I am not sure if a storyteller, but I sit down and I keep trying. I decided I am not going to try and make this perfect, (i.e. I am sure I will find all sorts of little mistakes tomorrow. I will fix then). And writing, as well as everything in life, is a work in progress, so this is me a work in progress right now.

I remember only flashes, scenes, and soundbites on October 24 into October 25, 1994. But what I remember is extraordinary clear.

It was a Monday. My mother drove me to school and walked with me to the school’s office to sign me out. She said she is going to try and get a CF clinic appointment, so at any time of the day, I may be called-in to the office to leave. So, each hour, when the class door opened, I thought it might be someone delivering a message telling me my mom was there to pick me up.

After my mom left, I went to my friends’ locker and she said, “What’s wrong?” I wasn’t crying, I probably had a look of fear. I handed her an eight-page letter, double-sided, trying to explain the events of the last week.

I went to my first class, and at the end of it, handed in my books. I saw a couple friends after each class. I remember couple people coming up to me and saying, “Sarah told me.” There was a lot of noise in my ears. I couldn’t make sense out of what everyone was saying. I just knew my mom could show up at any moment and that would be it. I was trying to steady myself, while my friends were asking why. I didn’t have a clear answer. I just said it was bad – or so I think that is what I said.

People gave me their addresses, phone numbers, and I tucked that in my bag. I hid them.

I went to each class one after the other thanking my teachers and saying I would not be returning. I have no recollection if they asked me where I was going, or anything beyond that.

I went to all of the lunch periods. I remember a couple friends came behind me and wrapped their arms around me, and embraced me.

After running away late August for a week, moving to Sarah’s house for two weeks, where I started my junior year. Then when I moved back, because I was not eighteen is when I think it got terribly bad, which by the way is a Segway to running away.

I went to this place called “The Bridge for Runaway Youth.” A really great non-profit where kids were in a bad place in their lives and this was a place of refuge. It was in Uptown Minneapolis.

My friend Debbie and Sarah and her family helped me get there. I ran away because my voice was not heard. I was told that my feelings and thoughts did not matter. Literally, my voice was absent. So, in order for it to be heard, my presence needed to be absent. No one was listening to what I was saying. Then, when they wanted to hear me, my mom would say, “We need to have a talk.” Then, often it went back to if I was gay or not, which I was not going to answer under those circumstances.

Truthfully, I did not know. But, I sure in hell didn’t feel safe or Okay to say anything. If I said, “No,” they may or may not had believed me. If I would have said, “Yes” then what? No win.

See there was an incident in May or June of that year that my mom could not let go. My mom read my journal “by accident.” It had some questioning feelings in there. I also called my mom a bitch in there. It happens. She could not let go of that for years. Just to say, my mom never gave me back my journal, so I don’t remember “my feelings” or much of anything that was written.

She read it all. It isn’t just that, she read my words out loud to me, back to me.

The fury inside me, I cannot explain. My questioning feelings, just my feelings read back to me out loud. That is when it got bad. The little respect someplace that I had, turned into no respect. It is one thing you read it. I know parents do this. She was throwing it in my face, slandering me. Then almost mocking me. In fact she was because she was doing it in this character voice, in a theatrical way. I had never written anything about me ever in my life. Then, you throw it back in my face. My words, word-by-word read aloud.

I lied a couple times. I got caught. I lied to save myself. Nothing mattered. It didn’t matter what I said or didn’t say, it never was right. We were on different sides of the tracks.

We tried family counseling mid-summer. The counselor wanted to meet with my mom one-to-one. She went at some point, because I overheard her on the phone. She laughed, and said, “I told her.” My mother walked out of the session. My mother experienced some terrible things in her life, and my grandmother, who is the root of all evil is the cause of a lot of that. My grandmother is a horrible, mean, ruthless woman. I have questioned, putting together stories, if she was a Nazi. I am not joking. So, I am just going to leave it at that. That is their stories, not mine.

I remember that exact day when I made the decision to run away. I woke up, it was late July, and I wished that I was not in that place and time. I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted my life. I was never ever in that place. But, I needed to be someplace else. I felt suffocated and trapped. I said to myself, “Tessa, we are in trouble.”

I started to go to the library a lot. I went on the computer, which I am not sure if it really did that much. I remember cold calling places: hospitals, social workers, counseling places. And somehow I think I saw an ad for “The Bridge.” I called them, and I asked my friends.

I decided that I had to do this. I packed my car with medications and treatment machines, clothes, etc., with my parents’ home. My friend Debbie talked my mom’s ear off in the kitchen while I gathered my medications and brought them to my room. My mom kept taking off her glasses and putting them on again, she can’t see a thing, then she was doing something with her eyes in the bathroom.

I went downstairs to grab my air compressor and percussor device, while my dad was out in the garage. I brought them upstairs until my Dad went back inside. Then when he was inside, I brought them outside, while Debbie was still chatting with my mom. My dad kept going in and out and it was hard to keep track of him, while keeping track of my mom as well. It was very tricky. I finally got everything packed and Debbie and I were going to leave. My father then said, “Hold it right there.”

My father says very little, ever, by the way. This was a bold statement.

I thought this was it. They were going to put me in some psych ward if they looked in my car. My dad said something to my mom and she said, “Bobby, she is just going over to Debbie’s.” They looked at me. I said, “Yes.” Debbie confirmed.

We walked out and I could not feel my body, like when you almost get into an accident or you do. You are in shock. I was shaky driving away.

So when asked why at school, I said it was bad. But, truthfully why? I couldn’t answer that.

I made it to the end of that school day. But, then I made it to the end of the day, which would be my last day at my school.

One of my best friends walked with me to where my Mom was going to pick me up. I said, “I love you.”  She said, “I love you too.” We hugged.

I opened that big, heavy metal door into the light. Opened my Mom’s big van door, into the dark, and it was dark.

But, because I am so stubborn, I knew it wouldn’t be forever.