My eyes opened up groggily as I struggled to bring my surroundings into focus. It took me a second to remember what had happened. Mr. Anderson’s fist flashed into my memory. My jaw felt like it had been broken. I was nervous to look at myself in a mirror. It must have been a hard hit to knock me out. A wave of depression flowed over me until I remembered my letter. Rothmore College! My escape! But how was I going to pull it off? The Andersons had left me on the floor after I was knocked out. I gingerly pulled myself into a sitting position and crawled over to the corner where my broken mirror sat. I pulled the mirror up to my face and grimaced. The whole left side of my face was black and blue, swollen, and sensitive to any touch. I hoped the bruises would at least last a few days before my freak healing abilities kicked in so that they would be more hesitant to hurt me. I needed my wits about me in order to plan my escape, and being regularly knocked out was certainly not going to help with that.
The first thing I needed to do was figure out my money situation. Even with a full scholarship I would need money to get to New York City. I also would need to buy at least a couple of new clothes. There was no way I was starting my new life in the pilgrim dresses that the Andersons had provided me with. I had no way to earn money as I wasn’t let out of the house, so I was going to have to steal it. Usually the thought of doing something like that would fill me with disgust, but after years of enduring the Anderson’s abuse, and knowing they had been pocketing money from the state all of these years that was meant for me, I felt like in this case it wouldn’t be stealing as much as it would be taking what was owed to me.
I knew that Mrs. Anderson hung her purse by the garage door whenever she came back from running errands. Luckily for me Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were both highly suspicious of credit card and banks, believing that the government was always waiting in the wings to take their “hard-earned” money. Because of that, I had heard them discussing with visitors the fact that they always kept stacks of cash with them, and the rest hidden in various places around the house. Maybe if I just took a small amount every week they wouldn’t notice anything was missing. I had learned to pick the lock to my door a few years before when I realized that feeding me wasn’t a high priority for the Andersons. I knew what steps creaked, and what floorboards in the kitchen to avoid. It would just be about the timing. Mrs. Anderson tended to be a night owl, staying up late to read in bed, and Mr. Anderson was an early riser, getting up around 5:30am to get ready for his job as a plant manager. I would have to make sure that I waited long enough before venturing downstairs.
And so it began. The next time the Andersons let me use the computer for schoolwork I accepted my offer to Rothmore College, and then quickly deleted the history so they couldn’t trace my steps. I had put in a fake address for Rothmore to send anything. I didn’t want to push my luck that the Andersons would continue to throw away my mail without reading it. I figured I could pick up any forms I needed when I got there. At night I would wait until at least 3:00 am to jimmy the lock and creep downstairs. I got lucky a few nights, and Mr. Anderson had left his wallet on the counter as well, exhausted after a day at work.
I started small, just taking $3-$5 at a time from both her purse, and his wallet. The night before I left I would take more. I couldn’t access the bus route on the computer because they had everything blocked but sites they deemed educational, but I guessed I would need at least $100 for tickets. I would need sheets for my bed and toiletries as well since the Andersons gave me nothing but a bar of soap to wash myself with.
I counted my money every night and felt a rush of excitement as my stash began to grow without them finding out. Mrs. Anderson had started to look at me funny however, as if she could smell the renewed hope I now had. She would come upstairs at random times and throw open the door to try and catch me doing something. Luckily there was no way for her to mask her footsteps up the stairs no matter how hard she tried, as she weighed far too much to be light on her feet, and I could hide things quickly before she got to the door.
The next obstacle would be figuring out when to leave. Technically I wasn’t 18 until September, and I knew that if I didn’t escape the first time, I wouldn’t make it out again. The problem I had encountered in the past was the alarm system. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson set it every time they left, and usually at night before they went to bed, and I had never been able to catch the password. I had tried to escape many times my first year with them and they had upgraded the system since then to alert them more quickly. Neighbors, the Andersons, and even the police had caught me every time I had escaped, and the beatings afterwards were not something I would ever forget. It had always been difficult for me to hide myself from the notice of others. But this time I would have to get away, there was no option for failure. I would somehow need to slip out before they left and set the alarm, or went to bed and set the alarm, so that I would have some time to get far away before they noticed my absence. I would then need to find a way to get away fast and hide when they inevitably came looking for me.
Another issue of concern was Reverend Darby. I had heard his voice many times floating up the stairs, and although the Andersons never mentioned his visits, I found it strange that he would visit so regularly after never visiting before. If there was anything to be grateful for in Mr. Anderson’s fascination with me, and Mrs. Anderson’s hatred of me, it was that it gave them reason to do everything they could to keep me away from the Reverend. I still couldn’t forget that look in his eye, the way he had held onto my hand, and the worried look that his wife had given him when he was talking to me. I did not want anything to do with Reverend Darby.
When I wasn’t scheming about how to get away, or dreaming about my new life, I was thinking about Damon Pierce. I would stare at his picture dreamily and wonder what he was like. I had never been one for flights of fancy, I hadn’t seen the point. But Damon sparked something in me. The pamphlet gave no details about him, and I was too scared to bring it up during my online home school classes to see if anyone had heard of him. No-one ever talked about anything but classwork, and it was impossible to form any relationships when I wasn’t allowed to access the computer or phone except for class. We also couldn’t see each-other, and it was nerve wracking for me to speak up to a group of people I couldn’t really identify beyond their voices. I knew the chances of someone like Damon ever paying attention to me was zero, but it certainly was delightful dreaming otherwise. For all I knew, he was just a model they had used in the pamphlet to attract prospective candidates. For some reason though, I thought he was probably more.
The weeks passed quickly. I lived in fear that my secret would be discovered. My plan had hit a snag when I had heard the Andersons arguing over money that they had noticed was missing. I had started restricting my nightly visits downstairs to make sure they didn’t catch on that it was me. I didn’t think they suspected me yet as they didn’t know that I could trip my lock, but I didn’t want to arouse any further suspicion by too much of their money disappearing at once. This obviously meant that I was going to have less money than I wanted or needed, but I couldn’t afford any mistakes.
After a long hot summer filled with the usual screaming, beatings, unwanted touches…combined with my silent visits downstairs to take money, my nerves were fried. I had to give myself daily pep talks to convince myself my plan to escape would actually work. I had wanted to leave earlier than I had planned, but there hadn’t been a good time. Mrs. Anderson had started to stay home more and had taken to sleeping with her door cracked. It was almost like she knew that I was planning something.
Finally, I couldn’t delay it any longer. Orientation would start in a week, and I didn’t know how long it would take to get to New York on the bus. I had arrived at the Anderson’s house by bus when I was 13, and had held on to the memory of how to get to the local bus stop. I just hoped nothing had changed, and that a bus driver would tell me how to get to the main station where the Greyhound buses were. I had my meager belongings ready to go at a moment’s notice. I had stolen a sweatshirt and shorts from Mr. Anderson’s closet. By tying the sweatshirt, and pinning the shorts with some safety pins I had found in one of the attic trunks, I would look a little more normal than if I was wearing one of my dresses. Hopefully when the Andersons started looking for me they would give the description of a girl wearing a dress, and it would buy me a little bit of time. I had put one of the dresses into my bag so they would think I was wearing it.
It was the Tuesday before orientation when I got my break. Mr. Anderson was working late and I overheard Mrs. Anderson on the phone with someone loudly complaining about how she had a migraine and was going to take something and go to bed. I waited an hour after I heard Mrs. Anderson go into her room before beginning to gather my things. No one would be up to check on me until Mr. Anderson arrived home, and I had to pray that whatever Mrs. Anderson had taken for her migraine had knocked her out cold since she had left her door cracked. I put my pillow under the blankets so that if they looked in on me it would trick them for a second into thinking I was asleep. Gathering my courage and holding my breath, I tripped the lock on the door with a pin, and silently made my way downstairs.
I hovered by Mrs. Anderson’s bedroom trying to listen, but all I could hear were her deep snores. I continued to creep to the main level and stopped by her purse by the garage entrance before making my escape. She only had $60 in her purse, and I grabbed it all figuring they would know soon enough who was taking their money anyways after they found me gone. Instead of going through the garage I went out the back door, then crept along the side of the house along the bushes and flower gardens. Just as I was about to walk out in front of the house, headlights flashed around the corner, headed for the driveway. I didn’t recognize the car but knew that anyone visiting was sure to wake up Mrs. Anderson.
I stayed hidden beside the house and watched the car carefully. It was Reverend Darby. He looked somewhat desperate for some reason, and I watched as he roughly knocked on the door and rang the doorbell several times. When no one answered, he ran a frantic hand through his hair and looked up to the top of the house. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for but I didn’t have long to wonder as he suddenly turned and walked quickly back to his car before peeling away.
I knew that the loud knocks and doorbell had most likely roused Mrs. Anderson even if she hadn’t answered the door, and I just prayed she wouldn’t think to check on me. I began to lightly jog away from the house, attempting to stay in the foliage along the road. Even with the pins, Mr. Anderson’s clothes were way too large on me, and I had to hold on to the shorts with one hand as I moved along the road. It was at least a twenty-minute jog to the bus stop according to my foggy memory, so I hurried along as best I could, holding my pants and my possessions.
To my surprise and relief, a bus was just pulling in as I arrived at the stop. I didn’t know if it went to the main bus station but figured it was better to get on then wait around for the right one. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the right bus, and I had to get on two more before I arrived at the main station. The entire time I looked frantically out the window, waiting for someone to appear to come get me, muttering silent prayers to a God I didn’t believe in that something would go my way for once.
It wasn’t until I had my ticket for New York City in hand, and was sitting on the bus as it pulled onto the main highway, that I let myself relax. I had done everything I could to cover my tracks, and all I could hope for was that they would never find me.
There had been a camera at the ticket stand, and although I tried my best to keep my head down, I was sure that it had caught me on it. I just hoped that the ticket lady wouldn’t remember me enough to tell anyone if she were asked about me, and that no one would care to expend a great deal of effort going after a 17-year-old foster girl about to age out of the system in a month. I had taken a seat in the very back, on a row where no one was sitting, and although I planned on not falling asleep, the swaying of the bus, along with my relief at being on the bus, soon lulled me to sleep.