Sadie Nolen got into the car, she took a deep breath, hoping that it would calm her nerves, and turned the ignition.

As the car pulled out of the long driveway, Sadie had an overwhelming rush of emotion. She was suddenly thankful, aside from the multitude her other emotions playing hide and seek, especially the pang of anger and remorse that had currently taken up residency in the pit of her stomach. She was thankful that instead of buying her the entire collection of designer handbags and heels, that her parents had purchased the car for her senior graduation present instead. Grateful that the car had no bow on the roof and did have gas in the tank. Sadie was also up mostly appreciable that neither her parents nor the maid were up at this hour and wouldn’t wake in time to persuade her not to leave.

Sadie didn’t have the slightest idea where she was going, she just had to get herself out of the view of the tauntingly large house were the rest of her family was peacefully sleeping, and her steering wheel would do the rest. The street lights were still lit as Sadie drove down her street. The sun was just peeking over the oak tree that lined the sidewalks of her upper class urban neighborhood. The first commuters, their eyes still glazed with sleep, were making their way to their cars. Each had a briefcase or purse in one hand and a thermos the size of an oatmeal can, full of coffee, in the other. Sadie tried to keep her eyes on the road in front of her. She felt like a horse with blinders on her eyes. But she wouldn’t look up; she couldn’t make eye contact with one of her neighbors who would most likely politely wave, breaking her mental stance. Sadie had to keep this independent, headstrong poise that was allowing her to drive away form the life that she didn’t agree with or belong to.

Soon the neighborhood street opened onto a busy intersection. The car seemed to turn left by it self, dragging its driver along with it. Soon Sadie was passing her old high school; the parking lot was empty and would not be completely full again until august. But now it was the end of May and a promising summer stretched out before many. Unfortunately Sadie did not have as high expectations for the summer as many of the other students of her graduating class did.

Many had it all planned out. Some would vacation in exotic foreign countries, others would partake on long adventurous road trips, and of course there was the elaborate summer program crowd. At one point Sadie had been part of this hubbub amongst the summer program attendees. It had been planned for months, well actually many opportunities had risen during the year. She had had the top picks, Fiji with Ava, film camp with Melissa, or really anywhere else, there were no limitations. Of course her parents had narrowed it down for her; it was either a summer abroad in Europe, or a summer of college visits and an internship. Believe it or not, both sounded appealing to Sadie up until the moment she was told to decide, to decide this, to decide everything. And that was when she decided to drive away.