On this particular day, when my plan had finally come to fruition, I stood in the driveway for possibly the last time, a little suitcase in hand containing several keepsakes and necessities, and said three words to my parents. I spiraled in the other direction instinctively for fear of seeing the way their faces turned, and ran like some graceless, flailing thing; past the semi-detached houses and their preened green gardens; past the corner store with the window that still hadn’t been fixed from the robbery last month; past the narrow path the river runs through, and onwards to probably nothing.
	Their footsteps and some kind of angered noise followed me for a little while, before I managed to take enough turns through corners and alleyways that any sound or feeling of their presence was muted to a pleasant-enough ambient hum, one that tended to blend with the birdsong and the roadworks.
	Whatever is here is better than there, I had thought many times before the day in which I left. No cross hung upon the kitchen wall of my parents, nor did bumper stickers on their car warn sinners to repent: their prejudice was that which buried itself within a vaguely progressive-seeming façade. But I knew that if I told them I was a girl, they would never look at me in the same way again. And so, despite the trepidation, I did tell them, as rushed as such an announcement could possibly be – three words, then a swift departure.
	A bus stop was nearby – I considered that this would be the best course of action; to simply get whichever bus came the quickest. I crossed the road without looking both ways in the endeavour to reach it – when I was around halfway across it, I felt a toppling breeze from a car that had just about squeezed past me, and then an increase of heartbeat when I reached the other side. I could have died, I thought. But you didn’t, I also thought.
Out of all the four people waiting with me for the bus, the football-shirt man looked the least pleasant to talk to, and the other three were varying shades of don’t-bother-me. All of them had long since taken the four seats available, leaving me the awkward fifth person standing in front of them, attempting to feign invisibility despite being everyone’s foreground. With eyes attached to the poster to the left of me, scrutinizing the small print for the next one coming, I saw one going to Portsmouth and arriving in three minutes.
I didn’t think I’d go as far as Portsmouth. I thought what I’d try first would be to get off at the stop around a quarter-way there, where I’d walk past a long row of part-constructed housing developments which had been worked on for seemingly years, to the point that it’d feel peculiar if the scaffolding was ever removed to reveal the buildings’ newfangled underneath, and then turn left to find some similarly-sized houses that are surprisingly for this part of town in a state of completion. One of these houses, although it was hard to tell considering their uniform natures, was home to my friend Suzie, whose door I would knock on, at which point I would explain my circumstances and if I was lucky, she’d take me in for a few nights.
Ultimately my initial thoughts (to go to Suzie’s) were what I decided on despite the want to get as far away from home as possible, because some guy at least five years my senior with beer-breath and an oversized beige puffer jacket actively changed his seat in order to move next to me and gave me the What’s your name?, then when I said it was Jennifer he visibly severed eye-contact with me upon hearing my voice, and uncomfortably gave me another look in an effort to resume conversation with me, not realizing that his body language was saying more about what he thought about me than any stumbled-through niceties ever could.
That’s a nice name, he whispered to me. Where are you headed?
I… I’m headed to a friend’s house, I replied.
Ah… okay. I’m going all the way to Portsmouth. Was hoping I could talk to someone on the way there, he muttered, and I noticed his speech had quietened some in volume since his initial shock at my voice.
I’m not going that far, I responded. But don’t you have a book or something? Some music?
Nah, I forgot to bring headphones with me. I could play something out loud, but I doubt you or anyone here would like it, he said, and then chuckled.
There was an odd concoction of flirtation and shame in his voice. I thought of his initial move to change his seat for me of all people, a sixteen-year-old girl on a bus with headphones plugged in and eyes closed who clearly did not wish to be hassled, and what that in itself said about him, and then I thought about the various ways this conversation could go, none of which would end in a particularly desirable manner.