The Runaway

Chapter Two

I decided on my destination at a Dunkin Donuts in southeast Virginia.  I was looking out the fingerprinted filled window that looked out into a vast space of grace and wildflowers (something that was very common in the south), and wondered would it be like to have a city skyline view instead.  For my entire life, I had spent summers at the beach and days running around in the deserted fields.  Maybe my something new should be the complete opposite of what I was used to, maybe somewhere like New York City. 

                  All of a sudden, I wasn’t sitting in a coffee corporation next to a gas station on the edge of the highway.  Instead, I was in a dimly lit café on the corner of a busy New York street corner, enveloped in a worn out cushioned chair.  It closely resembled Central Perk, the coffee house in the TV show “Friends”, with customers receiving oversized colorful mugs to sip on while reading the paper or listening to a young man in dreadlocks play chords on his acoustic guitar softly in the corner. 

                  Outside, it was never quiet like it frequently was in South Carolina.  The constant sound of car horns and people talking filled the air, making me somehow feel not alone.  When I looked up, there were mountains of buildings that seemed to touch the sky, its beautiful architectural detail mesmerizing. 

                  I could picture myself walking the crowded streets to work every morning.  I could handle hauling a taxi, always waiting in long lines, and living in a small apartment.  I knew in that moment that New York was the place for me to start my new life, a life that, for once, I had complete control over.

                  I grabbed my cup of coffee and headed back to my car with a little more bounce in my step.  I hooked up the GPS and set my destination to New York City, finding some random address so that it would lead me to the general area.  In just seven hours, I would be at my new home.  I squealed in excitement and began driving away from the gas station. 

                  Suddenly, my cell phone started to ring.  I picked it up and saw my mother’s smiling face, a picture that I had taken on her birthday last year.  Panicking, I quickly weighed out my options.  I could either tell her the truth: that I had left home for good, or I could tell her that I was at a friend’s place (what friend?  All of mine were far away or married) and wait until I was in New York to explain to her why I had left. 

                  Before I could decide, my phone went silent and her picture disappeared.  I had taken too long, and I sighed out of relief that I hadn’t talked to her.  I would’ve spent the rest of the trip regretting what I had done or worse: decided to go home. 

                  So I drove on, singing along to my “Pumped Up” playlist, mostly because I was in a somber mood.  Unable to control my thoughts any longer, I wondered if I was making a big mistake.  I had lived with my family my entire life and I didn’t know any differently.  How would I be able to live on my own, without having family or friends near me? 

                  After high school, I had watched a majority of my friends go off to universities cities or states away.  I couldn’t understand how they could leave their parents, for I would be incredibly homesick.  Yet they would come back and tell me nonchalantly endless stories of wild nights and cute boys that they’d hooked up with.  And after a while, they stopped coming back.  Most of them moved far away from our hometown and a handful were on the cusp of getting married, though I only knew because of Facebook.  I had given up keeping in touch with them because they were different from who they used to be, different from me. 

                  Going to the nearby college didn’t create many friendships for me.  Most people had gone to my high school and already had their set group of friends, while the others simply went to class and ran out the door the second it was over.  That left me in a double whammy: losing friends yet not gaining any either.  So I focused on my schoolwork and spent a lot of time with my parents, content yet not truly happy.