We must have seemed crazy. We lay on the warm tarmac pavement, looking up at the orange and pink clouds. I still had tear-streaked cheeks and a hoarse voice from the screaming I’d allowed myself in the car. She hadn’t told me where we were going. When we got here she didn’t say why she’d driven us to this spot.
When my high-school boyfriend breaks up with me and leaves me alone at the bottom of a hill, I don’t know yet what a blessing this is. As I climb, I cry the tears I held back in front of him. I call my friend who hasn’t always been reliable and tell her the news. This time, she shows up, and it’s enough. She picks me up in her car, unknowingly drives towards his house, and I redirect her with a choked voice. She lets me yell out of the open window, lets me cry and laugh and ask why and say every thought that travels through my mind. I am exhausted when she pulls over and parks on an unfamiliar dirt road.
When everything feels too big, go somewhere that reminds you that the world is bigger. Go to a place that you are certainly not supposed to be. Let yourself forget the rules. Inhale and watch whatever finds its way in front of you. It is okay if your breathing isn’t easy. Just watch the sky and float in it all.
When you’re sick of trying to run away, lie on a small airport tarmac, and don’t think about how stupid this is. Just watch the white lines on the dark tar, mirrored with the streaks of clouds above you, and the little lights glowing in the sunset. Tilt your head back to see as much of the sky as possible. Your breath will catch in your lungs and then release in a bubble of laughter and awe. For a moment, you will forget to be hurting. The pavement on your back is warm and it holds you. The sky is a dome protecting you, and eventually you’ll feel as though the world is embracing you. Hug it back. When you feel the ground shaking, sit up and roll away. Remember to send up a kiss to the clouds as you leave.
In a few days I begin to realize that I feel a sense of relief. In a few months I meet someone who treats me in a way that confuses me because my ex never asked me these questions, never cared to learn about me beyond how much my body he could touch, despite being in a relationship for a year. Half a year later I begin to understand that the things he did were things he never should have done, things that other people don’t always get away with. In spite of myself, I feel jealous of the simplicity of my other friends’ breakups—the pints of ice cream, the crying at rom-coms, the missing until they miss them a little less, until the days stop hurting so much. Instead, my reckoning is long—years—filled with anger and confusion, night terrors and vomit, PTSD and a family that I don’t know how to tell about him. My high school does nothing when I report, and I lie awake at night wondering how many others he will hurt. I apologize for not being able to forget, for my body’s constant fear, for forgetting how to breathe deeply.
As we walk back to the car, I thank my friend for introducing me to this new place. Neither of us know that in a year, I will live a plane ride away from this town, from our childhood.
Sole Magazine