Between 11:00 and 11:05 PM

My heart’s ramming into my ribs, like it’s screaming at me, telling me that it’s gonna rip out of my chest. But I keep running, putting one foot in front of the other in the knee-high brush, knowing that I just have to get past the fence and then I can disappear and never be found.

I quickly glance behind me and see that there’s no one there. I’m still not in the clear, so I swivel my head back around and keep racing towards the wooden lines of safety, my suburban refuge.

I guess all this isn’t even worth it. My new ‘friends’ decided it would be a fun time to break into someone’s house and steal a china cat or some salt and pepper shakers. Something no one would miss, but would be a totally hilarious story to tell around a pot pipe. So, I agreed, thinking it’d be harmless, a pre-Halloween joke. But, they had a security system and I was the one who was inside while they were all outside. They closed the window before I could get outside, so I had to fumble with the damn thing while the police were pulling up. I managed to get out through the back, grabbing one of those electric watches you get from a kid’s cereal box on the way. No one would miss it.

So, here I am, hauling ass for no reason but bad intentions and a poor plan gone wrong and a watch with Tinkerbell on the band.

The toes of my sneakers hit the fence and I scrabble up it and drop into some bushes on the other side. I run across the green grass, accidentally knocking over a dog’s water dish on my way, and then scale the fence once more so that I’m in the front yard. Then it’s across the dewy grass again and I hit the pavement, frantically urging my legs to move faster. Because they’re there. On either side of the street, a police car. The doors open and they’re after me. I reach a second fence, shorter this time, and leap over it. I hear jangling chains behind me as I keep running. I know they’re keeping up just fine. They’re not the donut-eating cops who sit around with their speed traps.

There’s a hole in the fence that’s big enough for me to fit through, but not big enough for them. It’ll give me some time.

I tear through bushes and knee-high weeds and then dive under, my stomach rubbing painfully in the dirt. I squirm my torso around and grab at the tree roots in front of me, pulling and straining against the jagged bits of metal ripping into my shirt. I’m almost through, my cheek pressing hard to the earth and pine needles, smelling life at its truest.

They snatch my legs and drag me back. The metal leaves long, hot scratches on my bare back. I kick with all my might, relishing in each moment that I make contact with something breathing and warm and soft.

“Christ!” one of them shouts and lets go. I start thrusting my legs back furiously at the remaining captor, screaming in exertion and desperation, clawing my fingernails through the dirt.

I feel the hold loosen slightly and I writhe through the gap. I scramble to my feet once more, shaking so hard I’m scared I won’t be able to run straight, but I have no time to calm down, I have to go. So, I bolt off through the undergrowth, my hands slapping against the trunks of pine trees for support, knowing that beyond here is the highway and then I will be good as gone.

There’s a gray light coming through a break in the trees and I can hear faint rumbling over my harsh breathing. I finally slow down to a jog, smiling through the bile coming to my mouth. I did it.

I emerge from the trees to see a just plain lovely sight.

“Come out and put your hands in the air! Do not try to run!”

“Shit,” I say plainly and spit on the sidewalk. I raise my hands up over my head and stagger out onto the street.

“There’s a good girl,” Dick mumbles to me with a smirk in his voice and sidles me up next to the car. He brings my hands down and tightens the handcuffs, something I’ve never really quite gotten used to as many times as this has happened.

He then shoves my head under the hood of the car, along with the rest of me and soon I’m sitting in the backseat of a cop car, staring at the metal grill separating me from my mother’s boyfriend, Dick.

“I wonder if this means I’ll have to cancel that date with your mother,” he jokes.



“Alexandra! What did you do this time? Dick, what did she do? I am so disappointed in you, young lady. You promised you wouldn’t do this again. Oh, thank you, Dick for taking care of this. You know I’m not always going to be here to bail you out.” My mother is talking as fast as she possibly can, alternately turning and talking to me and Dick.

I scratch the back of my head in discomfort and continue to watch her blather on and on.

You’d think that by now, she’d just want to leave and have us both keep our heads down to avoid public humiliation, but no. She likes to ham it up, play the respective role of the overprotective mother.

It’s not really who she is, but she likes to pretend. When I do something wrong, she’s there. Any other time, it’s Dick or some other guy she met at the bar. But that’s the way it goes. The old-as-time woe-is-me story of the juvenile delinquent. I’d rather not play that role and turn around into a good little girl thanks to God or to some nerdy boy with a good soul or some blind black lady, like my life came straight out of a Lifetime movie. No thanks. So I’ll just sit here, take my punishment, and pray to whatever I believe in that I’ll get out of this life soon.

Not ‘get out’ as in kill myself or anything, just stop being me after high school’s over. Leave town with a suitcase and some newspaper and the change jar that’s hidden behind my mom’s headboard.

I’m snapped out of my thoughts when the door to the cell opens up. My mom motions for me with her hand and I stand up, ignoring the pain in my legs.

I follow her out into the parking lot and I wait in the passenger’s seat while she says goodbye to Dick. I don’t watch them; I already what they do, how they kiss, how they talk. Old news. Instead, I watch the power lines twisting in the breeze, fiddling with the Tinkerbell watch in my lap.