You Told Me To Walk So I Walked Right Out Of Your Lives Chapter 34
Later, we officially registered the studio as a nonprofit learning center.
Our income came from my drawings and the classes we offered.
Miller insisted on counting the medical bills from years ago as our first official donation.
I didn’t argue with her.
She taped the receipt to the office wall and wrote a line beside it:
Do not repay.
After Leo saw it, he picked up a pen and added another line below:
Agreed.
I glared at him.
He immediately put the pen down.
“Director, I was only expressing an opinion.”
“You can teach one extra class today.”
“Yes, Director.”
Life became busy.
Sometimes, I still dreamed of the car parked on that service road.
But when I woke up, I could see the class schedule on my desk and hear Miller next door complaining that Leo was being too loud.
The door in my dreams had closed.
The door in reality stayed open.
On the learning center’s first anniversary, the local television station came to interview me again.
It was the same station that had gone to the Santoro house years ago.
The reporter asked me, “If you could go back to the day you turned eighteen, what would you most want to change?”
I thought for a moment.
“I wouldn’t take that shortcut.”
The reporter looked surprised.
“That’s all?”
“Not because what happened afterward was my fault.”
I looked straight into the camera.
“But because the me I am now knows that protecting yourself doesn’t mean you’ve lost.”