Chapter Eleven

I didn't know how long I sat under the picnic table. Minutes, hours, I had no idea. When I woke up, came to, whatever, my face was completely numb. My skin felt dry, like paper. My eyes were swollen from crying and my cheeks felt tight from the dried tears. I was still curled up, knees to chest, and when I tried to stretch out my leg muscles spasmed. I sat on the cold ground, massaging my legs, and tried to plan my next move.

I was crazy, that much was obvious, but how could I hide that fact from my friends and family? I figured it'd be easy enough to lie to my parents. They didn't exactly pay much attention to my life anyway. Sometimes my mother called to ask if I needed any spending money, but usually she just fed it straight into my checking account. This saved her precious time that she could then allot to shopping or firing the gardener. My father would ask how my classes were going whenever I visited, but what I said didn't really matter. He was usually buried behind the newspaper with a cocktail from the time he got home from work until dinner. After dinner, he'd retire to his study to work on some important case. Usually with a few more cocktails.

It's not that they didn't care. They were, after all, paying for my school, my books, food, my car, and pretty much whatever else I wanted. I was an only child, my father made good money, and my mother inherited enough from her own parents that even if my father didn't work we'd easily get by. I had all the best growing up. Nannies, elaborate vacations., a pony, lessons ranging from tennis to French, I had it all. All that was asked of me was that I got fairly good grades and behaved well in front of important guests. Since I had a private tutor and etiquette lessons, I had no problem with either.

Still, I didn't really know my parents. I didn't even know my mother had been married before she met my father and had me until I Googled her one day. We don't talk much.

So, I didn't think they'd notice that anything was wrong, at least not for a while. I had a few more weeks in the semester and I figured I could probably hide my grades if need be.

What I was really worried about was Lucy and Isaac. Obviously, I was going to have a lot more trouble convincing my boyfriend and my roommate that I was still completely sane and normal. Hey, maybe I was still sane and normal. I didn't feel crazy, aside from the fact that I had just woken up under a picnic table in the freezing cold and nobody had to know about that.

My legs were no longer rebelling against me, so I crawled out from my hiding place and stretched. My entire body ached from shivering. The sky was beginning to darken, leading me to believe that I really had been out for hours. I pushed the nagging thoughts away and walked slowly to the car, trying to rub some feeling back into my hands. I searched my pockets for my car keys but couldn't find them. I looked back to the table but didn't see them.

I went to my car and peered in the window. I'd left the keys in the ignition. Unfortunately, I'd also locked the doors.

"Shit," I said. I had no cell phone. No jacket. No gloves. I was freezing and I was in no shape to try and walk to a phone.

I walked back to the picnic table and sat down. Maybe I could start a fire somehow and make a new life here at the reservoir. They'd call me The Crazy Picnic Table Hermit. If anyone tried to come near me I'd poke them with a stick and start shrieking.

Ok, maybe not. I looked around and saw a pile of rocks next to me. I picked one up, tossed it in the air, and caught it. It was about the size of a softball. I walked back over to the car and threw the rock as hard as I could at one of my back windows. The window shattered and I reached in to unlock the door. I got in the car and crawled up to the front seat, immediately turning the key and cranking the heat up as far as it would go. I sat in the car for a while until I'd stopped shivering violently, then drove back to school.