Teenage Runaway
Bridget Corey - 7 years before present
Bridget Corey - 7 years before present
She'd been planning it for months.
It took months, when she had nothing but the contents of one farm to work with. No Internet… Her great-grandparents had never really seen a need for it. Too risky to have around her, in any case. They had a phone, a land line. She had no friends, so she had never been taught how to use it. She had never been taught a lot of things, but she learned quickly from TV and books and context. For fifteen years, in fact, she had lived on this farm, and never left. She depended on her view through the lens of the media she consumed to piece together what the rest of the world was actually like. What other people might be like.
Books, for example, had taught her that there were words for locking a child up, isolating them. Words for locking them outside at night. Words she hesitated to even think, because she wasn't really a child. Not all the time. And no one got mad when you locked a dog outside.
She waffled for a long time, between thinking her family was right and hating them. Eventually, hate won… or perhaps just the desperate need to see something else. Someone else. To live. Maybe she just realized there would never be a “when you’re older,” they would never not be scared for her.
Planning her escape was difficult, because she was capable of very little at night. But during the precious summer months, the sun rose early and so did she. She studied the phone book. She studied maps. And, one afternoon when her great-grandfather mowed the grass and her great-grandmother stitched in the living room, Bree snuck upstairs to use the phone in their bedroom. She called the bus station, the number she memorized. Shakily, with words she practiced thousands of times, she asked for bus times. Prices.
Once she got them, there was a clicking clock.
It was a multi-day affair. She snuck her things out, hid them at the very edge of the farm, in a hole she'd dug and covered with a huge, heavy rock she liked to lift and throw. The moisture was certainly not good for her books, but she kept them in a backpack and was bringing so few. She packed only a single change of clothes. Space was precious.
Monday night, she snuck into her great-grandparents bedroom again. This time as a dog. She'd loosened the vents in both their rooms; she'd been exploring them for years, in any case. With careful agility, she knocked her great-grandmother’s purse over, as she had a hundred times before. But this time, instead of snapping it open with clumsy paws, and stealing the money within, she stole the whole thing. And her great-grandfather’s as well, kept on the bed stand. She stretched her mouth painfully around them and dragged them back through the vents.
Now the hard part.
For obvious reasons, they had never installed a doggy door. But the vents lead into the crawl space under the house. She had a few, uh, eight foot vertical drops to get there, mind.
Somehow, she didn't kill herself in the process, probably because she'd had the foresight to drop pillows ahead of time. It was terrifying and painful. But those were things she could deal with, as long as her spine was intact. Halfway through the vents, she paused to steal the money out of her great-grandparents’ wallets, leaving the wallets themselves in the vents. She could only hope that the lack of cards and identification would slow them down in their pursuit. They’d certainly never find their wallets here.
Down the vents. Into the crawl space. Under the house. Push aside the board whose nails she'd carefully pried out weeks before.
And then she was outside.
It was the first time she'd been outside at night and not been confined to the backyard.
It was goddamn fucking terrifying.
It was huge. Ludicrously huge, pants-wettingly huge. It was so infinitely goddamn dark, something she hadn’t really considered, because she was used to light from the porch light. It had always seemed so dim, before, barely able to keep the oppressive darkness at bay. Now she realized just how much it had done for her. Only her desperation to be free propelled her forwards through the black night. It was almost impossible to navigate from this smaller size, even without barely being able to see. She kept thinking that she'd somehow gotten lost. But she'd spent 15 years on that farm, and she knew every blade of grass and the shape of every tree. It felt like an entire saga of her life, but she found her way to the rock and waited.
The sun rose at 4:54 A.M. She had 6 minutes before her great-grandfather’s alarm went off. They normally didn't bother her until six, but her great-grandfather sometimes checked in on her. When there was no response to their knocking, they might assume her asleep. Maybe. It wasn't as though she had a lock. They could open her door any time.
The clock ticked faster now.
She threw on a sun dress, not because she liked it, but because it was fast and easy and technically a full outfit. She threw on a sun hat and hopped into sandals as she threw on her backpack. The sun hat could tie around her chin. She was so scared of it coming off, so she’d selected it on purpose.
She didn't even spare a glance at the home she was leaving behind as she bolted down the country road as fast as her legs could carry her. She ran through fields and along back roads, terrified with every footfall that she'd hear her great-grandfather’s truck coming along the road. Every car made her jump.
A man in a pickup asked if she needed a lift. She thanked him, but declined.
She had watched television, after all.
It was past seven when she finally reached the bus station. She lined up to buy her ticket with the cash she’d stolen from her grandparents’ wallets. She shook the whole time, convinced she would be found out instantly. She kept pulling nervously at the edges of her hat, as if it might come flying off, revealing her nature to the world.
The woman behind the counter didn't even look at Bree as she ordered her ticket.
Bree hid in the bathroom until it was time for her bus to arrive, convinced great-grandparents would appear in the 42 minutes before the bus arrival. If they did, they weren't there when she emerged, shaking, to get on her bus.
It wasn't her first time in a vehicle. It was, however, her first time in a vehicle going over about 10 miles per hour.
It was terrifying.
It was exhilarating.
She watched more world than she could imagine speed by behind glass. People left her alone. She'd been worried… teenage girl, traveling alone, et cetera. But no one seemed to care. They barely glanced at her. She was invisible. It was incredible.
The bus took her to Portland, where she waited for another bus.
It took her to Valesport. She purchased a map of the city there in the bus station, and with great difficulty managed to find the street from her mother's address. It was a long walk. She should still be able to make it before sunset.
Valesport was… insane.
It was huge. It was intense. There were so many people and buildings so, so tall, which she'd seen, of course, on a tiny little TV screen, but not like this. A strange man asked her for change. She practically threw some at him as she ran away. Not her finest moment, but she was several hundred miles out of her comfort zone.
The bus station was on an old side of town. She could have taken another, smaller bus across town, but the routes confused her and the stops were much more crowded than the large station had been. So she walked, nose buried into a map.
She walked from worn down old houses to the finest and grandest she'd ever seen, though they looked just as old. Many had meticulously maintained gardens. One was covered in roses, growing wild over the old stone walls. It wasn't what she expected.
Then she crossed the river, into downtown. It was more what she expected. Several men leered at her. At the first, she shied away. At the second, she looked away uncomfortably. At the third, she glared, growing tired of the tomfoolery. One asked her if she needed directions. She pointed out--fairly obviously, she thought--that she was literally holding a map. He called her a bitch.
It was the first time someone had called her that, but she knew what it meant.
She kicked him between the legs, not with her toes, because she was wearing sandals, but with her heel, from the front. It was perfectly reasonable, because her hands were full. And then she ran. She was fairly certain he wouldn't be able to give chase.
She was wandering through downtown streets when the overcast skies finally began to let loose with their promised rain. She was forced to put her map away, but didn't take shelter, too scared she wouldn't make it to her mother's before sunset. She wandered the streets on sandals and a sun dress, very glad for her hat, which at least kept the pouring rain off of her face.
The rain stopped in a second--er, no, it was still pouring. But not on her. She looked up to see an umbrella at the same time a much taller man stepped into sight.
“I might be a bit late,” he said, crooked smile and a crooked nose. “But you should at least not get any wetter.”
“I don't need an escort,” Bree said shortly, wondering if all men were transparent and single-minded.
“Agree to disagree,” the man said with a smile. “But at least take the umbrella, little neighbor. You'll catch your death of a cold out here.”
She eyed him, warily, then gripped the umbrella’s handle, her hand just below his. He let it go with a wink. “Don't get lost,” he advised her. “Downtown is an ugly place, especially at night.”
“Yeah, got it,” she replied sarcastically. “Thanks.”
“Oh, you're quite welcome,” he said with a smile, and then wandered off into the rain, hands in his pockets, humming a tune she swore she'd heard on her great-grandmother’s lips.
She walked a little faster.
She did manage to find her mother's before sunset… assuming her mother hadn't moved. She knocked on the apartment door, checked the address, and then knocked again, nervously.
The door opened. There was a man there, and Bree was at once certain she had the wrong address.
“O-o-oh, sorry, I'm looking for Angela Corey, I'm--”
“ANGE!” the man bellowed back into the apartment, making Bree jump. “Some kid here for you!”
“...do you mean, some kid?” Bree heard, as her mother came around a corner and into sight of the open door. The large man stepped aside, and Bree waved sheepishly. She hadn't seen her mother in two years.
“...Hey, mum,” she managed, after the silence had stretched too long.
“...Bridget?” she said, voice dumbfounded. “How in the hell--”
“It's um… kind of a long story. Can I come in?”
Her mother looked, for a second, as if she might say no. A possibility Bree had never even considered. But then…
“Er… yeah. C’mon in.”
Relief in her steps, she crossed the threshold into her mother's apartment. Into what she hoped would be her new apartment, too. Because she wasn't going back.
She was never going back.
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