The Never List

though my heart was pounding madly.
    “What do I wear?”
    She smiled, seeming almost proud of me. “Good. You’ve clearly made a lot of progress.” She looked me up and down, noting, I was sure, the sad state of my sartorial choices. “I’ll bring you something. It’s important to blend in there. The last thing we’d want to do is stand out in this crowd. And I guarantee you don’t own anything appropriate for this venue.”

CHAPTER 15
    Late that night I sat in my car in the parking lot of the hotel, regretting my decision to go as powerfully as I’d ever regretted anything in my life. I was talking to myself out loud, fighting down the panic attack I could feel creeping up on me. For one thing, for the first time in years, I would have to drive at night. While it was true that Adele had offered to take me, I never got in the car with strangers. No matter what.
    But if the driving in and of itself was not enough to push me over the edge, the “special” destination most surely was. At a minimum, it would be dark and crowded and, from the sound of things, filled with exactly the types of people I had spent my life trying to avoid.
    I gripped the steering wheel and banged my head on it gently several times. I couldn’t believe Tracy was not here for this. Thiswas exactly why I needed her to come, I told myself. This was her element. She probably went to this kind of place for fun.
    I started feeling anger welling up in me. It reminded me of how I’d felt during the time just before my escape. I hadn’t examined it much in the cellar, I was so focused on my goal. But now, sitting alone in my rental car in a deserted parking lot, something dawned on me. Tracy had always made me feel guilty for everything I did back then. But really, I had borne the whole burden. For all the bossing around she had done, for all her leadership down in that cellar, she had never done anything productive to get us out of there. And I did. I did. And now all I ever felt was guilt about it.
    Here I was, having a revelation, and Dr. Simmons was nowhere to be seen. To be fair, I knew she had tried to make that point subtly in sessions for years, but I had dismissed it. Yet here I was, facing perhaps the most terrifying situation I had encountered since my escape, and I was having a psychological breakthrough. Maybe Adele was right: therapeutically, this experience was good for me.
    I sat up straight and pulled out of my wallet the photo of Jennifer I’d brought along. I opened the glove compartment, bent the end of the photo, and closed the compartment door on its edge. There. Jennifer before me, like an angel, to keep me going forward. I checked the rearview mirror and turned the key in the ignition. I am stronger than this , I told myself. These were the words that had gotten me through my escape, and they would get me through this, too.
    I thought of Jennifer, as I looked at her face before me, and of how different everything would be if I could put her to rest. Maybe then I’d even be able to live a normal life, among other humans. Out of my apartment. In the real world.
    I drove for nearly an hour along the winding back roads. Plenty of time to tick through the list of all the dangers of the situation. Before I even got to my destination, my car could break down, or I could have an accident here in the middle of nowhere. I checkedmy cell phone reception no fewer than four times. The bars were all there, but I wasn’t sure I could have explained to anyone where I was anyway. I considered pulling over and sending Jim a text, but I didn’t want him to know I was on the trail of something yet, if I even was.
    Finally, I arrived. I saw a driveway cut into the road, with no signs or markings other than a small, barely noticeable metal post with a yellow reflector, just as Adele had described. I pulled in and drove for about a mile up a hill along a crudely rutted dirt drive. I felt panic rising up inside me again. This activity did not meet my standards for careful behavior. What if this was a trap? What if there was nothing out here but empty woods, where anything could happen? What if somehow this Adele person was in league with Jack Derber? It occurred to me that I knew very little about her and was relying on what I thought of as our shared history together, some kind of bond that she may not have felt at all. And yet I had let her lead me down this path.
    When I finally rounded the bend in the road, I saw to my relief a