ANNIE
Luke,
I had no idea where to find Lexie. If she’d been writing to me, Robert had intercepted the letters, and if she’d called, no one had ever told me. But that was just as we expected when she left—by walking away, she was rejecting the church, and that meant those left behind were supposed to behave as if she’d died.
But I knew my sister wouldn’t have forgotten about me, just as certainly as I knew she’d have fallen on her feet when she got out into the real world. So I walked out of Winterton and toward Collinsville, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I’d find refuge with her.
I had a small backpack with my most prized possessions—a photo of Dad and my journal. I had only the clothes I wore—I hadn’t taken any others because I never wanted to wear them again. Every article in my wardrobe was a clear signal to anyone in the area around Winterton that I came from the village. I never wanted to be associated with the sect again. I wanted only to be free, and as I walked those first few miles, that’s exactly how I felt. The air tasted different, and breathing felt easier—like my chest had been compressed and suddenly released. I laughed a few times, just because I was out of the house and just because I was never going back.
It was only as I reached the outskirts of Collinsville that the magnitude of my situation really hit me. I had no idea what Mom and Robert would even do—maybe they would follow me? No one had gone after Lexie, but she’d been older—almost an adult. I’d never heard of a fourteen-year-old leaving Winterton before—the other children my age were different, almost robotic in their obedience.
And if Robert did come for me, what would he do? The thought was terrifying—what punishment could he possibly inflict on me that was worse than the ones I’d suffered already?
I’d been brave and excited, but soon, I was shaking and sobbing, running along the road toward an unknown destination. I hid behind bushes when cars came from the direction of Winterton, and a sweeping paranoia came over me—I startled a flock of birds in a tree and when they flew away, I heard the sound of footsteps in the flapping of their wings.
Collinsville is a small place, and a distraught, half-crazed fourteen-year-old walking along the highway wasn’t going to go unnoticed for long. A police car soon pulled up alongside me. Convinced Robert had sent them for me, I tried to run away. The officers caught me, and when they pinned me to the ground, I panicked all over again.
“Hey! Kid! Settle down!” one of the officers shouted, after the wild thrashing of my wrists almost caught his jaw. “We don’t want to hurt you. What happened? Where are you going?”
“My sister,” I sobbed. “I need to find my sister.”
“You’re from Winterton?” the other office said, leaning over me warily. I shook my head—irrational in my fear. Of course they knew I was from Winterton. My clothes would have left them no doubt.
“Where is your sister?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, and then I started to sob again. “Please don’t make me go back. I can’t go back. Please help me.”
“If I release you, will you stop hitting me?” the first officer asked. When I nodded, he slid off me and took my hand to help me up. “Let’s go to the station and figure something out.”
“You’re not going to take me back?” I asked. I let him pull me to my feet, but I planted them hard. I was ready to run—I wasn’t going anywhere near that car until they promised me.
“Right now, we’re going to the station so you can tell us what’s going on. Then we’ll make a plan, okay?”
At the station I met a sympathetic female officer, who made me hot cocoa and casually chatted with me about my situation. I gave her a heavily sanitized account of my issues at home—I focused only on what I figured would seem serious enough for them to let me stay away, but not bad enough to get anyone into any real trouble. I was also pretty sure I’d asked for the worst of it—would they arrest me if I told them? I didn’t want them to ask Robert about it, then come back and tell me in disgust that it was all my fault anyway. But mostly, I didn’t want Mom to ever know, and so I kept my mouth shut. I felt I might be a terrible, wicked person, but at least I was good at keeping secrets.
At the end of a very long, teary chat, the female officer agreed that she thought it was best for me to find Lexie. That just left the problem of how exactly to do that. All I had was Lexie’s name, and the belief that she might have found her way to a university somewhere. The officer asked if I knew anyone else in Collinsville whom we could call. I racked my brain and came up blank—until it suddenly occurred to me that I did know someone. Someone I could walk across the road to speak with, actually—the fire station was there.
Captain Edwards knew exactly where to find Lexie, because she lived in his basement for twelve months after she left Winterton. He and his wife had taken her in while she studied for the GED and then started at community college and saved some money. She was now in her second year of a four-year course at Chicago State, living in a dorm on campus, and Captain Edwards had her cell number.
A cell phone. I’d never even seen one, and when Captain Winters first passed his phone to me, I had no idea what it was. I sobbed while I tried to explain to Lexie that I couldn’t go back to the community, and once she got over the shock of the call, she was resolute.
“Ask Captain Edwards if he can bring you here,” she said firmly. “I’ll take care of you.”
It wasn’t as simple as that—there were legalities to sort out because of my age. The police officer had to call Robert and Mom, and while she never told me the details of the conversation, she told me that if I wanted to go to Lexie, I wouldn’t be forced to return to Winterton.
And so, two days after I walked away from Robert’s home, Captain Edwards delivered me to Lexie. I was fragile, confused and still scared. Every now and again I’d start shaking for no reason, as if I were in shock.
I kept expecting someone to tell me that Robert changed his mind and was coming to get me, and every time Captain Edwards’s phone rang I’d feel adrenaline surge all the way through my body. But there were no last-minute disasters, no more drama to contend with, and when I finally walked into Lexie’s room, she was sobbing. We held each other and cried until we were both exhausted from the intensity of the moment.
“It’s over, Annie. You’re with me now. It’s over.”
She had a bed already set up for me—an air mattress on the floor. She’d amassed a small collection of Nancy Drew books over the years since we parted, and they were waiting on my pillow.
“I know you’re too old for them now.” She shrugged. “But every time I saw one, I thought of you. I thought you might want to catch up.”
That night, I was too wired to sleep or even to lie still on the little bed she’d prepared for me. I tossed and turned, and every time I even tried to close my eyes, I heard the door opening or the sound of his footsteps in the hall outside. I’d startle awake and begin the agitated cycle of fidgeting in my bed again. Late in the night, I heard a sound from Lexie’s bed, and then she reached down and fumbled for my hand. I let her take it. Then the soft sound of her slightly out-of-tone singing filled the dorm room.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
Do you know how loved you are?
In the morning, in the night.
I’ll love you with all my might.
I was asleep before she even made it through the verse.
I never told her about Robert—although I thought about it. I’d get all psyched up to confess what had really happened back at Winterton—but the words would stall and then die in my throat. She was so happy, positively thriving at college...and I was half-terrified she’d blame herself for leaving me, and half-terrified she’d blame me for letting him do it.
Unlike Lexie, I left the community without a plan, and also unlike Lexie, I immediately began to flounder. She had lived with Captain Edwards and his wife until she found her feet, all the while finishing high school and charting a course to med school. To support herself at college, she worked nights as a nursing assistant at a nursing home, she was a dorm leader on campus and she was tutoring. All of this was necessary to make ends meet without the added burden of her little sister in tow. Luckily, she managed to convince the dorm administrators to let me live with her for at least a few months while we figured out what to do.
I’d been in the community for six years. I’d never been a teenager without the structure of the church. I didn’t even know where to start. Lexie figured out the details and enrolled me at a high school, but I struggled from the very first class. I had no idea about basic science—or how to structure an essay. Even my math skills were patchy because the church school paid lip service to state requirements for the girls’ curriculum. After all, women were never allowed to work outside the home, or even to manage their own finances, so why learn algebra?
“It was hard for me, too, at first,” Lexie reassured me when I came home in tears the first day. “I’ll help you study. You’re smart, Annie. You can catch up.”
“But you at least got to do that accelerated science and math program,” I sniffed. “And I don’t have your wonder-brain. I’m not a genius like you.”
“You just need to work a little bit harder till you catch up. You can do this, Annie.”
While academics were a struggle, they were nothing compared with the battle I faced socially. I had no idea how to interact with the other students, and just dealing with the crowds at the enormous high school was enough to leave me feeling a constant sense of panic. Whenever I was out of the classroom and on the busy grounds, or even in the cafeteria or school assemblies, I felt singled out. It was as though every person in the crowd knew my secret—that I was different and broken—and at any moment, someone was going to point it out. Sometimes when I felt that panic, I’d find myself confused about where I was. Was I in the cafeteria, or in the worship hall? Was it an ordinary lunch day, or was I being brought before the congregation to confess?
I was on edge all of the time, and it was exhausting.
During this adjustment period, Lexie had limitless energy for me, but her time was scarce—she was working so hard. I was just one of the many complicated balls she had to juggle. I was grateful to her—but I was feeling increasingly depressed, although I barely had the words to express the darkening storm clouds in my mind.
I remained determined to make it work, though, and did my best to cope. I went to class as late as possible to avoid the crush in the halls, and ate lunch in an empty classroom alone. I read voraciously and figured out the essay thing, and was soon doing well again in English—but math and science were foreign languages that no one ever taught me to speak.
By the second semester, I was skipping the classes I didn’t enjoy. The upside was that one day while I was hiding from my teachers, I found an unlikely group of friends. They were also outcasts—a small, ragtag band of exceedingly dramatic kids with too much eyeliner and attitude. I didn’t exactly join their group, but became friendly enough with one or two of them to learn some tips on how to blend in.
Unsurprisingly, when the school year ended, I didn’t have nearly enough credits to progress to sophomore year. Lexie was absolutely livid. Up until that point, I’d rarely seen her angry.
“Don’t you understand, Annie? School is everything! How could you hide this from me? You need to go back to school next year and sort this out—you’ll redo your freshman year and make more of an effort this time!”
I’m smart—not Lexie smart, but smart enough to have a level of self-awareness. Smart enough to understand that since I left the community there have been two distinct parts to Annie Vidler. There is the regular, everyday me—and there is the Bad Me. The regular me runs on regular things and likes sappy movies and good books and golden sunsets. The regular me is a good friend and loves her sister and has quite a way with words.
Then there is the Bad Me. It’s the blackness—it’s the darkness—and under it all is the pain. The bad Annie can be dormant for months at a time, but she is easily aroused—all it takes is an authoritative tone or demanding voice or an accusation or a dismissive glance. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Bad Me is fueled by my hatred for Robert.
Understanding my pain does not mean I can control it.
Lexie didn’t even know about the Bad Me until she unwittingly unleashed her. All it took were those words and that tone—don’t you understand, Annie? You have to make this work—and I was completely out of control. The rage rose from somewhere deep and dark within me, and once it was unleashed, its appetite for destruction wouldn’t rest.
We had a huge argument and someone from an adjoining dorm room called campus security. When they came to check on us, I completely lost my mind. I don’t remember doing it—but later Lexie told me that I smashed a hole in her door.
That argument was the first time a tide of rage washed away my common sense. I was not going to be told what to do. I simply wasn’t—not even by Lexie. She wasn’t going to control me. No one was ever going to have the power to tell me how to live my life, not ever again.
I was still blind with fury when they dragged me out of the dorm room, a seething ball of anger—kicking and screaming and cursing the guards and Lexie and the world. She followed, still trying to calm me, still trying to intervene—until a group of her friends pulled her away.
I started to sober then, noticing at last the fear and the confusion in her eyes, but I didn’t really snap out of my fit of rage until the campus police dumped me at the school gates and told me not to come back. Their dismissal was like a fire hose turned upon the heat of my anger. It was a shock to return to earth only to realize that one mindless temper tantrum, and I had cost myself everything.
I slept under a bridge that night, and the next day, one of those sort-of-friends from school took me in. By the time I had cooled down enough to try to go back to the dorm, Lexie had been told I wasn’t allowed to stay with her anymore.
She still had twelve months to go on her undergrad degree, and now, because of me, we had nowhere to live.
That was the first time I messed up Lexie’s life.