Title: Whatever we lose
Note: A Continuation of Little By Little Page title from E.E. Cumming's Maggie and Milly and Molly and May Image Used
The picture was of her, more than a decade past. A woman she assumed was a photographer, at least as a hobby, had given her train fare as long as she would be allowed to use the picture. Annie had accepted the money for the train, and asked for a copy of the picture as well.
In the picture wrinkled from nearly twelve years of being always on her person, Annie had bare feet and mouse brown hair to the shoulder. Her face, pillowed on her hands, was blank as she was shown staring at her pale feet. In the glow of the streetlights around the train station bench, they looked even paler.
At school, they told her to be optimistic. Optimists live longer, they said. Annie Sullivan knew better. You lived by always being prepared for the worst. You lived longer by always being prepared to flee.
Finlay had been prepared to run, she thought, snapping back to the present. But Finlay had also been prepared to give himself up for her. She had signaled no the moment she saw the thought snap into his head, the same moment they had caught her. That was why Finlay was, hopefully, still free, and Annie was in FBI custody.
She continued to examine the old photograph. The girl who would never stare back neither frowned nor smiled, and Annie knew why. It takes forty-three muscles to frown and seventeen to smile. It doesn’t take any to do neither. Once, she had had dreams. At the time of the picture, her only dream had been to get away from her father – forever. It hadn’t worked. Finlay had saved her that time, but it had also taught her a lesson, a lesson that was only cemented in the years after. Dreams were like rainbows. Only idiots chased them.
But still, she had dreamed. She had wanted a family with Finlay. It would appear that even that was not to happen. Optimists would say that you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take. Coincidentally, they would forget that you miss nearly that of the ones you do.
As she sat in the small room was she kept in, Annie found herself surrounded by memories stirred up from staring at the picture. That was alright though, because the image had been captured at the height of her despair. And she had kept it to help remember that she must never, never forget.
In the cheerless space, tears, so rarely spilled, began to form at the back of her eyes. She wished so much to be free, to once again smell the air, brimming with the scent of sea. But she knew in her heart it wouldn’t be enough, because as much as Annie wished for freedom, she wished more for Finlay Collins, the man to whom she had given her whole heart.
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