I suddenly awoke to a hand over my face. The person’s fingers smelled so strongly of cigarettes I could taste it. When I opened my eyes I saw my brother. “What are you doing?” I asked. “We have to leave,” he said. They’re coming. “Who?” I asked. “Who do you think?” I could hear the faint sounds of the sirens. Time to go. We ran down the hallway and went out the back door. He picked me up and over the fence, and I unlocked it from the other side. His arms were full with the only things we had. It wasn't much. We ran to the barn that was about four blocks away and hid from behind the fence outside of it.

This is how my life has always been. Well, for at least two years anyway.  Running and hiding. It’s also not for the reason you might expect. My parents aren’t dead. They’re not drug addicts. I’m just an adrenaline junkie. And so is my brother. We were actually brought up by a very religious family, who didn’t seem to want to let us live our own lives and have fun. So, long story short, we decided to live the dream and leave. I guess our main issue is, we barely have anything to call our own. Our plan wasn’t exactly thought through properly. We can’t stay in one place for long, because some people, aka, the police, are looking for us “to, save us and bring us back to our loving home.” Oh h--- no. I wouldn’t call it a loving home. It’s somewhere along the lines of my parents always trying to perfect us to use us as accessories to impress their snobby friends. But anyways, we are on our own. We have small jobs when we move to other places, such as being a cashier at a gas station, or working in a hotel. So we aren’t exactly broke. We don’t have a car, which isn’t great. Hitchhiking was a new experience for us when we needed to get farther away. It wasn’t the best option, but it was our only option. Right now, life is pretty calm. Georgia is treating us pretty well. Good weather, nice people, cute accents, cute guys. Sometimes people will look at us pretty strangely, but I can’t blame them. They see us walking around everywhere on our own, probably wondering where our parents are. Or maybe thinking we’re getting into trouble of some sort. I guess we did look a little weird without shoes. (Like I said earlier, we don’t have much.) But this is the day when my life was changed completely. My brother had been acting very strange lately. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was really paranoid. I asked him if he was okay once, and he slapped me and told me to mind my own business.  I wasn’t going to put up with that. I had started screaming at him, and I asked him if he had gotten into drugs. He went silent, and I knew. “You need to get help,” I told him. He said he didn’t need it, and got really mad. He was gone for the rest of the day. The next morning he still wasn’t back. I decided to go look for him. As soon as I went into a store, a man had stopped me. He was a cop. S***. “Excuse me, are you Jennifer?” Why..? Because, we found your brother. I started breathing heavily. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “About what,?” I screamed at him. “We found your brother laying by the bridge, and he was dead. He overdosed, on meth. His blood pressure had skyrocketed and he had a heart attack. I’m very sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything to say. I didn’t really need the details. “Your parents have been looking for you for a long time.” I didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry.” The drive was about six hours. When we arrived I couldn’t look at them. My parents looked so different, presumably older. They let me go to my room and sleep. I slept more than I have for a very long time. They didn’t make me go to church with them, or force me to do any of their activities. I think they knew I was done. My brother’s funeral was today. I was greeted by all of my family, and my old friends. No one had questioned me, or seemed mad at me. It was just an endless day of comfort. After all of the grief flew over, life started to be a bit more normal. I started doing more normal things. I started getting back together with my friends, and my parents and I started getting along. I had explained to them about the stress that they had put on me before, and after all of the crying they said they would be more fair to me. For me, there was now no more running.