The stark white porcelain stared up at her, a sole drop of brown having landed outside of the bowl. As she rocked over the bowl, waiting for the rest to come out, she tried to figure out where she had seen the particularly disgusting shade of brown before. “How had that been my breakfast,” she asked herself. She could feel herself shivering as she tried to remember the color and moved to sit with her back against the stall wall, the remains of the rest of her meal seemingly content to stay in her stomach. She then remembered where she had seen it before. It was the color of her fathers cigarette butts in the backyard after they had been rained on. The thought of her father finally brought the rest of her breakfast into the bowl. 

She had finally done it, just tossed everything into the back of her truck and left. Done while they were out getting groceries to avoid the fight. The only thing left that bore any part of her was a brief note, just to ensure no police would be sent looking for her. The last thing she needed today was to be handcuffed. Her nerves were already shot to hell and the idea of dealing with the police didn’t help those nerves to calm.

To the outside observer, she had no reason to do this drastic action. Her parents had been accepting, even if it had been a very hesitant acceptance. But nonetheless, acceptance it was. The very thing so many people craved and dreamed of from their parents, the slightest hint of understanding and approval. So why did she throw it, you ask? Because, dear reader, the acceptance her parents offered had neither understanding or approval. Rather it was begrudging acceptance, the kind a parent gives solely because they believe they must as a parent. The kind that grieves a person who never existed and asks you to understand how it’s so hard on them to see you do this. 

She had tried so, so hard to accommodate her parents. She had not corrected them on her pronouns to avoid the fight that would come if she did, just as she did not correct them as they made no effort to stop using that painful name. She bit her tongue when her father mocked her new name, knowing he was just bitter because she had cast his off. Even a person with her fear of confrontation and change has a limit though. In the end, the final straw was nothing particularly noteworthy. It was just an off hand comment about women never listening her dad had made. One he had made variations of thousands of times in her life. His attempting to include her in the joke at her mothers expense was not a new thing. It was just one step too far over the line to ignore any longer. It was then her mind decided. She had to get out. 

In the end, it had been a cold November afternoon that she left on. Although she had already secretly boxed her possessions up weeks beforehand, just waiting for an opportunity, it would be that day that she acted on it. It took thirty minutes for her to throw the last of her clothes in her suitcase and load everything into her truck. She put her phone into airplane mode and took off, vowing to never look at that house again as long as she lived. 

She made it twenty minutes on the expressway before her nerves caught up to her and threatened to coat the dash in her hasty sausage sandwich breakfast. The I-75 rest stop appeared just in time to save her poor dash from that terrible fate. She had no way to be able to tell how long she had been in that stall, bouncing between throwing up, bawling her eyes out, and feeling empty. 

Eventually, the door of the bathroom creaked open and soft steps started to patter across the tile floor. She knew she had to be quiet. She was in the women’s restroom after all and did not have the energy to fight for her right to be there after the day she had had. 

After a few moments of terrifying silence, the stranger spoke. “Um, not to be, like weird or anything, but are you okay? I can hear you crying from over here.”

She swallowed and spoke in her tired, hoarse, and tear soaked voice. “I’m alive. That’s about all I’ve got going for me.”

The sink ran for a moment and turned back off before the stranger spoke again. “Well that’s something at least. Better than the alternative.”

She stifled a laugh that tried to work its way out of her as she considered how to respond. “Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it?”

More steps on the cold tile floor. The stranger was moving, possibly for her stall or possibly for the door. She braced in case it was the former. The stranger spoke out again as she stopped walking, her voice echoing ever so slightly in the mostly empty bathroom. “It really is. Can’t live your life if you’re not alive.” The door creaked open after that and the pattering of the stranger’s shoes quickly quieted leaving only the sound of her own breathing to fill the large bathroom. 

She waited a few minutes to make sure the stranger wouldn’t be waiting outside the bathroom door and see what an awful mess she felt she must be at the moment before flushing the toilet for the final time and standing up. Giving a quick glance around the desolate restroom to ensure no one would be there to observe her, she walked to the sink and washed her hands and splashed water on her face, sparing a quick glance in the mirror to see just how bad she looked. Her eyes were red and puffy, the bags that lived under them seemingly having grown three sizes since she had last looked in a mirror that morning. 

Looking away from the mirror, fearful of what her brain would say if she dared to look longer than the few seconds she already had, she made for the door. Pulling on the cold steel handle, she found the door felt much heavier than she remembered it being just a few hours ago - a testament to just how much her crying session had taken out of her. Walking as quickly away from the women’s restroom as she felt she could without attracting suspicion, she made her way outside to be greeted by the yellow hues of the rest stop streetlights. She turned left to walk to her truck, the wind carrying a chill that was quickly seeping through her coat into her core.

Stepping into her truck, making sure to close and lock the door behind her, she pulled the engine key out of her pocket and put it into the ignition. Turning it just enough to turn on the battery but not the engine, she looked at the radio to find out the time. Eight - oh - seven. She stared at the time in shock for a moment before realizing that she was slowly draining her battery and turning the key to the off position before quickly sliding it out and back into her pocket. She had been in the bathroom for a little over three and a half hours. Not having the energy to process that revelation, let alone to safely drive somewhere else, she began to get ready to bed down in her truck in the parking lot for the night.

Setting her gym shoes in the passengers foot space and sliding her suitcase to sit standing up just behind them, she stretched out in the cab and found that she was several inches too tall to sleep fully stretched out. Settling for propping her feet up on the suitcase as a makeshift extension, she threw the blanket she had tossed onto her passengers seat over her to help ward off the inevitable chill that she knew would come while sleeping in a metal box. Pulling her phone out to set an alarm for six am, wanting to avoid staying longer than twelve hours at any one rest stop to avoid any possible trouble with the police, she debated turning her phone off of airplane mode just to see if her parents had even attempted to reach out to her. Deciding that she didn’t particularly feel like being misgendered and deadnamed at that particular moment, she set her phone in her jacket pocket and pulled the blanket up to her rapidly stiffening neck as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep for the first time as a free woman.