Run

CopyrightEmily Burns AKA epiphanies

She wanted to run away. She wanted to pack a bag. She wanted to grab her pay cheque and her favourite jeans that read "teen angst" on the fly and leap down the stairs, streak past the kitchen, grab her most comfortable Doc Martens and run.

However, it wasn't that easy.

The first time she'd tried, she'd left the house and when she got to the bus station, she'd realized she had no money to get the airport, let alone enough for a ticket. She went home, making up an excuse about just wanting a walk in the summer rain.

The second time was right after a fight with her father. She'd grabbed her wallet and jacket and she'd run. Unfortunately, her father, in their fire-engine red family van, had caught up with her after two sprinting blocks. He'd yelled ; she'd yelled back. He'd stopped the van ; she'd kept on running. He caught up with her and forced her back into the van. He brought her home.

A few weeks earlier, the third time had reared it's head. Her day at school had been horrid - the boy she liked wasn't speaking to her, she'd written a brutal test in physics, and her home room teacher had yelled at her for being late (because she'd slept in, of course.) When she got home from school, her mother had gotten on her case about her chores. When she had started to cry, frustrated with her ridiculously annoying day, her mother hadn't voiced wisdom or support, but shrieked at her about studying for that physics test.

She'd run to her room, grabbed her backpack and, tears flowing down her cheeks, pushed past her mother on the staircase.

"Where are you going?" her mother had cried to her daughter's back, which was disappearing behind the white steel front door, having just been shut with a -slam-.

This was not, obviously, the first time she'd wanted to run. And, not every time she wanted did she run. Only when she knew she could take it no longer.

It had never worked. No matter how stealthy she was, no matter how much she wanted it...she would never be permitted to run. The closest she'd gotten was when she'd screwed herself over by forgetting her own money. It was just never going to happen.

She was sitting in her bedroom, painted a heinous shade of orange, listening to what her mother called "Satan's music" and reading a novel by Stephen King. She pulled up her multi-coloured striped sock as she nonchalantly turned a page, biting her lip as the suspense built. She twirled a piece of her straw-yellow hair.

The only times she didn't want to run were times like this. Times when she was alone in her house, when the only noise was her own and she could dress and breathe and think however she wanted. Nothing could make her want to run from that. Since she couldn't run, it was her escape.

Her novels enriched her with the witty characters that didn't exist in her world. Her music let her anger die down from a waterfall to a slow and steady faucet drip.

As she reached the end of the final page, she sighed. She always felt contented after reading... and yet, she felt sad that she was losing yet another set of characters that she knew better than she probably knew herself.

She reached down beneath her bed for another novel - to find that she needed to visit the library again.

"Lovely," she muttered, throwing the finished book into the 'already read it' pile, "Now what?"

Her cd didn't answer her. Her orange walls didn't respond. Her desk full of old papers didn't reply. Her eyes fell upon her portable phone, sitting lonely and dusty in the corner.

"If only," she said bitterly under her breath.

It made her want to run.

The only person she'd ever cared to talk on the phone with lived a million miles away. Well, not a million. Close.

Scotland.

~*~

"Who moves to Scotland?" a brunette had commented snidely two months before, "I can't believe this. Honest to Goddess."

~*~

Her eyes were filling again, and as a fugitive tear streaked down her pale cheek, she heard a door on the main floor click shut. She jumped across the room, turned down her music considerably, and flopped back onto the bed.

I want to move to Scotland.

"Knock, Knock."

She lifted her head and her heart stopped.

"Lucille?" she breathed, and the pink haired former brunette smirked at her from the doorway.

"No way!" she jumped off of the bed and tackled her best friend, "Why didn't you tell me!?"

Lucille laughed as they pulled themselves up from the floor. She grinned a twinkle-eyed grin.

"Bought you a tartan."

"I love you SO much."

"You and I would rock Scotland. Honest to Goddess. I started a coven."

"I'm going back with you."

"You'll fit in the suitcase. Have you lost weight?"

"Shut up."

"So, in that letter, you wanted to run...and now, for a week, you won't have to."

"Only a week?"

"Your parents have been keeping it secret. I get to steal you for a week too."

"You're kidding!"

"Never."

"Wow. How did you guys manage to keep this quiet?"

Lucille rolled her amber eyes, "Parents are the masters of secrets. Honestly, they're stealthier than Civil War snipers."

"I missed you," she said.

And, she added in her head, I won't want to run again. Not for another whole two weeks.