The backpack only has essential things. I'm leaving behind a whole wardrobe. Any girl would kill for this wardrobe, and I only took a few pairs of jeans and some nondescript T-shirts out of it. Everything else can stay. I won’t need it anymore. I can buy things at thrift stores or something, whenever I get to where I'm going.
If only I knew where that was.
Three minutes.
Taking a deep breath, I open up my bag and drag out my wallet. I snap it open and pull out four of the five credit cards. I won’t be able to use credit cards, they’re too easy to trace. Just cash from now on. That's it.
Three minutes and thirty seconds.
Suddenly I hear footsteps in the kitchen, shuffling and the sound of pots. They're all in the kitchen, yelling and cooking something apparently. Nuncio, maybe Bobby. Maybe Rico and Steveo, what do I know? There could be a whole battalion of soldiers in my kitchen right now, just waiting for something to do. Starting on breakfast. Waiting for the chance to either save me or arrest me. Put me back in my prison, safe and sound.
Four minutes.
All right, let's go.
Taking an elastic from the cup in my bathroom, I put my hair up in a high ponytail and cover that with a knit cap. Pulling it down over my eyes I carefully open the chain on my door, then turn the handle as silently as I can. I hear their voices in the kitchen, laughing and joking as the espresso machine heats up. That's excellent. Couldn't have planned it better. I wait for the sound of foaming milk, that loud roar of the steam wand, and then I dash down the front stairs in my sneakers and silently slip out the front door.
Miraculously, Nuncio is not out here. Everybody's in the kitchen. I hold my breath and run as fast as I can, turning left immediately and heading through a gangway between two buildings, then down the alley, then right toward the hospital.
In two minutes I'm breathless and still sprinting and further from my apartment than I thought I would be. Excitement bubbles in my chest and I feel like I've just been let off my leash. I want to turn around in circles like a puppy who doesn't know what he's doing yet.
A taxi swerves past me and I’m about to raise my hand, but then I stop. If they figure it out, that's exactly what they'll expect. Daddy knows all the cab companies, and they’ll find me in moments.
But up ahead, I see the blue sign for the L. I can take the L train to the airport, and they would never look for me that way. They would never think that I would actually just go ahead and take public transportation. So that’s exactly what I'm going to do.
***
It's like a dream. Everything I have is now in these two bags, my starter kit. The first day of the rest of my life, I think as I look out the windows of the train car. Between stations, it’s just hazy glass. Then we slow toward the station to see the banks of fluorescent lights and the tiled walls. Guys with guitars and hats on the floor. Signs of the nearest intersection. The train starts up again.
People get on, people get off, while I sit here clutching my two bags like life rafts. People get on, people get off. Then the doors close and the train shoots into the darkness again.
Closer to downtown, the tracks rise and we emerge from the ground to the elevated tracks that circle downtown. There are probably half a million people in these offices, just trained to ignore the el as it rumbles outside their businesses. They don’t even know I’m here. They don’t even care. I could be any one of them.
We come to another stop and I leave the car, standing still on the platform and waiting for the other train that will get me the rest of the way to the airport. People walk past me, not even looking at me. I'm just some regular girl, maybe a college student or something. I feel utterly, deliciously anonymous.
I get on the blue train and find a seat. The same sorts of people glance at me and then away, looking back at their phones and their magazines like I don't even exist. I almost want to cry out, to tell them what I've done. They don't even know the kind of jailbreak I just pulled off. Everybody would be so impressed if they knew.
It takes about another half an hour before we are cruising alongside the highway, getting close to the airport. The rocking of the train is so soothing, I almost want to sleep, but my whole body is buzzing with anticipation.
Finally, we slow at the last stop: the end of the line. The doors open and everybody piles out into the subterranean station. Long escalators stretch up into the ticket area, and as I'm standing on a stair, trying to be calm, I have to suppress another wave of noisy glee.
Unconsciously, my hand goes to my pocket because I want to text Gianna. But I know that's the wrong thing to do. I can't reach out to her, not yet. She’ll be so disappointed… Yet so happy. She knew I wanted to do this, knew I'd been saving up for years. I didn’t know it would be so soon, but I knew that one day I would get out. One day I would be free.