As the sun rose, Georgia was warmed by its rays. She woke about an hour after the sun peeked over the horizon and was stiff and sore from having slept on the ground. She looked at her watch and saw that it was 6:30 in the morning. She knew she had to get to work finding a place to live, but had no clue where to start. If she went back to the group home they would most likely call the police, which would lead to her arrest. If she went back to her job, she would be arrested since Catholic Charities knew where she worked.
So the first place she went WAS her job. She simply told them that something had come up and she had to leave town. She turned in her uniform, bought a cinnamon roll and mountain dew, and walked away without looking back. So now needed shelter and a job and clothing and food... maybe being arrested wouldn't have been such a bad thing after all.
Georgia's first thought was about Larry Rice and his New Life Evangelistic Center. They had their own TV station and shelter and maybe they could help her. She could check in under a different name and maybe the police wouldn't find her. Despite the certain level of attraction to being arrested, her core being wanted to remain free. So she called Bi-State and got the information she need to take Metrolink and the buses to the shelter on Locust St. It took about an hour and a half to only go a few miles, but she didn't have much food in her system and it was easier to spend a few of her last dollars to get there and get food than to try and walk the 6 miles hungry.
When she got to the shelter, she was greeted warmly and given a cup of coffee and some eggs and toast. Then they asked her what brought her to their doorstep. Georgia called herself Ellen Messen and told them the the partial truth, at least about her childhood. She just conveniently left out the part in which she attached her friend, knowing that violence or any hint of it would get her immediately put out on the street, if not arrested. So she settled into the shelter scene without much ado. They asked her to do chores, cooking or cleaning to help keep it a decent place for the other poor souls residing there.
As previous experience had taught her, Georgia kept safely to herself and her books. She found a branch of the St Louis Public Library right around the corner from the shelter, which kept her in all the books she could want.
With the help of the New Life Evangelistic Shelter, Georgia found a new job at Crepes in the City near the shelter under her assumed name of Ellen Messen. So between the kindness of the people at the shelter, and having a new job, Georgia began to rebuild her life. In her off time, when not helping at the shelter and attending the mandatory church services, she lived at the library absorbing anything that struck her interest. She still had an especially strong affinity for anything that dealt with people and how they worked. Her "book" knowledge grew, but her "gut" knowledge remained much as it ever was, limited by her life experiences.
Georgia remained able to go through the motions that the shelter demanded of her without ever feeling the need to believe in anything that they wanted her to. Her job was going well and she was making plans to get an apartment soon with another girl at the shelter. She was even starting to make friends, such as she could, where she worked. She again started reaching out in hopes of any kind of connection. Georgia hadn't seen Martin since that night she walked away from him near Forest Park and she was relieved by that and mostly put him out of her mind.
As fall and her 18th birthday approached, she was again feeling as stable as she ever had. An okay job that gave her money, people that seemed to care or at least pretended well, things to do, a library to feed her hungry intellect. She was living life as Ellen and seemed to have escaped any legal entanglements regarding the assault of her former friend. So just when Georgia felt like she could breathe and stop looking over her shoulder, she saw a police car in front of the creperie as she was walking to work for her evening shift. Instinctively, she just turned and walked back to her apartment, packed her backpack and started walking to the bus stop.
She was grateful that Bi-State was close by and that she could hop on and just get away. She had been haunted by police cars for the last months, knowing they were looking for her. Maybe Alicia had died and it was now a murder charge, myriad suppositions swirled in her head, every one wilder than the last. So she did the only thing she could think of, which was to run away as fast as any mode of transportation could carry her. As usual, she had no plan... she just ran.
She got on board the Metrolink train once she was off the bus and was heading out to North County, not by any design, but by chance as it was the first train to arrive. As Georgia rode the train northward, the evening shadows lengthened. The commuter train finally disgorged her and a few other passengers at Lambert Airport when it was nearly dark. She blinked as her eyes were accosted by the fluorescent lighting of the airport terminal, scanning the open shops & restaurants, she found a Starbucks and a Pasta House. Knowing that her wallet wasn't exactly well-endowed, she got a sandwich and water from the Starbucks and then walked out of the airport terminal. Her stomach was filled, but her wallet was much lighter than she would have liked.
She found the bus stop and climbed on the first one heading to the outer suburbs of St. Louis. The bus Georgia chose actually went out to the Mills shopping center, she thought she could at least wander around there for an hour or so before having to find a place to sleep for the night. She could also use the facilities and get something to drink. She'd made it out of the city to Hazelwood, which, she thought was at least a little bit away.
She wasn't at the Mills long before it closed, so walked around the entirety of the mall looking for a promising place to sleep. When she was on the south side when she spied a building that looked like a school... even if she couldn't get inside, she could at least find a place to sleep on the grounds. Food might also be a possibility from the dumpster in the morning. Georgia then made the rather arduous trek, certainly much longer than she thought it would be, and she swore it was all uphill both ways. In the back of the school, she found a secluded patch of woods and bedded herself down there as best she could.
The morning dawned bright and relatively warm for a late September day. Georgia momentarily forgot where & why she was here. Then she remembered her calmly running away aimlessly from the fears that the police had found her. So she sat for a minute and tried to contemplate her next move. She only had a few dollars left. Her job at the creperie didn't pay much, which was fine while she was living at the shelter, but had made things a lot tighter financially since moving out to the apartment with Erin. Her first thought was to just take the highway that passed right by her current location and see what thumbing it would bring. However, she would first wait and see what might serve as breakfast from the dumpster at the school below. She had a pretty strong constitution, and if she got there fast enough, it might be cold, but it wouldn't be rancid.
Georgia watched the dumpster area behind the school closely. She had spied it out the previous night and made sure she had a good vantage point to know when there was food to be had. Sure enough, someone in kitchen whites came out with a trash can on wheels a short while later and upended it. She waited a short time until it appeared all the breakfast trash was out and the activity around the dumpster area was minimal before descending and seeing what she could scrounge.
The pickings were a bit slim upon investigation, but not unlivable. She found cold scrambled eggs and discarded toast. She even found some juice boxes with a bit left in them. She figured it wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. While she was eating, the thought entered her head that she should head to Columbia, from what she understood, there were jobs there and she might even be able to hide there under yet another name. If she was right, she was in a perfect place to start the process of heading westward led by her instincts and her thumb.
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