Free Go: A Surrender by Jane Nin Page A

terribly.
     
    And then, just as quickly, I stopped. Because a bigger,
calmer question appeared in my head to eclipse all the little panicky ones, and
that question was this:
     
    Who am I?
     
    I lay on the bed and rolled the question around in my head
like some kind of big, gleaming marble. The doors to the balcony were closed
against the storm outside, which had grown more significant and now pelted the
glass panes with drops and wet bits of leaf and twig, the wind pummeling the
windows and the sash and the hinges like some sort of being hell-bent on
getting in. It was dark out there, a scary, slate-colored dark, and when I
looked around the room it had become equally dark and indistinct, a memory,
almost, a half-drawn sketch of a place someone had once stayed.
     
    Leaving the crumpled note on the bed I walked to the balcony
doors. Across the street were these beautiful old buildings, their facades
darkened by the rain. Down below, cars swished through the watery streets with
their wipers beating frantically away. Even in foreign countries, most people
were living their little lives. Going to work. Going home again. Complaining about
the weather.
     
    What had I thrown away, really? A job I hated. It had been
armor against the world, but now I realized—why defend myself? Why not go out
into it undefended, and dare it to do its worst?
     
    I slid the latches on the balcony doors, first at the top,
then at the bottom, and barely touched my hand to the knob before the wind
enthusiastically slammed them open. It screamed into the room carrying more
rain with it, and the treetops outside tossed and churned like an audience
wildly applauding, and to my surprise the wind was not cold at all, but strange
and alive and warm.
     
    I am whoever I wish to be, came my answer, and the wind
tossed more rain in my face, anointing me.
     
     

13.
     
    I showered and combed out my storm-rumpled hair and put
myself on the plane as instructed. I was truly exhausted by then, and had hoped
to be able to sleep on the relatively short flight. I downed a glass of
champagne and closed my eyes, but my mind flashed ahead like a lit fuse. I
didn’t even have to stay in Houston. There was nothing keeping me there; all my
old school friends were finally gone. Which meant I could go anywhere. Anyplace
I’d ever been or loved. Someplace I’d never been at all.
     
    And what would I do?
     
    There I grew more anxious again. Certainly, I could get a
job, probably something similar to what I had been doing. I didn’t want to, but
necessities were necessities.
     
    A little voice in my head nudged, you won’t need a job,
silly, Jack is rich .
     
    But even if Jack wanted me—that is, wanted me for keeps,
which I was still afraid to hope for—I knew he wouldn’t want me to just be a
satellite. I should have my own goals, my own joys, my own orbit.
     
    At the moment, however, my orbit was on a collision path
with Jack’s. I might as well sit back and enjoy it. I checked my watch: an hour
left. I pulled my sleep mask over my face and finally drifted off.
     
    I had tried to temper my eagerness by telling myself that he
probably wouldn’t be meeting me at the airport, so when I saw Jack’s face
searching for me in the crowd descending the escalator I felt a surge of sweet
elation. He spotted me, and grinned, and I beamed back.
     
    A few days ago he’d been a stranger; now he was the only
familiar thing I had left. I hurried across the polished floor, threw my arms
around him, inhaled his smell.
     
    “Hi,” he said, seeming amused by my enthusiasm, and then he
took me by the shoulders and held me out at arm’s length. “You look different,”
he said. “I guess Paris agreed with you.”
     
    “It was an awkward conversation, but we wound up on the same
page,” I said, still smiling.
     
    “And aren’t you clever,” said Jack, smirking at my little
joke. Then he added, “But you do. You look great.”
     
    “Thank you,” I said. He