Someone's gotta be up there...

Sunday, ten.thirty in the morning.

Everything about the world right now frightens me. Everything threatens me and I don't know how to get away. Where do I go? What do I do? Standing in the middle of my room, feeling as if I am being held under water, unable to breathe, my throat in a choke-hold and no where to go. Two roles: The slave driver and the slave.

"Julzy, Jen's home." My mom mentions through my bedroom door.

"Uh huh," I manage to spew out something other than a cry. My chest so tight, my hands, shaking. My legs weak. I. am. afraid. to. move.

"Any reason you haven't seen her? All of your friends are home."

Any reason?

"No," and that's it. There's nothing else to say, no one understand me, I have nothing, no one, but me and my sea of hatred that keeps me from reblooming after losing her three months ago. Dried up, dying of thirst, the sun runs away from me. How cold the world feels without it.

_______

"You were trapped." Jamie. Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Her Majesty, Jamie. The Divine.

"That was it. I was buried in my own fleshy tomb, suffocating. Totally and utterly trapped." I whisper.

I feel Amy's eyes on me, her comfort calming my heart, as it always does.   

______

"Do you want to come with me to get my nails done, Booboo?" Mom wants to help me. I know she wants to more than anything. But everyone knows I'm stuck inside the world of unforgiving failures, and still no one will say anything. Why is everyone so afraid of me... I'm sorry, Please Forgive Me.

"No," I act like I don't care. But I do. More than anything and I can't go with you, Mom. "No." As if she is surprised. I love her more than anything, and wish I could spend my every second with her, but she is above me. Mom, I love you, but you are above me. I feel undeserving of time spent with you. Do you know this?

***Vibration***

AMY PEARL STONE: "Don't worry. We will take you away from here."

I tell her I trust her, I trust Jamie. I do. With my entire life. I put myself in their hands and feel safe. Safer in theirs than in my own. He can't touch us when we're together. TIme stands still and in an instant I stop shivering.

Driving on the highway, I see a sign for my exit. Finally. 2.5 MILES. And then I think of Jilli. In a battlefield of angst and chaos I reach for my phone and text Jill. I text her all the time. "I MISS YOU. EVERY DAY." And I am discouraged. Everyday I miss her more than the last. "When will it get easier?" Now I'm crying and my chest is drowning again. FUCK I missed my exit. I gather my composure, 'suck it up, don't embarrass me,' my thoughts are cruel and I'm tired after too many sleepless nights.

"I missed my Exit, Ames," I called her immediately. I had to get away from myself.

"Okay, where are you Julz?"

"I don't know... I missed my Exit for 95N." I don't know where I am, but amazingly I'm no longer lost. I'm found and need not utter a worry. 25 minutes away from the Stones, now, but Amy knows. She senses and she knows. "I'm going to stay on until you get to my house. I'm not going anywhere," she tells me. And she does. And I'm totally and completely safe, and for the first time in a long time, I feel loved and cradled with a shelter to protect me, and no one can touch me. I'm home.

Sitting in a coffee shop, on South Street, my worries are nonexistent, out of mind, and I feel the floor underneath my feet and IT. FEELS. AMAZING. Sitting, taking each other in, I look at Amy and Jamie: Queens. I get chills thinking of the two before me. And I laugh at how lame I am, in this very moment. I. Have. Found. Them.

Finally.

The hours spent walking the streets of Philadelphia. PEACE. It's suddenly springtime and the flowers are blooming and the sun, yes the sun, is FINALLY shining. As we leave the city streets, the three of us, in Brooke's Audi, completely united in thought, though silent in sound. There. Is. So. Much. Love.

"I was thinking about something..." Breaking the silence, my words spilling out of me, as I smile, for the first time in a LONG time. "I have been doubting the existence of a higher power, for so long now... But after today, I just know. Someone's gotta be up there..."

I slept really well last night.