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She needs to be as far away as possible. And she never wants to look back ever again. Kiara Johnson's life has been a living hell for years. Now, in this exact night, she puts an end to it all. Together with her daughter Nevaeh, she ru...
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March 15th, 01:58 a.m.
It's freezing outside in the night in Toronto and the bonus is that it's raining in storms what makes it even colder. But my body doesn't feel cold. I'm on fire. I'm running as fast as my feet can carry me with a sleeping toddler in my arms and a huge backpack on my back. I know the area around my house by heart so I don't have to see where I'm runnig to reach the bus station.
I could cry the first happy tears in a long time when I see the shelter with a woman sitting in it. "Hey, I need a bus ticket. We need one that drives as far away as possible in the next minutes." The words fall out of my mouth uncontrolled but I don't give a fuck about it right now. The lady behind the shelter is like a 60-year old woman, chocolate skin and a kind smile on her face.
"The next bus leaves at 02:30. It drives to Chicago." "Is there nothing sooner?" "That's in twenty minutes." "That's what I mean," twenty minutes is a long time in this situation, but I look up at the screen and see that this one is the soonest bus that can take us with it. "Okay. I need this bus. I need a ticket for it." "That's a really expensive ticket miss. This is going to be a ten-hour-ride." She shows me the amout of the price for the ticket and I reach my hand in my jean-pocket to get out all the money I have. "That's only 120$ miss..." "It's all I have right now. I don't have the time to look for my wallet in my bag and I can't risk waking my daughter up. Please.." She looks at me for some more secondes and then her kind smile returns and she reaches her hand out for me to give her the money.
Just as I hand it to her, the sleeve of my jacket rides up and it reveals the bruises on my wrist. Of course she notices them. I quickly hand the money to her and try to pull my jacket over my wrist again when the woman grabs my hand and holds it in both of hers giving it a light squeeze. "Miss... Are you in danger? Do you need help?" I pull my hand out of hers and place it under Nevaeh's butt to balance her weight on both my arms. "Please. I just need the ticket. Please give me the ticket.." My happy tears are replaced with tears of fear because I have a feeling that she won't give me the ticket after this. But I was wrong. She slides it out of the window but doesn't put her hand from it at first. "Stay safe, dear." Finally she lets go of it and closes the window after that. I mouth her a thank you and walk us over to a bench to wait for the bus which is supposed to be there in fiveteen minutes. My whole body is tense. And it will only relax as soon as we arrive in Chicago. That's what I hope at least.
As I situate us in the bench, I feel Nevaeh's body tensing, and shortly after that, she moves her hand up from my shoulder to look at me with sleepy eyes. Her brown eyes light up as soon as they see me and I put the hair away from her face to see it better. "Momma Cold." I put my hand on her neck, pull it to my shoulder again and stroke her back calmly, tryig to warm her up. I see it as a good sign when her little body relaxes again and her head begins to become heavy on my shoulder again. I take a look at my phone to check the time. Just then, the bus arrives and I get up, throwing my phone into a trash-can next to me. I won't risk anything.
Getting into the bus, I show my ticket to the driver and head into the back of the bus, sitting on a seat for four with a small table in the middle of it. Placing Nevaeh in one seat and pull my jacket over her to warm her, I place my backpack into the seat across from us, sit in the seat next to my daughter and pull her as close as possible to my body. 10 hour drive, here we come...
We've been halfway through the drive now. The good thing is that Nevaeh loves car drives so I figured that she would like bus drives just as much. She cuddles her stuffed lamb to her chest and watches the raindrops running down the window of the bus. She also cummunicates with all the people that join the bus and leave it. They seem to be pretty okay with her talking to them and her explaining the names of her toys. She doesn't have a problem with strangers, which is something we don't have in common.
The rest of the other five hours I've spent telling her stories, showing her things that are outside the bus, cuddle her, and finally rocked her to sleep. She slept until we arrived in Chicago. I walk out of the bus and am already feeling the new oppurtinities for a happy life for me and Nevaeh. She's now awake again, we're still a little bit outside of the main city, so I take Nevaeh's hand and we walk without any plan where to. We walk, I carry her until we see the first motel. Now standing in front of it, I open my bag and search for my wallet. "No. No, no, no, no....." I have left without my wallet. My ID's not with me, no credit card, no cash.... nothing. The whole thing felt too good to be true.
My knees get weak and I fall to the Ground, hugging Nevaeh to me and start crying not even bothering to be quiet. "Mommy? What's wrong?" Nevaeh strokes my hair with her little hand and helps me calming down. Or she at least tries to.
