Chapter 64. Jade
Jade
I’m certain I’m floating—up, up, up I go. I’m weightless. But I’m not going into the light. Instead, I’m bouncing up and down, almost like I’m riding on a carousel.
As if by magic I’m suddenly outside. And then it hits me—oxygen, real, pure, glorious oxygen.
I’m bathed in the stuff. Swimming in an ocean of it.
I inhale so deeply, with such desperation, it’s as if I’m sucking the entire night down.
My lungs fill too fast. I gag, coughing so violently I fear my ribs might shatter.
I hear a man’s voice telling me it’s going to be okay—I will live.
Yes, I would like that very much. In fact, I want nothing more in this entire universe than one more day of life. Walking, breathing, being me. All of me—gangly, badass, book-loving, messed-up, utterly crazy me.
So many things hit me in this one moment—first my parents, may I never see them again: the drunk and the coward, yelling at me because they’ve grown tired of screaming at each other.
Days when there was nothing but stale bread and vodka in the cabinets.
Christmases with a tree so brittle it would have made Charlie Brown cry, and hardly anything wrapped underneath.
The moments that brought me here stitch together like a tapestry—the car I stole, Big Sally in Baby Jail, the necklace that set me off on my mission, the lies I told along the way …
and the friends I made, too—especially the one I want to see most of all.
Who took me into her home, sheltered me under her wing, and made me feel like I belonged somewhere.