in mine own mess-age

This would make a lot more sense with the parts that got lost. It's hard to follow but in the end it makes sense. You start over as often as you have to and push through. 

If we could all start again, work back backward to the beginning.

If I can get started early I can be productive. Tiki told me that.

I've been a little jumpy. I kept trying to go out more. She said to stop worrying. I could stay there for now. Her husband hadn't even been there in a while.

I found a park in Tiki's neighborhood. It was different from Villen. 

Parks in suburbs have this going for them. They have signs to tell you there are cameras even if you can't see them. In our parks it's the other way around. 

Character counts. 

So they're a lot more quiet. There are no crowds, no extras. No one to fit the Skull role.

I found a bush covering a knoll of sorts with a brook at the bottom. The sound of the water didn't make it up and past the bush. It didn't look like the park would have room for something like it but it did. 

I went down, tripping after the first few steps and sliding down to almost the water's edge. 

Even though there was dirt all over them I took my clothes off before going into the brook. I thought about the parrot and how it didn't really mean anything what it was he said. Like that. 

The ID was in my pants. I wouldn't be able to prove myself. I squatted down to get knee deep in the water and I just let go. Put this in the chapter with all this stuff, don't get into it here.

It could've been my bathtub back at my old apartment that probably burned down by now. It had as much bacteria as the brook, probably. Could it get inside me? Just as I thought I was letting go, Floride showed up, standing at the edge of the brook. I didn't know where she came from, or if she'd known I was here.

She told me the electric chair was out of order. She said the barefoot girl had shown up and told everybody her parents had kidnapped her and taken her to the police. So they knew it wasn't me. 

-It feels like everything around us is falling apart, and we can try to put the fragments back together or try to put together something new,  she said.

-Or sweep it under a rug, I offered, but she only laughed dismissively.

-Remember when I said that I was wrong and you were right? she asked me. 

-I was wrong, I said. You were right.

-You were wrong and I was right.

I didn't ask her what she was doing there. It wouldn't make sense to me.

-If you constantly wish things were different, tell yourself it's over now and you can't change it, she said as she looked away from me. Work on accepting things the way they are.

I didn't like that she said that. There was nothing to accept. For now everything was okay. I didn't have to be ready

-Don't tell anyone I'm here, I said.

-Don't panic, she replied, but she was already walking away.

The water had gotten warmer. I wanted to stay in it until I was sure she was gone but then I heard a couple of people coming down toward the brook, sounding like they were having a good time.

I got out of the water even though I thought Floride might still be there, got dressed quickly, and tried to find my way back to Tiki's.