Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta power. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta power. Mostrar todas las entradas

lunes, 29 de febrero de 2016

I did it

    I did it. I have to acknowledge, after long hours of thinking and deciding was it’s best, that I do have to consider what I have done and said. The fact that now I present myself as a guilty man, does not mean that I think that everything that happened that night and the following years, was all under my control. As you know, things can happen and we just can’t control ourselves, we are driven by something else, some other version of us that is more primal and simpler or more sophisticated and brilliant. No, I’m not trying to excuse myself but I am trying to explain what I think that has to be explained. After all, many of you would be reading this wondering how I ended up here.

 They have labeled me as someone with privilege and I have to accept that my life has been much richer in objects and shallow things that most people’s. I had the chance of having been born into a family that was able to provide with many things, many which were useful like education and others that could have gotten me away from this mess. I don’t blame, at all, my parents or anyone else for what happened. I know that it was me, and me only, who caused so much pain and misery. But I cannot talk about all of this and ignore the fact that I was able to spend money when others weren’t able to do it. Yes, I was privileged but in no way have I ever been rich, loaded with some many things I couldn’t remember all of them. That’s not my life, don’t believe that from them.

 I started writing this letter because my therapist thought it would be easier for me to talk about all of this in this form. I have never really been one to write or to ever think much about anything. But this trial, this process, it has taken over seven years of my life. I was another person when I did it. I do not mean that I am less guilty because of that but I think it’s important you understand every single aspect of this situation from my point of view. After all, al of this time you have seen me as an evil character, someone worst than the devil, like a serial killer or something. And that’s not me. I do have a soul and I do have a brain and feelings.

 The hardest part of this whole process has been having my parents live it with me. They didn’t deserve to be drawn into this vortex of media frenzy, hate from every corner and suppositions and insults and so many other things that have made this time a living hell. I don’t say I don’t deserve it but they are innocent in all of this. My upbringing had nothing to do with why I did it, they didn’t have anything to do with it because they were great parents, they were great people who I actually pushed away in that moment and I do believe that if I had being closer to them, if I had been a good son, maybe I wouldn’t be writing this letter from a rusty table in a very small cell of a major prison.

 About life in jail, I do not want to talk about. It is well known that I have avoided death several times here. They think I’m far worse than them and I honestly don’t know if that’s true. But if I have to remain here for the rest of my life, I want to live as long as they do, as comfortably as they do, because they do have many things here, like outside. The men that have tried to hurt me are the ones that handle a small black market that trades every single thing you can imagine, even those razors they have tried to use to kill me. But I have to say here, without any modesty, that they have nothing to do with me in a fight. They might be big and tough and now the drug world and the hard life but my life had rough patches too and during many of those times I learned a couple of things.

 No, I don’t really want to sound like a bad guy. Maybe I am but I do not want to sound like that. I just think I just should be given the same chances that everyone else has. But I know I am here and that I will possibly live here until I die so at least I want to make this work. Yes, that doesn’t make any sense but I don’t think it has to have any sense at all. I did something wrong, a bit drunk and high but I did it and now, I think I can take the punishment. Because I did it and I have to recognize that. I did do it and I am sorry.

 I know that, for many years during the trial and all of the process, my lawyer has insisted that I was so wasted, so consumed by marihuana and cocaine and booze that I had no idea about anything, that I couldn’t have done even if that had been my intention. The truth is I do remember some flashes, like fragments of my memory and I have to confess they are very confusing. I do not now if I remember those parts more because my brain was really fucked up or because I have chosen unconsciously to only remember bits and pieces.

 I do remember the party. Fuck, that was a huge party and the kind of party I had gone to many times without anything weird happening. I’m not proud of it, but back then I was just starting my career and I had so much going on. I was very popular in every sense possible and successful too, so people liked to make me feel special and tended to my every need as if I was an all powerful being that needed to be pampered every single second of his life. And I was. Many brought me alcohol, others brought me drugs and others brought themselves. And we would party all night.

 Another confession: I was in the closet during all those years. I had never dared to publicly tell anyone that I fucked men but people that knew me really well did know and I think some of them are responsible for what happened to Blake. I mean, I did it and I acknowledge that but they should be here too.

 After all one of them was his cousin. He brought me cocaine and other stuff that I would use in private with my lovers. Yes, because I had many. Back then, I had bought this nice apartment, nothing too fancy, and that was where everything happened. My business grew in there, all the parties and the craziness happened there and what happened and got me here also happened there. I wasn’t thinking, that is obvious. I wasn’t smart enough to know that many of those people that fed me all of those things I consumed were not my friends; they didn’t really want me as a significant part of their lives. They were just leeches, taking away things from me and I didn’t even saw it.  I actually think I didn’t want to see it because it would have been obvious otherwise.

  They did fake it for long and just like Robert, Blake’s cousin; they all brought me things that I would enjoy. He was the one who gave Blake to me as a present and I have to confess Blake didn’t know anything or at least he didn’t seem to know anything. I cannot say anything for sure and I wouldn’t be the kind of person to blame the victim. As I have said many times, it’s Roberts fault and mine, of course. He brought to my birthday party and just presented him as a friend. I did like him because he’s a beautiful guy but the party went on and I don’t remember launching myself at him from the first second.

 I was too busy getting high and performing that sick and stupid persona I had created for everyone else to see. It was such a fake, such a false representation of what I was. Or rather, what I had been. Because just a few years earlier, before money and false friends, I was a guy trying to live his life and even falling in love. I was normal and I was a human and I do believe I’m a human now, even if many of you don’t think so. I have feeling and I know that because I have barely endured all of these years trying not to be consumed by my own hatred, by guilt and so much pain. Because what I did not only affect one person. It also affected me. I know, I am not the victim but that’s how I feel.

 The fact is, however, that I vaguely remember finally speaking to him. I was drunk but I tried to make me look great in front of him. Then my memory goes very blurry, I think we did cocaine and he was wasted much faster than me. The next fragment I have in my head is him falling slowly on my bed, the sound of the music far away and me trying to take off his jeans. I remember him fighting, I do remember it… Oh my god, I remember. He was fighting, as much as he could and he couldn’t do much. The cocaine had gotten into him all right. Then, the next image is me forcing myself onto him and my hand feeling wet over his mouth.


 Then, I woke up the following morning, alone. And then the path to this cell started. I did rape him and I know that now, I accept it now, It is I fact and I am ashamed of it. I do blame drugs and alcohol and also Robert for having had the audacity to do that, almost setting a trap for me to fall into. But the fact remains that I did it, that I am guilty. And I would repeat this as many times as it’s necessary. Because I have come to the conclusion that I cannot live in this way any longer. I want peace. I did it.

sábado, 12 de diciembre de 2015

Soon

   His body entered the water slowly and was soon covered in foam that smelled of vanilla. He sat down on the edge of the enormous Jacuzzi and just closed his eyes and pulled his head back. Adam was trying to relax after the party he had thrown, a luncheon in honor of all the donors that had decided to give money to the hospital his foundation ran. They were all nice people, always smiling and nodding and shaking hands with one another. Adam knew most of them really well, from other events and from social encounters, and he knew most of them wee awful people.

 He took advantage of their guilt to fuel his philanthropic endeavors with all the money they had to give which was a lot. They were owners of huge companies and brands and taking a thousand dollars out of their bank account was almost unnoticeable. Their guilt came from the fact that most of them were always doing something behind close doors, whether it was having an affair, or having links with organized crime or having some sort of sickness or condition that they didn’t want anyone to find out about, among other reasons.

 It’s not like they knew Adam knew but rather than they used any social service available to atone for their sins and guilt. For Adam, who was a young businessman and also the owner of several companies, that had to be taken advantage of, instead of potentially loosing that money to other “causes” like prostitutes or alcohol. He didn’t have to threaten or to convince anyone, they just did what he expected them to do and that had always been the case even when his father was alive.

 It had been five years ago that his father had died and had left him in charge of every single one of the companies he owned and also in possession of most of his estates. Of course, his siblings had attempted to fight this will but he soon clarified no one would be kicked out of nowhere and there would be no fighting among family members. He distributed the estate and was sure everyone was represented in the various businesses they had. That way he earned his family’s trust and also the respect of their community of wealth.

 In time, with his keen eye for business, he managed to win the respect of every single company owner in the country and was able to prove to them that his young age was not a downside of who he was but rather and interesting and potentially key characteristic. After all, his father had died when he was just twenty-seven years old and many in the companies and among his family thought he wasn’t mature enough. He had an older sister and his dad had partners who were more experienced. But the will of his father was respected and he ended up being what they all needed in order not to let everything be lost.

 However, he wasn’t perfect himself. It was not that Adam had any obvious flaw but rather that he had too much interest in his rivals and friends. He had many of them watched by private investigators, forming kind of a team that revealed to him every little dirty secret they all had behind close doors. This gave him the advantage in every business negotiation because, although he would never blackmail anyone, he knew how to use those secrets in his own advantage. He was truly obsessed with getting to know everything about a person and wouldn’t let his investigators rest if they hadn’t found anything meaty.

 In that luxurious bathtub, he would often have a bath, as he would check all the files on his investigations. He was very adamant that if there wasn’t any interesting discovery in the first month, he normally left the person alone unless it was a current rival of sorts. He didn’t want to be using all of that to be a rat. Business was business and that’s what it was all about but personal things, very personal ones were just out of bounds. He had discovered, for example, how some people he investigated were HIV positive or had cancer. This for example was never used against them and the files he had were destroyed because that was personal.

 What he liked to find was something like a love affair, like some weird transaction with the mob or something like that. Both those things made people feel very guilty and guilty people are not good for business. It was very easy beating them in that arena where he had learned to excel from a young age, thanks to the tutoring of his father. He used those really silly secrets to make them tremble in their pants and from there his victory was already settled.

 The fun thing about it all was that Adam tried to be the contrary of all those rivals. First of all, he wasn’t stupid enough to do something crooked. He had all kinds of advisors and people working for him that would tell him if he was making a mistake or how to achieve something without the need of dirty money or cheating. If he didn’t saw an honest way to do something, he simply didn’t do it. He was rich enough so it wasn’t that bad not to win more money. He wasn’t driven by money because he had learned to control his thirst for power.

 Besides, he was very open about his life, both personal and in business and was always very clear that he didn’t answer to any one in his personal decisions and that only his family mattered in his business ones. That was it so he wasn’t the best media character, even if some news outlets loved to show some pictures of him hugging beautiful models, kissing men and women or having luxurious holidays in some faraway hotspot.

 Adam was not about settling, that was true. He wouldn’t marry any women because he thought that kids would come soon and he didn’t wanted children not to have a father. Because he was always away for business, was always focused on that and had only a few very well defined moments during the week when he could just relax. He didn’t think a wife and kids deserved that, even if it came with all the money and privilege he had to offer. His mother insisted that he got married to continue the line and have someone inherit all of it when he died. And she was right but he had no idea how to accomplish that.

 He had also thought of the option of marrying a man but that had the same problems, minus the conceiving part that would be replaced by the whole process of adoption or by them using a surrogate mother, which was his favorite option of the two. Any way, he wouldn’t have time for them and he wanted to be able to share everything.

 The bottom thing was that he needed to love someone and that didn’t happen. He had sex often enough and went into dates and was charming as a man could be, but no one had really made him think about them as a potential wife or husband. He was very nice and a complete gentleman with them but he needed someone that gave him something he didn’t have, that made him feel unbalanced but, at the same time, that made him feel like everyone with that person was worth it.

 Adam was not very big on the concept of love. He thought it more like an alliance of sorts were two people realize they have to be together because they work much better as a team. He knew many people like that, friends and family, and he had the image of his parents, who had always loved each other just like that, helping each other and being the best partners one could ever see.

 With the soothing sound of water around him, Adam realized that some day he would want children, that one day he would want to wake up and find someone he loved to smell next to him. He was only thirty two years old and thought that maybe it could happen the next day or in a couple of years but he was sure it would happen because, sometimes, he felt that need but it wasn’t as strong as it could be. He knew it wasn’t strong enough yet.


 He then stood up and walked naked towards a wall, where some wind blowers dried him up. He had to stand there like the Vitruvius man, feeling the soft caress of all that wind. Then, his mouth began to feel dry and the world around him started to get distorted. He felt dizzy and tried to hold on to the well but he just fell to the ground, a marvelous granite floor.

lunes, 21 de septiembre de 2015

Queen of tragedy

   The devastation brought by the wave could be seen easily from the castle, which had been built in a peninsula that shoot straight into the ocean with a very high elevation. The waves that attacked the city did not really affect the castle or the people inside it, although they did feel the arrive of the killing water and saw how it engulfed the whole fishing town that was located very close to the castle. Every little boat and those small and weak houses were rapidly destroyed by the wave. The people didn’t even have time to pray or to scream. The wave was just too fast and too destructive, it didn’t leave a thing standing. The people in the castle, including Princes Ariana, were all horrified. She sent some soldiers after it happened but, as they were about to go out, another wave, even taller than the last one, hit the beach.

 No one could have survived that. And the thing now was that, because of the second wave, the access to the castle had been flooded. Until the waters receded, they were all trapped there, without any communication with the rest of the world. Ariana’s father, the King, had left the day before to attend a very traditional ceremony in an inland town and her mother the Queen had also left to visit her brother who was a duke in some region south of the castle. Ariana was alone and needed desperately to talk to someone, as she was very perturbed by the images of water hitting the fishing town with such vile and strength. She remained in the chapel for a whole day, praying and asking God for the souls that had been lost. She asked “why”.

 But, of course, she never got an answer. After that time, the princess tried to help the people that were inside the castle and organize everything for every single person to have a ration of food. She had no idea how much time that could last but she would at least try to help them as only she could do it. At the end of the day, the castle was hers, her domain, and everyone inside it had to hear her until the King or the Queen came back. The day after the waves hot the coast, the castle started to receive various letters sent by aerial means (pigeons, mostly). Many were soldiers informing of the situation on their towns and others were people, asking for help as the situation was very dire. It was a surprise to see letters from far inland and the Ariana’s heart stopped for a moment.

 She asked her helpers to look for letter from a specific location. There was only one letter and it was from a farmer. He said the wave had flooded his field and now his crops had been destroyed, so he had no means to sustain his family or to trade with others. He also mentioned, although briefly, that the nearby town had been flooded too and festivities had been cancelled. Ariana breathed out. Her father was probably okay but she needed to be sure. She asked her servants to answer the letter she had just read and do what they could to locate his father and help that poor man with his crops. She owed him, or at least she felt so.

 Ariana did the same thing to know if her mother was okay but there were no letters from that region in the big pile that had arrived during the day. More pigeons entered the castle during the day, but almost all came from very nearby, were apparently the stench of death was already hard to ignore. People said that there were no victims, as the people who sent the pigeons were merchants that traveled from town to town and saw what happened all around them. Apparently the fishing town couldn’t be saved and the most awful part of it all was that everyone could easily see the ruins of the town from the castle. It was so close but at the same time it had such a different faith than the people hidden in the castle.

 They received a letter from the King the day after that. He informed the people that he had been injured by the flooding, that had taking everyone by surprise. He was in bed with a very swollen ankle, product of a fall as he escaped the water towards higher ground. The doctor said that it was easy to cure but that he had to stay there for some day, at least a week, to make his leg better. Ariana read the letter in front of everyone and even shared with the people the nice adjectives he had for her. He said that the castle was in hands of the princess and that everyone had to respond to her orders and listen to her lead, as she was the only person with authority to be there with them.

 These words from her father made Ariana feel very happy and also very important. She had never done much in the castle or even in her life, only being a nice girl that sits correctly whenever an important visitor comes and that leaves for her room to do nothing at all there, except if you consider combing your hair or looking at your dresses some sort of job. The truth was that Ariana was thrilled to finally have some responsibility and taste, however short it may last, the sweetness and pleasure to share her kindness with her people and with everyone that wrote the letters that kept coming into the castle. On the fifth day, the waters finally receded and soldiers were sent to every single nearby that to assess the situation.

 The small fishing port had not been the only one to be destroyed completely. A very large portion of the coast had been devastated by that same wave, ten meter tall or more, so many towns had suffered the same faith. Even some soldiers that decided to check on the state of the castle came with urgency to see the princess and asked her to put some men to work. Apparently, the bases of the castle had been shaken very seriously and repairs had to be made in order for it not to fall into the ocean. A small army of men was hired to do those works and the proper army was tasked with burning every corpse they saw and help survivors, if any. There were not to many.

 The first week was difficult for Ariana, specially when a merchant that sold fur came into town and old everyone how the wave had destroyed the region south of the castle. He swore the smell was too overwhelming and bodies piled up on both sides of the roads. Ariana felt awful and sent some soldiers right then but it was useless. The man was right; there was nothing but destruction, especially because in the south there were no hills or mountain. It was a big plain and now it was something like a swamp, with flies flying all over it and over the bodies of hundred of people. One of those was the Queen, who had died with her brother as they were outside the duke’s house when tragedy came. Being inside, wouldn’t have changed a thing, though.

 The princess tried not to cry when she received a pigeon telling her of her mother’s death. She only asked for the soldiers to bring her body and that of the duke, if they found him. Some days later the dead body of the Queen arrived into town and a rapidly organized funeral was arranged. Ariana would have loved to have her father there to comfort her but was now having a very dangerous fever and his doctor recommended for him to stay were he was, as any trip might be too dangerous for him. So she had to bury her mother alone, in the family mausoleum. Many people attended the funeral and she wasn’t surprised, as her mother had always being loved by her people.

 Ariana, in the inside, was devastated. Now she didn’t want any responsibility or to grow up, she didn’t want to be the woman who ruled over the kingdom. And even if she was the last royal, she would have to marry to be able to exercise her role as Queen. It hurt her to be thinking of such things, as if her father was dead too but he wasn’t, he was just injured and she wanted to be with him but then no one would stay behind to help the people that needed the family. Some of her father’s helpers wanted her to leave to have a free reign over everything but she refused to go and even jailed some of those who pretended for her to leave the city and stay away from the corruption.

 Only two weeks after the waves hit the coast, the King came back to town. But Ariana suffered once more because he wasn’t doing as well as the doctor had said. Unsurprisingly, the doctor had left the party that accompanied her father. She ordered soldiers to execute him if they ever saw him. But the most important thing for her was to see her father, which whom she talked privately and summoned a religious authority and a lawmaker. After some days, the King was too weak to keep talking and he eventually died from his wounds and mistreatment. His funeral was attended by all and he was buried in the crypt next to his wife.


 Everyone was more surprised, however, with the fact that a new law had been enacted the day before the king’s death. It liberated his daughter of marriage and gave her the power to rule the kingdom as Queen. People didn’t know whether to celebrate or not. But eventually, they would know the answer to that question.

viernes, 28 de agosto de 2015

In their minds

   Joanna let her tray fall flat to the ground; make a very loud sound and spilling everything everywhere. Everyone around her stopped right where they were and looked at her, as if she had exploded herself. She had fallen to her knees and was grabbing her head, saying something very fast over and over and over. Some people tried to get close and help her but they would suddenly get a horrible headache. One teacher started bleeding through the nose and young girl fainted. But after a couple of minutes, Joanna fainted and she was taken to a hospital. Everyone in the school talked about it for days and concluded, very fast, that she was just insane. It wasn’t unheard of that students could become crazy and that’s what everyone thought had happened to Joanna.

 But in the hospital, the doctors did not find any anomalies on her brain or anywhere else. Her body was in perfect shape except for the fact that this was the third time she was admitted for a similar event. However, this time seemed to be special as, a full day after the incident, she was still sleeping and the doctors could not do anything to wake her up. Her mother, father and brother came in and tried to help the doctors but it was useless. Joanna would remain sleeping and also mumbling whatever word or words she had thought about just as the incident happened. Her mother stay in the hospital with her a whole week until finally Joanna woke up, as if nothing had happened. She was scared. She had no idea what had happened and the fact that a week had passed her by didn’t help to calm her down.

 The doctors checked her up one last time but couldn’t find anything abnormal. They asked Joanna’s mother to get her to a psychiatrist in order to help them with her problems at school. He had said it as if Joanna had done something awful to one of the students or something but the truth was that every time something happened, Joanna suffered the only real injuries. The nosebleeds and fainting were nothing compared to what she described as a massive headache, where she could hear many voices inside her head. But these voices were not random ones but the voices of her classmates, her teachers, her family… Something was very wrong with her and it was Joanna who first said so in therapy.

 She went to the psychiatrist two times per week and her parents decided to home school her, at least for the remainder of the school year. It was obvious she wasn’t ready to be with other kids and seeing them everyday after what they had seen her go through was clearly not the best idea in the world. And the truth was she didn’t miss anything about school. After the first incident, when she had started screaming in gym class, every single one of her so-called friends stopped talking to her. They only looked at Joanna as if she was a freak and made noises and mocked her. So she was happy to get rid of that.

 Her parents did not know this. Only the psychiatrist knew and she had told Joanna that it was very normal to see fear as a reaction when people didn’t know what was happening. In their sessions, they always talked about the voices in her head and that, once she had realized they were the voices of her classmates, she could choose to hear one of them over the others. And that made her even more nervous. When she let the tray go in the middle of the cafeteria, she had happened to break in the thoughts of a boy she had always found mysterious and handsome. And inside of him, he heard the most awful things, thoughts of suicide and of killing others. He felt guilty and alone. For her, it had been very painful to hear him in her head, so she let the tray go and screamed.

 The psychiatrist thought that Joanna was internalizing a lot of anxiety and had created this “power” in order to get attention. She thought Joanna had channeled a huge amount of feelings into one single event and now she thought she heard people’s thoughts. In the following sessions, the doctor tried to get Joanna to understand that what she heard was just herself. She had created this great power but now she had to let her go in order to get better. Joanna did as the therapist said and followed her every advice. She began doing yoga to relax the mind and started talking to her mother and father in order to have a better connection to them, as a real family should be.

 The truth was they had always been a little bit too private. Her parents were the kind of people that think that their children should be shielded against everything, even the fact that the parents are humans and have feelings and failures too. It was hard for them to tear down that wall they had built around their two kids but day by day, they made progress and Joanna started to get better. She was smiling again and soon she had finished her school chores and exams. She did it sooner that her classmates in the actual school, so her parents and the therapist agreed that the best thing would be for her to get some responsibility.

As summer was beginning, her mother found her a job as a lifeguard in a public pool not very far from home. Joanna was not thrilled about the idea but decided that she could use the money and maybe it could be the beginning of her working life. The first day, it all went perfectly. She helped many children to their parents and even saved one girl that had fallen by accident. Many people praised her and thanked her. She saw many people that she knew from school but decided not to say a word to them. That was the past for her and she did not want to go back to it. That evening, she told everything about her day to her mother and she was happy that her daughter was so much better now.

 But then, it happened again. Joanna was in her post, looking at the kid’s pool when a gorgeous young man came in. He was very handsome and his swimming gear was perfect on him. Joanna smiled to him and he smiled back and then she could hear his thoughts. Only that this time, it wasn’t painful. She didn’t collapse or scream. She had learned to relax so the voice just came in and she heard him think that she had beautiful her. She went a bit red on the cheeks and decided to try it out with other people. She saw a mother with her child and heard her think about the father of his son and how worried she was he may not come back from his next business trip. Apparently, she though he was cheating on her.

 It was the best thing that had ever happened to her because she realized that her gift was not something awful and hurtful but a great way to know what people were thinking in order to make their day happier. She brought balloons for kids that were sad and tried to cheer up many people by doing fun activities like exercising in the water. She was glad to be of help and for people to finally like her as she really was. At night, she would write it all in a journal and even thought of telling herm other but she stopped short because she realized it would be too much of a crazy story for her to believe it. If she said anything maybe her mom would think she needed more help or something more permanent to help her and Joanna did not want to go to any more doctors.

 She did, however, go to her therapist one more time. It was her last appointment and she wanted very thing to go great but she had the feeling she had to tell someone about her powers and how now they were just good and under control. But the therapist was an adult and adults did not take these things as good things, always afraid of everything. She went through the whole session without any reference to her powers until the phone rang and she couldn’t resist knowing what it was about. She realized the therapist was talking to the boy she had heard in school, the one with suicidal thoughts. Joanna had described him to her. He was called Evan. And he was her next appointment.

 Without any hesitation, she asked her therapist if Evan was going to be ok. At first, the woman seemed surprised but then she calmed down. Joanna asked her if she believed in her powers now. She read her man and asked her why she was thinking Joanna was unbalanced. The doctor smiled and told Joanna that Evan had serious problems, because he had already tried to kill himself only a few days ago. Joanna went the rest of the session trying to pretend everything was fine but the truth was she remembered how Evan had felt in school and needed to see him herself. After the session, he was there and, crazy as it sounds, she talked in his mind, asking him to join her in the hall.


 She had no idea if that could work but moments later she heard Evan apologize to his mother and the doctor, saying he really needed to pee. He stepped outside and joined Joanna. They looked at each other. Evan was a little bit scared and shaken and Joanna was too but also hopeful of what her powers could do. Then, she just hugged him tight and he responded the same way. They did not say a word, only Joanna left another message in his mind: "call me soon". She left and he went inside. And they both felt better about themselves because they had realized they were never alone.