On the Run

We had to run, run away from everything. Our lives hadn't been worth living anymore. Not the way we did, at least.

Keisha and I were good at school, we had a lot of friends. However, that wasn’t all that counted. There were still our families. My family was rich, not wanting to lose any of the money they had. Greedy is what you would call them.
For that matter, my mother wanted me to marry a girl, that had just as much money as I had. I couldn’t marry a poor girl, she would only want to be with me, to have a good life, my mother said.

I know that wasn’t right. Keisha loved me, she really did. She loved me, no matter if I was rich, or had a normal life, like her. Keisha never judged me for my family. She didn’t care, whether they were snobs or didn’t even have enough money to get through.

There was this girl, both our parents wanted us to get married. An arranged marriage. Something I never liked. I believed that everyone should be with the person they truly loved, not someone who was rich, so they had a nice life in a huge house.

I didn’t care about the house I lived in, about the amount of clothes I had, as long as I was with the girl I loved. Keisha knew I wasn’t happy with the situation I had been in. She knew about my parents, about the marriage. The girl knew almost everything about me, she had been my girlfriend for almost two years now, after all.

We often tried to figure out the best way to just leave all of this behind. To just be happy, with no one bothering us.
One day we had the perfect idea. It wouldn’t have been easy, but it wasn’t too bad either. Keisha and I decided to run away, leaving everything behind.

Keisha was even willing to leave her family, the people she loved, who cared about her, because she wanted to be with me. I tried to talk her into staying, but she didn’t listen. She wanted us to be official. She didn’t want to hide it anymore. Two years of hiding our relationship was enough, she said.

So we left, both of us with only a backpack, that contained everything we needed. Or everything we were able to carry. Neither of us having a car, didn’t make it easy. We had to take the bus, go by train or walk. We were walking a lot. Not even knowing, where we went, we just took off in any direction. There was no special destination, we planned on. There was only one thing we wanted, to be gone, to not see my family anymore, to be free.

Life on the road was hard for both of us. We were not used to the cold of the nights, sleeping was almost impossible, though Keisha cuddled into me every night. The only thing warming us, were the sleeping bags we brought, and each other.

Nights were short, since we had to keep going. We had to get somewhere, get a job, and start a new life. It would've been the beginning of something we always wanted, something awesome.

Walking that much, made us tired. Keisha almost fainted once. Exhaustion was written on our faces.

Money, was something we didn’t have. After a month on the run, everything we had saved was gone, for food and drinks. Our goal was to make it to Canada by now, which would've taken another month, if we kept on going like this.

Stealing was the only way to make it. Keisha would've distracted the shop owner, while I took everything possible with me. We made it this way. No one caught us, we didn’t look suspicious at all. My girlfriend was too much of a flirter to ever attract attention.

One afternoon, however, we were at this small shop in a little town, I couldn't remember the name of. Keisha tried her best to distract the guy behind the counter again. She succeeded like always, though that meant she had to give away her phone number.
Knowing Keisha, it wasn’t her real one. I was sure she had mixed up some of the numbers.
Meanwhile, I took off into the shop, grabbing some food and a bottle of water, hiding it under my much too large clothes.

Everything went perfect, like always, until I left the shop. That damn shop had one of those beeping things. The ones that make a sound when you steal something. Shit!, was my only thought, before I took off, running if someone was about to shoot me.

Keisha didn’t stay in there any longer. She started following me as fast as she could.

We were running for miles, the shop keeper yelling at us to stop, even calling the police. Only seconds before the police, could've seen us, Keisha grabbed my wrist and took off into another direction, hiding in a small alleyway.

Hearing the sirens fade, we stayed in there some time longer, calming down, drowning half of the water we had. We both knew we weren't safe yet. I had this feeling in my gut, that something was about to happen.

So, I slowly dragged Keisha out of the alley, looking for someone who might have seen us, running. We were running in another direction this time, not bothering if it would've taken us to Canada. The only thing we could think of was, if we had caught someone's attention.

We were on the run. Every time we heard sirens, we ran, hiding somewhere impossible for them to find us. Every time we had to get food, we were cautious about protection systems in shops. We were scared. Everything made us flinch, afraid of going to jail, for stealing.

Keisha and I never arrived at our destination. We made us a home somewhere in Michigan. It was far enough from our families, so they would've never found us. The police stopped searching for us, thankfully.

The town we lived in, wasn’t too small, but not too big either. It was perfect. Both of us got a good job there. We were happy, happy that we had left our previous homes, happy about the new life we shared.

This was the beginning of our lives. It was the beginning of us. Never did we think of being that happy before, but we made it. We made it halfway across the country, to a state more beautiful, than we would've ever imagined.