Yesterday's Feelings

"Eric, you can't just show up here three years after the fact and apologize. You can't just pretend that everything is okay, that nothing has changed, and that I can just leave with you!" I shouted at the older brown-haired, blue-eyed man standing in front of me.

But before I get in to who and why, let's rewind briefly.

My name is Ariana Mitchell and I'm now twenty-two years old. At age sixteen I ran away from an abusive home and spent two-years on the streets. I met some amazing people along the way before ending up in California. A pastor and his wife took me in before he found a home for me, through a friend of his. The home led to a job, a great one, being a personal assistant turned athlete manager for one of the biggest snowboard equipment and outerwear manufactuers in the world.

But, all good things must come to an end. The world came crashing down little by little at first. My mom was diagnosed with Cancer. I stayed with her for some time until I decided I would return to work. It was a little over three months later when both my mother and step-father were killed in a car accident involving a car full of young teens on a back-country road.
I left my job immediately and flew home to New York, caring for the only immediate family member I had left in the world, my little sister who was three at the time. Miraculously she survived with only bruises and scratches. Faced with the harsh reality of now having another person so dependent on me, I chose not to return to the life of traveling, parties, and gorgeous sights to which I had become accustomed.

I buried my mother with my late father (my real father) who died when I was 14 in a robbery gone wrong. In line with the wishes of his own family (one which I hardly knew) I had my step-father cremated and scattered his ashes. Some with my mother and father, some were kept for my sister Danielle (his daughter) for when she was older, and the rest given to his family to spread wherever they chose.

I took a job making minimum wage but found myself unhappy and unable to meet the burden of caring for myself and Danielle. I quickly took on another job. I worked this way, with two jobs, and taking online courses to prepare for my GED test for nearly a year before I landed a cushy receptionist job at an upscale law firm that was willing to pay me a considerable amount more than what I was making at either minimum wage job. I even got a pay raise for getting my GED. I've been working at the firm for two years, having moved around a few times and have since ended up as a lead receptionist in the firm, working for one of the partners.

Early mornings getting Danielle up, making her lunch, off to school, and to the office by nine was not the life I had envisioned for myself three years ago. I honestly thought I'd be managing athletes and traveling the globe, but oh how things change so fast. Watching my sister grow up and getting to see the things that my mother is missing out on, while heartbreaking, is something I wouldn't change for the world.

Which leads me to the young men now standing in front of me outside of the bar where I had met with a few co-workers and the firm's partners to unwind after work. Honestly, that in and of itself was a rarity— I hardly had enough time to call a sitter. None the less here we were face to face after three years apart, the words spoken between the two of us had been, maybe, two years ago.

"Why? Why'd you just run away from all of us like that?" The older man, Eric, slurred at me as his tone clearly indicated he was as enraged as I was, only he was angry at the way I had left.

"Eric, This isn't the time or place bud." Another voice rang out as an even older gentleman with dreads, the man's brother John, put his arm around the other.

John and I had stopped talking perhaps a year ago. It wasn't that I really wanted to, I lost my phone in a cab and his number was in it. We had kept in touch after my parents died, after I left, through everything. He was the one piece of my past I hadn't wholly let go of, the one piece I really didn't want to let go of.

I sighed and walked away from the two men standing there though I could hear Eric drunkenly struggling against his brother. I couldn't deal with him right now. Not in front of the people who were signing my paychecks and most certainly not in front of a room full of strangers who didn't know anything about me or the situation I had been in.

I quietly excused myself from the table where my co-workers and boss was, I threw down a couple of dollars for my drinks and made a bee-line for the door. However, as fast as my legs could carry me to the exit, it was not fast enough to make Eric's words that were shouted as I exited the bar didn't sting any less.

"Go ahead, run away, It's what you're good at!"