by Sheri Lorenz

Created on: September 25, 2010

She sat there at the edge of town wondering which direction to go.  She didn’t remember how or why she was here, only that her car had seemed to stop of it’s own volition.    Her tortured thoughts took her to a dark place in the past.  Her hands gripped the steering wheel as though it were her only lifeline.  She had put these feelings on a shelf way back in her heart for so many years, but just sitting here at the edge of town brought all her tortured thoughts rushing back as though she had been gone for only a moment.   She could still hear the horrific blood curdling screams of a child fighting for her life.

Kaitlin had not been home for fifteen years.  “Home” she thought with a brittle laugh, it seemed a lifetime ago that she called this place home.  A life so far removed from the life she had now, a life belonging to someone else.   Kaitlin has spent so many years trying to forget the fear and terror she had experienced here and she had done a good job forgetting, until today when a detour took her to this spot on the edge of town.

 Her body shook with tears that would not flow, tears that had dried up in her heart that hot summer day so long ago when she ran away and until today she thought she would never come back.  She didn’t know how long she sat there staring down that road that would take her into town, but she was jolted back to the present when her cell phone rang. When she finally became aware of her surroundings she realized it was near dark and her hands still gripped the steering wheel.  She took a deep breath and shakily reached for her phone, it was her sister.  “How did she know?” Kaitlin wondered after two hours on the phone crying with her sister both pouring through the pain and shedding tears she thought were long since gone.  After a few deep breaths she started her car and pulled back onto the road.     

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