Not that she had any experience other than journalism or a couple of summers serving up pizzas at Gia’s. Just the thought of all that interaction with people, the curious stares and whispered musings about what exactly she’d gone through was enough to make her want to throw up. But sometimes you had to power through whether you wanted to or not.
“It’s fine,” she said, evidently surprising her dad judging by the look he sent her way. “I’ll go.”
Her mom smiled with such relief that it made Arden want to cry.
“That’s wonderful. It’ll be good for you to go out, see some of your friends.”
Not everyone had left Blue Falls to travel around the world like she had, so Arden wondered how much she’d have in common with them now. Would she even be able to get through the evening without experiencing a horrible reaction like she had at the convenience store? And she doubted she’d be lucky enough to have someone handy to shield her this time.
Her thoughts shifted to Neil Hartley, how he’d seemed to know exactly what she’d needed in that moment. If she got the opportunity, she’d have to thank him for that.
“Are you sure?” her dad asked.
Before she could allow herself to chicken out, she nodded. Her anxiety hadn’t magically disappeared once she was surrounded by the comfort of home, so maybe it was going to take more work to rid herself of it. Maybe she had to do precisely the thing she didn’t want to—place herself out in the open, vulnerable, unable to watch every direction for potential threats.
Stop it! She screamed the words at herself in her head. She was no more likely to be attacked at the rodeo than the water treatment plant’s updates were of making national headlines.
But no matter how much she told herself that over the next few days, it didn’t alleviate the hard knot of anxiety that had taken up residence in her middle. She hoped it was simply anticipatory anxiety, that it would go away once she arrived at the rodeo and saw some friendly faces. She tried to discount what had happened at the convenience store that first day. She’d been exhausted, jet-lagged, still getting used to not being a captive. Now that she’d had a few days of relative normalcy, surely she could manage to smile and make small talk for a couple of hours if it was in the pursuit of getting her life back on track. A new track, that was. Her days of globe-trotting to troubled hot spots were over. Someone else would have to fill that role.
Saturday afternoon, she sifted through the assortment of clothes her roommate had pulled together from Arden’s room in their shared apartment just outside DC. Jeans and the worn University of Texas T-shirt seemed a safe bet to blend in with the crowd. She didn’t have any boots, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Her feet were too sore from maneuvering the confines of her cage barefoot to wear anything that would rub against her skin that much. So the trusty, comfortable sandals it was.
“You ready, sweetie?” her mom asked when she paused at Arden’s open door.
Arden took one more look at herself in the mirror—tanned skin, hair in such need of a good cut that she’d pulled it into a ponytail and thinner facial features than were normal. It was all fixable, with time. The inside was more damaged, but hopefully tonight was the first step toward healing that, as well.
She pasted on a smile for her mom. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
As her mom drove toward town, Arden noticed her quick glances in the rearview mirror to where Arden sat in the backseat. To try to keep her mom from her obvious worry, Arden pulled out her phone and pretended to read on it.
Her mind wasn’t on the phone’s image of her hiking through the Rwenzori Mountains. Uganda had some truly beautiful places, some wonderful people, but just thinking of it now made shivers run across her skin, her insides twist into tighter and tighter knots. How many times had she relived the moment she’d gone from reporter to captive?
She scanned through the photos on the phone and replaced the Rwenzori picture with one of her parents wearing Santa hats last Christmas. It always made her smile when she looked at it. Granted the phone it had originally been on was who knew where, but she’d learned several lost phones ago to keep her photos backed up in the cloud.
The sound of another vehicle passing drew her attention, and she looked up to see they were coming into Blue Falls. As her mom made the turn toward the fairgrounds, the anxiety that had made a home for itself inside Arden kicked up several notches.
It’ll be okay. It’s safe here. You’ll be back home before you know it. This is a necessary step.
By the time her mom parked in the field adjacent to the grandstands, Arden had almost convinced herself that her mental pep talk was true. Even if it wasn’t, she was here now and she couldn’t back out.
The walk from the car to the arena was filled with a blur of faces and well wishes and what was meant to be reassuring hugs and caring touches. It took all of Arden’s strength not to jerk away at each one, so that by the time they reached where the mayor was standing she was already wiped out. Somehow she found the strength to accompany the mayor to the flatbed truck inside the arena where a country western band was packing up their gear after evidently entertaining the crowd.
As Arden climbed the steps to the top of the trailer, she glanced toward the grandstands and found her parents making their way to seats among the crowd. Maybe if she focused on them during this whole show, she’d make it through. But even as she had that thought, she considered that doing so might actually be the worst thing. She couldn’t risk them seeing how much her current position was shredding her determination to see it through. How the panic was clawing its way up out of her like a zombie from the grave.
Her legs shook as the mayor made her way to the microphone and began to speak. It took an incredible amount of focus on Arden’s part to fix her mind on the woman’s words, to make them sound like something other than an indistinct voice at the bottom of a deep pit.
“We’re all so happy to have Arden Wilkes back home in Blue Falls, safe and sound.”
A round of applause from the people staring at Arden caused her to flinch. There were even a few American flags waving out in the midst of the crowd. She scrunched her forehead in confusion, but before she could think about it too much she realized the mayor was looking at her. That she’d said something to which Arden needed to give a response. As if she was rewinding the past few seconds in her mind, Arden realized what the mayor had said.
Arden approached the microphone on increasingly shaky legs. “Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate all the prayers for my safe return and the support that’s been given to my parents during the past weeks.”
She certainly hoped that’s all that was expected of her because she didn’t think she was going to be able to stay here being stared at like a museum exhibit for much longer. As if the mayor could see her distress, she shook Arden’s hand, gave her a gift bag containing welcome-home gifts from local merchants and nodded toward the stairs descending from the trailer.
Arden made for the stairs as quickly as her waning energy would take her. But even after she left the arena, she wasn’t free. What seemed like a gauntlet of well-wishers closed around her. She did her best to smile and thank them all. After all, she’d been witness to such scenes before. Child soldiers returned to their families. Mudslide survivors finding family members alive. One man who’d been erroneously held in a Chinese prison finally released. She had covered their stories, even talked to the people in question, but she’d never truly understood the sheer feeling of being overwhelmed when they were returned to normality.
She saw her mom stand, and