I thought I was done with this chapter, for now, but it's become much more demanding and involved and in need of care. So I spent the day on it and let Adam lead me into his deepest thoughts as he walks away from the boys home he was forced to live in.

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I know I felt pain from Reynard’s fists and feet, but it registered only in my head, not my heart. It meant nothing to me because... 

Because I was nothing.

I did not really know or...or truly understand what that meant except... 

Except I no longer existed. 

To Maman. Papa. Gra’mere and Gran’pere. Anyone who was of my blood. 

I was dead to them. 

I was nothing. 

Just as I was nothing to that decent Christian man, except to make him an income he never shared. Nothing to Rory except someone he did not like because he could not manipulate me. Nothing to any of the others. 

They would now search my room. Find my money and journal. Toss my books into their library, to be ignored. Give my clothes to the boy who would replace me. And I would be nothing, to any of them. 

How can I be nothing when still I feel the cold? When sharp icy air enters my lungs to be expelled as steam? When my heart beats fast and eyes water against the breezes whispering around me? When still my body aches from my brother’s anger? When one foot sweeps before the other and I move forward? Physically move forward. 

How is this nothing? 

I had no sense of time or place. I felt that it was after nine...maybe almost ten in the evening. The streets were dark. The few businesses closed. No restaurants to peek into with the hope of glimpsing a clock. No one else around to ask. Not that it truly mattered. 

I was nothing, so time was, as well. 

Somehow I found my way to Sherbrooke, which would lead me to the city center, so I continued to walk. Past rough structures and open spaces and areas for parking and commercial buildings, then apartment blocks and restaurants. Joined only by the little traffic of those returning home late from their day. 

I had finally begun to work the wet pages of my book apart so they would not stick together as they dried. My gloves were clumsy so I removed them, and my fingers did not like the icy air. But all that mattered was the care of my Stendhal. 

On and on I walked. In the chill night with only my damp jacket to warm me. But I appreciated how the cold kept my aches to a minimum, and helped the cuts on my face to clot. Sometimes I even put my arm with the still wet part of the sleeve up against my eye, which felt very good. 

Two times cars pulled up to my side, pacing me as I walked, and in them were older men asking me if I wanted a ride. Both times I only gave them a shake of my head and kept going. I could not deal with anyone who wanted anything from me, right then. 

As I continued, my thoughts remained scattered. Anger at Rory for writing my family. Fury at Reynard for finding me. Fear I might be arrested and returned to that decent Christian man’s home. Worries about what I could do. Thinking I should find the Gay Youth Group to ask for their help...then shaking off the thought for fear they might also turn on me. And mixed through it all was a sadness that I was now, without question, an orphan. 

That if I was dead to my parents, they also were dead to me. 

But I could not accept that thought.