Chapter 2: Four Miles From Home
The first few minutes, I walked quickly.
I told myself I would find somewhere to wait until the storm passed. Maybe I could reach the gas station near the highway. Perhaps the owner would let me use a phone.
I didn't have a plan beyond that.
I just needed to keep moving.
Rain fell so heavily that the streetlights looked like blurry yellow circles suspended in the darkness. Water ran along the curb in silver streams, and the wind pushed against my back one moment before slamming into my face the next.
My sweatshirt was soaked before I reached the end of our street.
I kept looking over my shoulder.
Every pair of headlights made my heart jump.
Every passing vehicle made me wonder whether Dad had changed his mind.
I imagined his familiar car pulling alongside me. I pictured him rolling down the window and telling me to get inside, his voice still stern but his eyes suddenly full of regret.
I imagined refusing to look at him at first.
Then I imagined climbing into the passenger seat anyway because I was his daughter, and some foolish part of me still believed that mattered.
But the cars kept passing.
None of them were his.
By the time I reached the main road, my sneakers were filling with water.
My Converse made a wet scraping sound with every step. The cold seeped through the soles and settled into my feet until I could barely feel my toes.
I tucked my hands beneath my arms.
My backpack bounced against my shoulders, growing heavier as the rain soaked through the fabric.
Inside it was a half-finished algebra worksheet.
That was all I had managed to take from my bedroom.
I thought about going back.
The idea lasted only a few seconds.
I could still picture Dad's face when he shouted at me. I could still hear the deadbolt sliding into place.
If I returned, he might open the door just long enough to tell me to leave again.
I couldn't bear to hear it twice.
So I continued down the road.
I had walked this route before, usually with friends after school or with Dad when he wanted to get some exercise. In daylight, it seemed ordinary. There were mailboxes, driveways, a few houses set back behind trees, and a narrow shoulder bordered by gravel.
That night, everything looked different.
The trees bent beneath the wind.
Branches scraped against one another overhead.
The road stretched endlessly into darkness, and every sound seemed louder than it should have been.
I tried to calculate how far I had gone.
One mile, perhaps.
Maybe a little more.
My mind kept returning to Karen.
Why had she done it?
I knew she disliked me sometimes. She had always been quick to criticize my clothes, my grades, and the way I spoke. She could turn a family dinner into an examination of everything she thought was wrong with me.
But accusing me of using drugs was different.
It was the kind of lie that could destroy a person's future.
And she had delivered it with such confidence that Dad had never even considered asking for proof.
I remembered her expression when I told her to stop lying.
For that brief moment, she hadn't looked frightened.
She had looked angry.
As if I had violated some private agreement by refusing to accept the role she had assigned me.
I wondered whether she had planned the whole thing.
I wondered what she had actually shown Dad.
Then I wondered why I was still trying to understand her when I should have been thinking about staying warm.
My fingers began to shake.
At first, I barely noticed.
I rubbed my hands together and walked faster, but the trembling continued.
The rain had soaked through my jeans. Each gust of wind seemed to find a new way beneath my sweatshirt, and my teeth began clicking together.
I needed shelter.
I looked toward the houses along the road.
Most of the windows were dark.
One home had a porch light glowing, but it sat behind a long driveway and a closed gate. I considered approaching it, then imagined a stranger opening the door and asking why a teenage girl was wandering outside in the middle of a storm.
What would I say?
That my father had thrown me out because my sister accused me of using drugs?
Would anyone believe me?
Would they call Dad?
Would he tell them I was a liar, too?
I kept walking.
After the second mile, my anger began to fade.
It had been holding me upright, giving me something to focus on besides the cold. I replayed the argument in my head, preparing speeches I would never deliver.
I would tell Dad how unfair he had been.
I would demand to know why Karen's word mattered more than mine.
I would ask him how he could look at his own daughter and decide she deserved to be abandoned without a single piece of evidence.
But the speeches became harder to finish.
My thoughts drifted.
I forgot what I had been saying to myself.
The road seemed to rise and fall beneath my feet.
I stumbled once, caught myself against a roadside post, and stood there for a moment with my forehead pressed against the cold metal.
I was so tired.
A strange thought entered my mind.
If I sat down for just one minute, I might feel better.
I knew the rain was dangerous. I knew I needed to keep moving.
But knowing something and being able to act on it were becoming two different things.
I pushed away from the post and continued.
The third mile felt longer than the first two combined.
My legs grew heavy. My shoulders ached beneath the backpack straps. The cold had moved beyond my clothes and settled deep inside me, leaving me with a dull, exhausted feeling that made every step seem unnecessary.
I tried to remember the last time I had eaten.
Lunch at school.
A sandwich.
Some apple slices.
It seemed like something that had happened to another person.
I imagined my bedroom again.
The warm lamp.
The dry blanket.
The paperback on my bed.
I wondered whether Dad had gone upstairs afterward. I wondered whether he had noticed that I had taken almost nothing with me.
Perhaps he thought I had packed a suitcase.
Perhaps he believed I had planned to leave.
I wanted to scream at the sky.
I hadn't planned any of this.
I hadn't asked to be outside.
I hadn't chosen the storm.
I hadn't chosen to be fifteen and powerless while the people who were supposed to love me decided whether I deserved a place to sleep.
A pair of headlights appeared behind me.
I turned so quickly that my balance faltered.
The car approached.
For a second, I thought it was Dad.
Then it passed.
Water sprayed across the shoulder, striking my legs.
I stood there, watching the red taillights shrink into the darkness.
Something inside me broke.
Not loudly.
There was no dramatic sob, no sudden collapse.
I simply stopped hoping that the next car would be his.
I lowered my head and walked on.
Nearly four miles from home, my right knee buckled.
I caught myself with one hand, but the gravel shifted beneath my shoe. My other knee gave way, and I fell hard onto the roadside.
Pain flashed across my cheek.
For several seconds, I lay still, trying to understand what had happened.
Then I pushed against the ground.
My arms shook.
I tried again.
They collapsed beneath me.
I stared at my hands.
They didn't seem to belong to me anymore. My fingers felt thick and clumsy, and I couldn't make them do what I wanted.
Rain struck my face.
I tried to call for help, but my voice emerged as little more than a breath.
I looked toward the road.
A car passed in the distance.
Its headlights swept over the wet pavement and disappeared around a bend.
I wanted someone to stop.
Anyone.
I wanted someone to ask my name and listen when I answered.
I wanted someone to believe me.
Instead, I curled around my backpack.
It was the only thing I had carried out of my old life.
I pressed my face against the damp fabric, trying to hold on to something familiar.
The world became quieter.
The rain no longer sounded as loud.
The darkness seemed softer than it had a moment earlier.
I knew, somewhere beneath the fog filling my thoughts, that I should get up.
I knew I couldn't stay beside the road.
But I couldn't remember how to make my body obey.
My eyes closed.
The last thing I remember was thinking that Dad would be furious if he found out I had fallen.
Even then, even after everything, I was worried about making him angry.
Then the storm swallowed the rest of the night.
I never heard the vehicle that finally stopped.
I never saw the person who approached me.
And I never knew how long I had been lying there before someone realized that the motionless figure beside the road wasn't an abandoned pile of clothing.
By then, my father was still at home.
He had no idea where I was.
May you like
He had no idea that his fifteen-year-old daughter was unconscious in the freezing rain.
And he had no idea that the next few hours would change everything he believed about that night.
