We bury our feelings, bury our heads and walk away from situations, but I did

something I never wanted to do, ever: I buried my dad and then I went on to face my

worst nightmare.

I should have known there was something wrong with me the first time I ran into

the middle of the street and was hit by a cab. I got up like nothing was wrong. I should

have been dead. There’s no denying that. The cab driver was all bloody and I barely had

any scratches on my little body. He rolled down his window and kept apologizing. He

didn’t see me there. I wasn’t following a ball into the street or my parent’s puppy. That

would have made sense, but that wasn’t what I was following.

I was only four then. I still remember it though. It should have traumatized me,

but it didn’t. That was normal. I heard voices often. They would tell me to do things. At

first I thought I was crazy, but that wasn’t it. Those voices were real. They would tell me

to run into the street. It’s what happened when I got hit by the cab. I didn’t know why

they told me to do the things I ended up doing. It just sort of happened that way and I

listened.

            First it was the cab, and then it was running onto the tracks down near the

subway. After that it was walking on one of the narrow ledges of the skyscraper near my

parents’ house. I was in and out of that hospital often. My parent’s called me their

miracle child. I never died, even though I should have. I even managed to jump off a

second story building and lived. It was those damn voices. They were always provoking

me to do something stupid. I followed though. I couldn’t help it. Something always

pulled me in the direction of danger.

I should have been grateful because something stopped me from dying.

Something helped me fight to live. There was a reason for my living. I don’t know what

it was though. I was glad to be alive, but I felt like I was operating on borrowed time. I

often felt like a freak of nature. I should have been in someone’s personal museum, not

living a normal life.

They named me Abigail after my great-great grandmother. I felt like there was

some connection to my great-great grandma. It wasn’t just because we shared the same

name. I overheard my mom tell my dad that similar things happened to her grandma. She

said it still happened when she was little and now it was happening to me.

It was good to know I wasn’t the only one who heard those voices. I wondered if

it was a girl thing. I wondered if my mom heard them too, but knew how to ignore them.

I needed to learn how to ignore them or one day they would get me into a mess I

wouldn’t know how to get out of.