by Ashley Smith
“Yeah, that’s pretty bad,” he said.
“Well, I got it in a car accident.” I pulled down my tank, picked up my cigarette again, and started smoking. “I had just seen my daughter at the doctor’s office. And, you know, I was clean when I saw her. I wasn’t messed up that morning. But when I got in the car, I started hearing voices like I was on those drugs. Psychosis, they call it. And so I heard this voice tell me to ‘let go and let God.’ And I was so freakin’ crazy, I thought it was God telling me to let go of the steering wheel. ‘I’m your child, God, so I can let go and close my eyes and when I open them, I’ll be at the bottom of this hill because you’ll take care of me.’ Just nuts!
“So I let go and put my head back and closed my eyes. And the next time I opened them, it was two days later and I was in a hospital bed with two broken arms, three broken ribs, and a severed pancreas. That’s what the scar’s from. My car had gone across the median, off the road, and into a ditch. I probably should’ve been dead.”
I took a drag on my cigarette now and crossed my legs, trying to hold his gaze and keep him with me. “And, you know, I was still so crazy after the accident that even when I was in the hospital I thought I was being monitored by hidden cameras—I actually thought I was in a foreign hospital. That’s how deep it was. And I did not want to be in there. I just knew I didn’t belong in that place. So one day after they took out my IV, I snuck out of the hospital and caught a cab.”
He raised his eyebrows at that. Okay, just keep listening here.
“I used smoking as my way out. They were telling me, ‘You’re not supposed to be smoking.’ And I would say, ‘Y’all can’t stop me from smoking.’ So they would let me go outside and smoke at that point. Well, I came up with this plan to escape and catch a cab, so I walked outside this one day like I was just going to smoke. I had a tube hanging out of my nose and tubes coming out of my stomach to catch the fluids running out of me. And I went out there and hailed a cab and asked the guy to take me to my boyfriend’s house. By then I had tucked the stomach tubes into my shorts, but I sure didn’t look like I had any business leaving. Anyway, the cab took me, and when my boyfriend opened the front door and saw me there with the tube hanging out of my nose, he just freaked. He called my mom and they marched me right back up to that hospital. I don’t even think anybody really knew I was gone.”
I put out my cigarette now and looked more intently at Brian Nichols. If he could just get this and hear what I was saying. “The point is,” I said, “those drugs almost destroyed me. And you know what? I used to want nothing to do with that stuff. I mean, ice used to be forbidden in my house. Right around the time Mack died and the drug first started getting big and people started bringing it over, I would say, ‘Get that stuff out of here! Get that stuff out of my house!’ But a year and a half later, I was weak, and I tried it, and that was it.
“I lost my daughter. And I told you my family put me in a mental hospital for three days—that was just before the accident. They thought I had lost my mind. I thought I had lost my mind. That’s what those drugs did. Like I said, they ruined my life. I ruined my own life by doing them. And now I’m paying for it. But, man, at least I’m not dead. I’m working hard, trying to get my life on track. I’m still alive, and there’s a reason for that. I just know there’s a reason I’m still here.”
Brian Nichols looked pretty mellow now. He wasn’t moving. He was just sitting on top of the toilet staring off into space. I knew he’d been listening to me. But what was he thinking? I wanted him to see that he was still here for a reason too. He wasn’t dead either. He was being given a chance to stop right now, and he needed to see that.
I decided to ask him something. Looking at him as he sat there quietly, I felt that he would answer me. I felt that he would be a little more open with me, now that I had just opened up my life to him. So I asked.
“Why did you choose me out of all the people in Atlanta?” I wanted some clue—something, anything—as to why this might be happening right now. “I mean, why me? Did you choose me randomly, or what?”
He sighed, and now he picked up his beer can. “Well, I just pulled up here, and I saw you come out of your house. And to be honest with you, I thought you were going for a booty call or something.” This is the most he’s said in one breath in a long time.
“A booty call?” Please. “Okay. So were you just going to wait for me to come back then?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “A young female going out at two in the morning—that’s what I thought you went out for, and I figured you’d have to come home some time. So I was going to wait. But then five minutes later I see you pulling back around, and I’m like, ‘She must’ve gone to the store.’” So he was going to wait for me no matter what. He targeted me. That’s terrifying.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was going out for cigarettes. But, I mean, that was it? That was how you chose me?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking a swig of his beer.
“Well, why’d you choose Bridgewater Apartments? I mean, there must be four or five other apartment complexes right in this same area. Why this one?” I was thinking about the complex and where it was located—it wasn’t right off the highway or anything. Assuming he was going north from downtown on I-85, he would’ve gotten off at Beaver Ruin Road, then taken a left at the first light, a right two lights later onto Satellite Boulevard, and then finally a left into this apartment complex. That seemed pretty elaborate to me. And how many miles was it to this place from the Fulton County Courthouse? It had to be at least twenty miles. Why here? How in the world did he end up here?
“I guess randomly,” he said. “I was just driving around. Maybe I just got led here by something, you know.”
But this was a big apartment complex. I lived basically in the very back of my section, and I supposed it made sense that he would swing around somewhere in the back; but still, it was a big complex. He had to take two rights and a left once he got inside the complex to get here—that was three turns. And why did he choose my apartment at that time—the moment I was walking out the door? And an apartment I had just moved into? And why did my grandparents decide to loan me that money earlier in the week? And why did the leasing office assign me to this particular apartment, not some other one? I didn’t get it, and as I sat there on the vanity stool, it started to dawn on me that maybe this was God.
Right then I could feel a rush of heat through my whole body. Maybe there really is some purpose in this guy being here. There was no other way to explain it. God knew I would be here in this apartment. He knew I would be walking out for cigarettes at 2:00 a.m. He knew Brian Nichols would be pulling up when I left. He knew it all, and he was in control right now. I felt shocked, almost like I couldn’t move. Maybe God really did bring this guy here for some reason.
“Do you believe in miracles?” I asked Brian Nichols again. He had said yes the first time, but I wanted him to get this point right here. I mean, I believed in miracles, but I had never really lived one like this before. Or maybe I had—like living through my car accident and surviving all those drugs. And Paige was a miracle child to me after her premature birth. But I had never really recognized a miracle like this right when it was happening to me, right when it was all unfolding. I needed Brian Nichols to see what I was seeing. This was really, really big.
“Don’t you see that it’s just a total miracle that you’re in this apartment?” I asked him. “I mean, you could be anywhere. You could be running. You could be dead. But you’re alive and sitting in here with me right now—in an apartment I just moved into two days ago. And you pull up in here just as I happen to be going out? That’s crazy. How do you explain it? It had to be God. It’s like he must want you to be here or something. What else do you think could’ve led you to my doorstep?”
He set his beer down on the floor again. I could see some emotion come up in his eyes, some—was it?—passion. Is he seeing it, God? Does he get it? Is this you working right here and helping me? Because if this
is you doing this—if there’s a purpose for him being here—then that means you’re really with me right now. You’re really here. You’re really going to help me. Please keep helping me.
Then Brian Nichols answered.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking me in the eye, squinting as if he was trying to figure something out. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe you’re my angel sent from God. Maybe that’s what this is. Maybe he led me right to you.”
15 do you mind if i read?
Do you have anything I can eat?” Brian Nichols asked. Is he actually asking me for food now? First his laundry. Now food. This is good. I know him asking me like this is good.
I was still thinking about what he had just said—about me being an angel and God leading him here to my apartment. I was no angel, but I knew I had to be getting through to him. Had to be. Something in his eyes made him look like he was getting it—what I was seeing. Like he believed it too. That there was a reason for all of this. A purpose and everything. It was as if God really was working here and answering my prayers. It just continued to blow me away right then.
I remembered feeling the same way when my grandparents agreed to loan me that money earlier in the week. That was on Monday. The day before, on Sunday, I was sitting in church in Dacula with my Uncle David’s family—the same church where I was supposed to meet Paige in the morning—with thirty dollars in my pocketbook, not knowing how I was going to pay the bills or anything, not knowing where I was going to live. And as I was sitting there, I thought, “Lord, I know you have a plan for me. Just tell me what it is. I don’t know how I’m going to pay my bills, but I know if I keep trying to do your will, then you’ll provide for me somehow.”
Right then I decided to give half of my thirty dollars to God—just on blind faith—so I dropped fifteen bucks in the offering plate. By doing that I was trying to say, “Look, God, I trust you.” I just wanted some way to show him. Then, the very next day my grandparents agreed to loan me the money. I didn’t know if there was a connection between their decision and my putting fifteen bucks in the offering, but somehow I could see the Lord was working in my life. It was like he was rewarding me for being faithful. I was seeing results. I still had the dark secret of my drug addiction; I was still battling that. But God was showing me, “Look, Ashley, I really am real, okay?”
I looked at Brian Nichols now and tried to remember what food was in my cabinets. You’re really real, God. I’m getting it. Just stay with me. “Sure, we can look,” I said. “I mean, I don’t have much, but let’s see.” Actually, I had just been to the store, but I still didn’t have a lot.
He stood up, walked out of the bathroom, and waited for me in the hallway. As I got up from the vanity stool, I glanced over at the guns again. Well, at least he hasn’t picked those up in a while. Let’s just keep it that way, God. I’ve got to keep working the trust thing with this guy. He’s just got to let me walk out of here, and that’s all there is to it. I’m walking out of this apartment in the morning. I’m leaving at 9:30, and I’m going to see Paige.
I passed Brian Nichols and walked into the living room. Coming out of that small hallway just to my right was the glass-top column table my mom had given me when I moved out of her place into my old apartment. The thermostat was right above that table—it was low so someone in a wheelchair could reach it, I figured. On the table I had set up some Reader’s Digest books between two gold angel bookends from Aunt Kim’s house; the colors in the book bindings—burgundy, yellow, and blue—matched the rug under my coffee table to the left. Walking by now, I noticed that my silver cell phone was sitting there in front of those books. Okay. At least now I knew where it was.
Brian Nichols followed right behind me as I walked over to the kitchen. To my right was the dining area. My queen-sized mattress and box springs from my other apartment—it was a two-bedroom place—were propped up against the wall next to the column table; and there was still just enough room for my table and chairs. I didn’t have a real dining room set because the guy who’d been living with me had taken his back, so in this place I was using my outdoor table and chairs. The table was tall, not very big, with a wrought iron base and a glass top. The two wrought iron chairs with cream-colored cushions were tall, too, like bar stools. The iron was starting to rust and chip from having been outside on the patio at my old apartment.
I walked into the kitchen, passing the fridge on my right, and went directly across the room to the cabinets just to the right of the stove. I kept dry things like chips, cereal bars, bread, and pasta in there.
“Go ahead and look,” I said to him, opening the cabinets and stepping back. “I don’t have much in here.” The overhead light was still on, and so was the small ceramic lamp next to the sink behind me.
Mostly what I had on the shelves were canned goods and boxed items. I had some cookies, but I didn’t have many other snacks—at least, not fattening stuff—because I was always feeling chubby and battling my weight. In my world right then, anything more than 120 pounds was chubby. And since I wasn’t doing ice all that much—on ice I could go days and hardly eat and not even notice—keeping the pounds off was harder.
I thought back to high school and all the exercising I did to stay skinny. How on earth did I do that? There was the half hour of aerobics I did in my room before school; the time after school in the gym with Uncle David or, if it was basketball season, at practice; then the two miles I would run up and down the hills in our neighborhood every night after cooking dinner and cleaning up. I hated it, the whole battle against my weight, but I couldn’t break out of it. Even now I was in it. Just a couple of weeks ago I had called that guy I knew to bring me some ice so I could drop a few pounds. “Just let him be there this one time,” I had prayed—that awful thing I did with God. It was horrible, that back and forth. Thank you, God. Thank you that I’m done with that junk now and all of that is over.
As Brian Nichols stood there looking in my kitchen cabinet, I glanced over at the microwave sitting on the counter to my right. The clock read 3:30. 3:30? So we’ve only been in here for an hour and a half? That can’t be right. I’d burned enough energy in that amount of time to last me for days. If it was 3:30, then I had six more hours with this guy before I left to go see Paige. Wow. That’s a freakin’ eternity. But I was going to see Paige. It was happening. I had to keep picturing it. I looked to the left of the microwave at a framed black-and-white photograph of Paige standing on the beach. See, Ashley, it’s a good thing you unpacked everything and obsessed over putting things where they’re supposed to be, or Paige wouldn’t be all over this apartment for this guy to see right now.
I started thinking back over the day I had just had on Friday. I had missed my devotion that morning —how had that happened? Let’s see. I had snorted ice late Thursday afternoon and stayed up moving and unpacking until dawn. Then, after I finally fell asleep early Friday morning, my step-dad called and woke me up before lunch, talking about the guy standing here in my kitchen right now. That’s insane. Just nuts that this is happening. And then I jumped into my day. I went to work at the restaurant. And I forgot to do my devotion—the first time I had missed since February 7, when I put that dollar bill in the offering at Aunt Kim’s church for my copy of The Purpose-Driven Life.
I mean, with the move and everything, it would have been easy to get confused about my routine, but even that wasn’t like me. I just didn’t miss my time with God. It didn’t happen. Not since February 7. Not since I realized my life had to change or else. Even though I was fighting the drugs, I still woke up every morning and read a chapter in my Bible somewhere—I just opened the Bible and picked out a chapter at random. And then I read a chapter in my Purpose-Driven Life. My mindset was, “I don’t care if I have to be at work in thirty minutes—it doesn’t matter, okay, Ashley? Because if you don’t start your day reading this, it’s just going to get worse. So you might as well be late for work because you’ve got to get something out of what God’s trying to
tell you right here.”
I highlighted and took notes in the book, and I kept a journal of the things that spoke to me—I copied right out of the book. And I would call Aunt Kim and say, “This is what I read in The Purpose Driven Life today, and this is what it means to me.” If nothing else good happened in my life, at least I was going to hear God every day. That was my thinking. I was hanging on for dear life trying to trust God—trusting him to make me a good mother; to send me some Christian friends; to guide my life; to fix my relationships with my family; to help me fight those drugs. And I needed something from God every day, or I just wasn’t going to make it. Every time I started my devotion I invited God in to speak to me. I prayed, “Jesus, come in and show me what to do.” And it was working. I could feel peace all through that old apartment. I didn’t have a roommate, so there was no drama. There was just this peace. It was as if God just completely filled my whole heart.
Now here I was, standing in the kitchen with Brian Nichols, and I thought, “Man, if there was ever a day—I mean ever a day—I needed God to speak to me, it’s today. And I forgot to do my devotion. That’s crazy. That’s just nuts. How could I have missed that?”
Suddenly it occurred to me that I should just go ahead and do my devotion right then. I had been saying I was done cheating God out of his time, so why not go ahead and give him his time now? I mean, things seemed to be moving in my favor here somewhat, but who really knew how this night was going to end. Only God knew if I was going to make it. And I thought, “Okay. If there’s a chance I’m going to leave this earth tonight, then at least I want to have that next chapter of Purpose-Driven Life under me.”
“Hey, Matt,” I said. Wait, is that his name? What’s his name? Think, Ashley. Snap out of it. What did the TV say his name was? “Brian. Hey, Brian, do you mind if I read?”
He didn’t seem to notice that slip —either that or he didn’t care; and right then I realized this was the first time I had called Brian Nichols by his first name all night. Brian. Saying it that first time felt strange. I mean, the guy had held me at gunpoint. I was his hostage. He had killed three people at the courthouse just today. But I figured I was trying to talk to him normally, so I guessed it made sense that I should start using his name.
