Escaping Reality

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    as you need it until you get fully settled. You’ll find a new social security
    card, driver’s license, and passport as well.
    You have a complete history to memorize and a résumé and job
    history that will check out if looked into. Throw out your cell phone. The new
    one is registered under your new name and address. There’s a plane ticket
    and the keys to an apartment along with a location. Toss all identification
    and don’t use your bank account or credit cards. Be smart. Don’t link
    yourself to your past. Stay away from museums this time.
    A new name. That’s what stands out to me. I’m getting another new
    name. No. No. No.
    My heart races at the idea. I don’t want another new name. Even
    more than I don’t want to be back on the run, I don’t want another new
    name. I feel like a girl having her hair chopped off.
    I’m losing part of myself. After living a lie for years, I’m losing the
    only part of my fake identity I’d ever really accepted as me.
    I grab the passport and flip it open and my hand trembles at the sight
    of a photo that is a present-day me. How did this stranger I met only one
    time in my life get a picture of me this recent? It doesn’t matter that I’d
    once considered him my guardian angel. I’m freaked out by this. Has he
    been watching me all this time? I shiver at the idea, and my only comfort is
    my new name. I’m now Amy Bensen rather than Amy Reynolds. I’m still
    Amy. It is the one piece of good news in all of this and I cling to it, using it to
    stave off the meltdown I feel coming. I just have to hold it together until I
    get on the plane. Then I can sink into my seat and think myself into
    my “zone” that I can’t seem to fully find.
    Flipping open the folder, I find an airline ticket. I’m going to Denver
    and I leave in an hour. I’ve never been anywhere but Texas and New York.
    All I know about Denver is it’s big, cold, and the next place I will pretend is
    home when I have no home. The thought makes my chest pinch, but fear of
    what might await me if I don’t run pushes me past it.
    I turn off my cell phone so it won’t ping and stuff it, with everything
    but my new ID and plane ticket, back into the envelope. I have my own
    money in the bank and I’m not about to get rid of my identification and
    access to that resource. Besides, the idea of using a bank card that allows
    me to be tracked bothers me. I’ll be visiting the bank tomorrow and
    removing any cash I can get my hands on. When I’d been eighteen, naive
    and alone, I’d blindly trusted a stranger I’d called my guardian angel. I
    might have to trust him now too, but it won’t be blindly.
    Making my way to check in, I fumble through using the ticket
    machine and my new identification and then track a path to security. A few
    minutes later, I’m on the other side of the metal detectors and I stop at a
    store to buy random things I might need. All is going well until I arrive at the
    ticket counter.
    “I’m so sorry, Ms. Bensen,” the forty-something woman begins. “We
    had an administrative error and seats were double-booked. We—”
    “I have to be on this flight,” I say in a hiss whispered with my heart in
    my throat. “I have to be on this flight.”
    “I can get you a voucher and the first flight tomorrow.”
    “No. No. Tonight. Give someone a bigger voucher to get me a seat.”
    “I—”
    “Talk to a supervisor,” I insist, because while avoiding attention
    means I am not a pushy person, and despite my initial denial of my
    circumstances that might suggest otherwise, I have no death wish. I am
    alive and plan to stay that way.
    She purses her lips and looks like she might argue, but finally she
    turns away and makes a path toward a man in uniform. Their heads dip low
    and he glances at me before the woman returns. “We have you on standby
    and we’ll try to get you on.”
    “How likely is it you’ll get me on?”
    “We’re going to try.”
    “Try how hard?”
    Her lips purse again. “Very.”
    I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I have a…crisis of
    sorts. I really have to get to my destination.” There is a thread of
    desperation to my voice I do not contain well.
    Her expression softens and I know she heard it. “I understand and I
    am sorry this happened,” she assures me. “We are trying to make this right
    and so you don’t panic please know that we have to get everyone boarded
    before we make any passenger