Page 6 of Rebel

At the door, I paused.Something made me turn back, though I couldn’t have said what.“When does it stop?”

Dr.Winters looked up from gathering his things.“When does what stop?”

“The feeling that they’re still…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

His expression softened with understanding.“It changes.With time, with support, with work.It doesn’t disappear, but it transforms into something you can carry without it crushing you.”

I nodded once, a sharp dip of my chin.Not a thank you, not quite an acknowledgment.Just a motion to end the conversation.

I left Building C with my discharge paperwork signed and my head high.The Georgia sun hit my face, warm and bright, a stark contrast to the cold fluorescent lighting inside.The air smelled like pine trees and diesel fuel -- the familiar scent of an Army base that had once felt like home.

Two weeks, and I’d never smell it again.Two weeks, and I’d be free.Free to run as far and as fast as I wanted.

Dr.Winters was wrong.I could outrun this.I could outrun anything if I just kept moving.

I had to believe that.

Chapter Two

Rio

The room looked emptier than it had any right to.Two years in the Army, and I’d accumulated almost nothing that mattered.A few clothes.A laptop.Some books I never had time to read.Everything I owned would fit in a duffel bag.Twenty minutes to pack, then I’d be gone, like I’d never existed here at all.

The bed was already stripped, sheets washed and folded in a neat stack on the bare mattress.The closet held my uniforms -- two sets of ACUs, one service uniform.I took them off their hangers one by one, folding and rolling them with crisp, precise movements, muscle memory from countless inspections guiding my hands.

My fingers lingered on the sleeve of my service uniform.I’d worn it exactly three times.Basic graduation.The promotion ceremony when I made E-3.The memorial service for a soldier in my unit who died in a training accident.I’d never wear it again.Another life, discarded like a snake shedding its skin.

I packed my civilian clothes next.Jeans.T-shirts.The one dress I owned for occasions that never seemed to happen.Everything folded and rolled to the exact same dimensions, arranged in the duffel bag like pieces of a puzzle.

Everything except the Army shirts.I lifted the my faded PT shirt, held it between my hands.The fabric was soft from countless washes, the letters cracked and peeling.Army.Such a simple word for something that had defined my whole existence.Something I’d believed in.

“Fuck you,” I whispered to the shirt, then packed it anyway.Precise corners.Exact creases.I stuffed it down the side of bag.I wasn’t taking it because I wanted to remember.I was taking it because I didn’t want to forget what happens when you trust too much, believe too deeply.

The nightstand drawer contained the few personal items I’d kept.A photo of my mom from before she got sick.The last birthday card she’d given me before cancer took her when I was sixteen.A smooth stone I’d picked up from the lake where we’d scattered her ashes.A silver necklace with a small pendant -- her gift for my eighteenth birthday, the day I’d enlisted.Even though Mom had died before that, she’d made arrangements for it to be delivered to me.I hadn’t worn it since the night it happened.Couldn’t bear to, knowing they’d touched it when they’d…

My hands froze mid-motion.Breathe.Just breathe through it.I tucked the necklace into the side pocket of the duffel bag, wrapped in tissue paper like something precious and breakable.

Like me.

I caught my reflection in the mirror as I zipped my toiletry bag closed.Strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a severe ponytail.Blue eyes that used to spark with humor, now watchful and guarded.Freckles scattered across pale skin that hadn’t seen much sun lately.I hardly recognized myself.

“Rio Taylor,” I said to the reflection, testing the name like it belonged to someone else.In a way, it did.The Rio who had enlisted -- eager, idealistic, desperate to belong somewhere after years of foster homes and group housing -- that girl was gone.I didn’t know who was taking her place yet.Just that she was harder.Angrier.Less trusting.

Maybe that was better.

Back in the bedroom, I pulled my laptop from the desk and wrapped the cord around it neatly before sliding it into its case.The desk drawer held my discharge paperwork, the pamphlets from Dr.Winters, and the plain white business card with his direct line.I almost left them behind, a symbolic rejection of everything the Army wanted me to do -- get help, get better, move on quietly.Instead, I tucked them into the laptop case.Not because I planned to use them, but because part of me -- a small, scared part I didn’t want to acknowledge -- was afraid I might need them someday.

Everything essential was packed in twenty minutes flat.Military efficiency, turned toward escape rather than duty.I stood in the center of the room again, duffel bag at my feet, and took one last look around.

My gaze fell on the car keys laying beside a map of the United States I’d bought yesterday at the PX.I picked it up and unfolded it.I’d already marked my route with a red pen -- Georgia to Tennessee to Arkansas to Oklahoma, then straight west through the Texas panhandle to New Mexico, Arizona, finally California.No timeline.No reservations.Just the open road and as much distance as I could put between me and this place.

I traced the line with my finger, imagining empty highways and anonymous motel rooms.Different towns every night.Different faces.Places where no one knew my name or what had happened to me.Places where I could be anyone I wanted.

“One month max in any place,” I said aloud, making the rule real by speaking it.“First sign of trouble, move on.”

Trouble meant different things now.Men who looked at me too long.Rooms with only one exit.People who asked too many questions about my past.Anyone in uniform.I had a mental list of triggers a mile long, things that made my heart race and my palms sweat.Easier to run than face them.Easier to keep moving than to risk getting trapped again.

I folded the map along its creases, tucked it into my pocket, and picked up my keys.The metal was cool against my palm, the weight familiar and comforting.Freedom, right there in my hand.

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