The Rebirth
She was murdered.
That’s the first thing she remembers when she wakes up. It’s followed by fear and pain. It is shapes and sounds and light. It is life, given a second time. It isn’t the same as coming from a coma or waking from a nightmare but something in between.
The knowledge comes to her in broken dreams and flashes of memory during the day. Like a half-remembered dream. One day, the pieces all come together, and she just knows. Like a person who suddenly knows the pattern of a beloved blanket or well cherished toy when they were a child.
She used to be a girl named Alyssa Riker. She is Alyssa Riker, again. She is and she is not Alyssa Riker. She is dead. She is alive. She doesn’t know what she is. What is this?
There is air in her lungs and there is blood flowing through her veins. The sun is warm on her skin and rain brings water rushing down her hair and clothes. It feels real. It feels like someone’s been coloring outside the lines and cutting off the edges of the pages.
Alyssa was ten years old when the memories returned and spent weeks crying. She cries for the life stolen from her. She cries for the love she thought she had. She cries because that’s all she knows she can do. It is weeks and weeks of pouring out grief and rage. Why her? What did she ever do wrong?
Alyssa will never know now. She isn’t sure she wants to know either. She used to be a teacher and had been making plans to move on after an ugly break up. Never did she think the man she once thought of marrying would break into her apartment and stab her to death.
She’d been a good girl, always doing what her parents wanted because she didn’t know any better. Parents are supposed to look after their children and want what’s best for them. That’s what she thought. That’s what she’d been told all her life. Until that moment with that man. That man, whose name she can’t remember, was someone her parents pushed and pressured her to date. There were red flags but, again, she was a good girl who trusted her parents.
They were wrong. So very, very wrong.
Now, Alyssa didn’t know if she would ever trust them again. Strangely, her parents are the same people, with the same personality and careers. Her father is the same third generation Asian American bank manager. A stereotypical Asian man with a head full of ink black hair and black eyes. Her mother is as American as they come and works as a realtor agent. Her father had broken tradition by marrying a Caucasian brunette with green eyes instead of a “good” Asian woman. Alyssa is the result, a mix of them both, a smooth complexion, naturally highlighted light brown hair and green eyes.
The same as before.
Growing up the first time, her parents constantly told her she was a natural beauty. They do the same thing in this life, too. It makes it hard for her to trust them. Why focus on how pretty she is? Why not how smart she is or how good she is at art? Why isn’t she good enough?! It also makes it difficult to pretend she likes dressing up in the clothes they get her. All of it designed to make her ‘pretty’ to everyone who sees her, like a lamb, blindfolded and docile, being led to the slaughterhouse.
Being pretty is what killed her. She doesn’t want to be pretty or beautiful or anything. Alyssa wants to be herself, imperfect and flawed and seen as a person. She hates being called pretty. She hates the whistles and the cat calls and the flirting and when will everyone leave her alone!?!
…She wants to be loved for being real. Is that so bad? Is that so wrong?
Her parents don’t give her the reassurance she needs nor the comfort and security to keep her grounded. It leads to fits and rapid mood swings that her parents punish her for. Good girls don’t embarrass their parents. Good girls don’t cause trouble in public. (No, no, they don’t. Good girls die.)
Just like before, they had started pressuring her to do things their way but not here. No, there are many differences between this life and the Before. That difference is a person named Grandma Shu. Grandma Shu Chien Riker was a force of nature that Alyssa was in awe of everyday. She lived with their family in the spare bedroom and the only time she’s ever interfered with her parents’ raising her is after Alyssa remembers everything. When Alyssa couldn’t determine what was real or an illusion and she wept as if she’d been killed a thousand times again. When her parents’ words and actions brought more pain than joy.
“She needs love and understanding.” Grandma had said, “Not new clothes or expensive toys.”
In frustration, they left that to Grandma Shu because work called, and they can’t be bothered to ‘baby’ their daughter going through her ‘growing pains’. Alyssa had always been a ‘that’ to them, hadn’t she? There is always a client or a problem that is more important than their daughter. Perhaps their behavior should have been another warning to her. A sign telling her that everything was not okay. That she couldn’t rely on them to help her when she really needs them. A marker that not all parents are good people…
It takes almost a month after she ‘awakens’ from her grief that Alyssa promised to live as far from her toxic parents as possible. It’s a promise she manages to keep with the help of her grandma and her parents, unwitting, cooperation.
To cement this promise, however, she doesn't go to college for the major they want. She goes for what she always wanted to do: graphic design. She’s always loved art. She loved to create things with her bare hands. Technology may be cleaner than the pastels she prefers but it allows her the freedom she desperately craves. The foundation of freedom to leave, leave and never come back.
Barely two months after she graduates with her degree at twenty-two, her parents introduce her to the man who killed her. To the man who so loved how ‘pretty’ and ‘beautiful’ she is that he needed to keep her and would kill her to stop anyone else from having her. The man who, in one life, succeeded in ending her life but one Alyssa vowed would never have her in this one. Three months after that meeting, Alyssa changed her name and disappeared from their lives.
That was two years ago.
There is nothing left of that life that she wants. Her grandma Shu is long gone, quietly slipping in her sleep when Alyssa was twenty. Her passing was crushing but at the same time, expected. Grandma Shu had been slipping away little by little, her soul reaching for its other half, her grandpa. Alyssa never met him but as much as she loved her grandma, she was not so selfish as to try and keep her from him.
Before she left, Grandma Shu gave Alyssa the greatest gift of all: freedom. She gave her granddaughter the secret that she kept close to her heart for decades and Alyssa will be forever grateful to her for doing so. Without it, she’s sure she would never have had the confidence to live as she does.
She’s twenty-four and her new name is Jenna Morgan. She lives out of two suitcases and for the past two years she’s traveled the continent of North America from the east coast to the west, ending in California. She’s taken her time getting to the west coast by either train or short flights and staying in hotels at different lengths of time. For some places, she stayed more than a month and others, three days to a week. It’s all possible because of her business.
She works for herself as an independent and freelance graphic designer. She started while she was still in college using a pseudonym and now that work allows her to go wherever she wants. Being able to work without showing her face and still make a living is not what her grandma wanted for her, she knows. But Jenna feels restless. Where can she feel safe? Where can she live free of fear?
(And isn’t that a joke? Fear is her life. All she can do is stay one step ahead of it.)
“Flight UA 1394, United Airlines, now boarding at Gate 16.” Drones the nearby gate keeper over the speaker. “Flight UA 1394, United Airlines to Hawaii, now boarding at Gate 16.”
Jenna grabs her carry-on bag, walks over to the attendant, boarding pass in hand, and is allowed to pass. She walks down the long walkway and sighs. As fun as it is to travel and see the sights, she also misses the idea of home. Having a place that is all hers, where she can go and let her walls down, is something she yearns for more and more. Except going back to her parents' house is not an option. It will never be an option.
She walks with a confidence she both does not and does feel. Jenna has perfected the careful balancing act of being social and being alone. Being attacked for being a single woman traveling alone, is not a true concern for her. With her grandmother's last gift to her, there is little she is really scared of anymore.
Sometimes she wishes for company but then the idea of sharing her space with someone fills her to dread and the desire petters out. All that matters is that neither her parents nor that beast they consider a good son-in-law, ever find her.
Jenna sighs as she reaches the plane door and is greeted by the flight attendant, hoping the inflight entertainment is good enough to distract her of her scattered thoughts.
