And it just might kill me.
I wrapped my arms around me, wishing I had thought of a better outfit to wear on my great escape. A tight fitting tank top and cut off shorts didn’t seem like the wisest attire if I didn’t want to get noticed by the wrong kind of people.
“You did it? You’re such a bad ass!” Amanda squealed. I pressed myself inside the tiny phone booth. I had used my last handful of change to call the only friend I had who wouldn’t tell me I was a total idiot.
“It’s like I’m a fucking ghost in that house. She won’t know I’ve even left,” I said shortly. And it was true. My mother didn’t do maternal. I was expected to conform to her life or not at all. She was strict when it didn’t matter. Disinterested when it did.
It had just been the two of us after my dad died when I was three. My mother was my only family. No doting grandparents or affable uncles. No cousins.
She had always been more of an older sister than a mother. I remembered as a child she’d feed me gummy bears for dinner and let me watch horror movies on school nights. She didn’t care about things like homework and dental checkups.
But she was also the one who took me to get a sundae at the Dairy Queen the first time I had my heart broken.
She wasn’t all bad, but she only loved if it was convenient.
And I had become inconvenient.
She had Adam now. Gorgeous, struggling musician, way-too-young-for-Mom Adam. A sixteen-year-old daughter didn’t really fit into the raging rock and roll lifestyle she had recently adopted.
When I ran away for the first time, I could admit it was for attention. I had hoped Mom would be frantic. I had fantasies of her notifying the police, putting up missing posters, appealing to the local media.
None of that had happened.
I had stayed away for a full twenty-four hours, sleeping on a park bench, before I ventured back only to find the house empty. Mom had never even come home from wherever she had disappeared to.
I ran away the second time after Mom decided to play super bitch and refused to let me go to the movies with Amanda. With Adam looking on in approval, she proceeded to rip me a new one about my “lack of responsibility” and how I needed to “help out more” if I ever wanted to go out again.
I was gone two days that time. I slept on Amanda’s floor until her dad realized I hadn’t gone home after the first night and all but threw me out on my backside. His loving indulgence clearly only included his daughter.
This time though, magic number three, I left with no delusions of a concerned mother. I didn’t expect her to scour the streets looking for me. I wasn’t trying to get attention. I wasn’t having a tantrum.
I was just tired of being invisible. I’d rather be on my own than living with the constant reminder that I was a non-entity in my own house.
“Good for you, babe. You did the right thing,” Amanda assured me. I pressed the phone to my ear and peered out the smudged glass and shivered, even though it wasn’t cold.
“Are you sure? I mean, what am I supposed to do? Where should I go? Can I come to your house?” I asked, sounding so, so small.
“I wish you could, Imi, but my dad would never allow it. You know how he was last time.”
I had nowhere else to go.
Someone banged on the door and I startled. I could see the dark outline of a very large figure standing on the other side. “Hurry up! I need to use the phone!” the person shouted.
“I guess I could head to the warehouse on Summit,” I considered. I was starting to feel panicked.
“That’s a good idea. There are lots of kids down there. I remember some of them being pretty cool when I’d hang out with that asshole Dez. Plus you’re totally cute, someone will take pity on you.”
“That’s not very reassuring, Mandy,” I muttered, picking at the rusted metal phone cord.
“Don’t be such a worry wart. You’ll be fine. But I’ll try to get out to see you in a bit.”
The guy banged on the door again. “Get the fuck out of there or I’ll drag you out!” he yelled.
“I’ve gotta go,” I said hurriedly.
“Okay, I’ll find you, Imi. Just head to the warehouse.”
The door opened and the phone was yanked out of my hand. I was all but shoved out of the booth by a very large, very impatient man. He snarled at me with a mouth full of yellow teeth and I scrambled away.
I tripped and fell, landing hard on my knees. The sun was just setting and small fires were being lit in trashcans. A few guys were riding skateboards along the cracked pavement. A group of kids no older than I was, were smoking cigarettes and sharing French-fries from a bag.
My knees were bleeding and I pulled pieces of gravel from my skin with shaking fingers.
I had run away from home.
I had nowhere to go.
I was a teenage freaking runaway.
“You okay?”