The Walk
“Melynda, you are not going running by yourself!”
My mother’s shrill voice screamed at me as I stomped up the stairs with my running shoes in hand.
“Yes, I am!” I yelled back in a defiant manner.
I slipped on my running shoes quickly, grabbed my headphones, and jammed them into my ears. The music coming from my headphones was playing loud, drowning out my mother’s nagging. I WAS going to be able to do what I wanted today. I walked straight out the front door without even fearing the consequences. What did it matter? I was leaving for college in a week anyway. It was so ridiculous that I was eighteen years old and I was still being treated like a child. I wasn’t even allowed to go on a simple jog around my neighborhood? That was the last straw. As I began to jog I was wracking my brain, what could have flipped the switch? She hadn’t always been this protective, something had to have changed her view. That’s when it hit me like a brick wall and all those unwanted memories came flooding back.
I recalled the vivid memory of a spring day in the small town of Hays, Kansas. Thinking of it sent chills down my spine. That day my twin sister had been sent home from school because she was sick. Since she wasn’t at school that meant I was going to have to walk home by myself. I had walked the route from the school to my house numerous times – just not alone. I knew that I had to leave the round-about parking lot, head down the grey paved sidewalk until I reached the crosswalk, and then at the end of the block stood my little pink house. I adored this house because it was a bubbly pink color, which was my favorite color. Nobody in the whole school could say that they lived in a pink house and I liked that because it made the girls in my class jealous.
On this particular day, it was windy and quite chilly for spring, chilly enough that I had goose bumps running up and down my arms. Chilly enough that I needed a jacket. I knew I had brought a jacket...