When I was five, I threatened to run away. My parents smiled and told me to take my clothes off and leave all my personal belongings with them since it was their money that paid for all my things. Now that I was seventeen, I decided just to leave them a note; one with four simple words: ‘I love him. Bye.’ I knew I was taking a chance; skipping town with a boy I had only known for six months; I knew it was stupid, but as I sped down the lonely winding road with dense woods standing like sentinels on both sides, I couldn’t get to his house soon enough.
His yard was as silent as a morgue when I stepped out of the safe warmth of my truck, into the cold cruel night. I peered around nervously, a sliver of the moon glowing above as I picked my way carefully towards his house, stumbling. I held my breath, expecting to see a dead man pop out of nowhere, but I swallowed down my fear continuing on, reminding myself that love, and passion had brought me this far, and not even the ‘trespassers will be shot’ sign nailed to the dead oak could stop me now.
An inkling in the back of my mind shuddered at the thought that this might be set up; a cruel trick played by a stupid teenage boy. Maybe he was snickering in his house at my ignorance. I wished I had powers to see through walls, to hear what he was thinking at that very moment.
My foot slid onto the stone patio when the first warning shot was fired. The second was closer, and I could feel the burning speed of the bullet whizzing past my head. The third lodged itself in between two of my ribs.