing her too far, but that question has been plaguing her mind for some time now.

"Once you find yourself, you can help others do the same." He walks closer to me. Our feet synchronized. Then he puts his arm around me. She doesn't know why until she feels a still fall over her body. I had taken the sweatshirt off since he got it wet. Now I'm wearing a short sleeve and shirt and I hadn't even realized that I had been shaking. Colin finishes his thought. "We can return to your school and set everyone free."

'Free,' the way he said it, it lingers in I mind. It was then, that it hit me how wrong the schools were. The students had no free will. No humanity. They were being treated like cattle not humans. "I'm not sure if I can go back." I pull my legs into a fetal position.

As selfish as it sounds it's true. I don't want to go back, not even to free the other students. Besides it's not like they had done anything for me. I didn't owe them. Yey for some reason I feel a deep yearning in my gut telling me that I owed them. I owed them to try. I owed it to myself to do that much.

But what could I do? I'm just an artist and a journalist. I'm nothing special, and yet I am. I still have my individuality. The very thing that threatens their corrupt system. I am an artist. I am a journalist. An artist uses creativity, which they discriminate. A journalist is open minded and seeks the truth, which they are trying to hide.

That when I realize that I am the perfect one for the job and I'm not alone.

He points ahead of us. I see it too. A dinner on the edge of a town, I'm sure, that must not be more than a mile or two away. I have to drag my feet to keep my momentum going. I feel like if I stop moving that I'll never be able to get moving again.