I Don't Have Much In Life But Take It - It's Yours.

Instinct.

That's the thing that's fuelling me, as I run down the alleyway. Like some animals are born know how to kill, I know I've got to run and I do it without considering anything. I don't think and wonder why the guy didn't punch me, I don't think and wonder why he tried to talk. I just run.

And I don't stop running, even when the guy - whoever he is - calls after me. He's almost pleading, his footsteps echoing behind me and slightly out of sync to mine but I don't fall for the trick because it's just that - a trick, a lie, a crueller way of catching me. He keeps chasing though, as if he thinks he can catch me, but I don't think he realises that I can run, I don't think he realises that I do this often - I don't think he realises that it's how I survive.

There's something else I don't think he realises; I've been on the streets for almost three and a half years now - since I was about thirteen and ten months old - and I know this area better than pretty much anyone. I know the backstreets where darkness can claim you in seconds and I know the places where it's easy to melt away - and the places where it's not.

I know the places that this rich kid doesn't, and I know the places that he won't ever know. Not ever, because his stuck-up parents won't want their darling boy going into scuzzy little alleyways where cigarette butts are a replacement for fancy rugs and broken syringes are the expensive vases. They won't want their kid to see the used, wrinkled condoms that tell the truth in life - that nothing is ever really special.

I pound out of the dark, shadowed alleyway and into the high street, immediately being bathed in orange light. I dodge around the last of the drunken, neon clad revellers who are stumbling off into another darkened street, and I look around for a place to hide. My eyes dart around the shops, the dirty sidestreets, the sprawling roads, the underpasses, the shadowed bridges. I feel my breath catch in my throat as I hear the heavy footsteps coming closer and I choose - and I sprint.

I run down the steep slope of the underpass, skidding around the corner that will take me under the main road and I press my body into the dirty concrete, shrinking away from everything. I listen for any sound down the slope, hardly daring to breathe, but I hear nothing at all, aside from the wheezing cough of the old man walking his spaniel, who's giving me an inquisitive look.

The man, not his spaniel.

He looks like he's going to say something, opening his mouth and trying to meet my eyes, but I shake my hair so it covers mine and I don't have to meet his. He shuts his mouth and just smiles and nods to me as he passes, and I return it, just minus the smile, and the dog stops and licks my hand before the man drags him off.

And do you know why that dog seems to know me?

Because that man is my grandfather, and he doesn't recognise his own grandson, because I got thrown out of the house before I started to change properly, before I started to look like myself now.

And that sends the last shard into my heart, the one that I know is the one that will break me and leave me broken, unable to fix myself, because I'm the one that does all the fixing now I'm on my own.

Because there's more than one type of heartbreak, and I've been through them all.

I was thrown out my house. I've been touched by all sorts of people in all sorts of ways I don't want to recall. I've seen my almost-brother overdose. I've had to run for my life. I've had a knife pushed into my arm. I've had my best friend taken away from me.

And now my own family don't recognise me.

That's the final blow, and I have to clench my jaw as tight as I can to stop myself crying, and I feel my teeth push into one another. I watch my grandfather - Grandad Bill - vanish up the slope and I stare at the spot he was, before I step away from the wall.

And I run again.

I run until my breath is ragged and the bile is rising up my throat, making me swallow it and force myself not to throw up on the paving slabs. I run until I'm out of town, I run until I get to the woods, the ones by the posh, big houses, the ones where the rich people live and where most of the people I've nicked stuff off of live.

I stare at the houses for a second, before slipping in between the first line of tree and crunching my way over layers and layers of dead, fallen leaves and rotting sticks and years of memories.

I know exactly where I'm heading and I go there without having to stop and look for any landmarks or blink around looking for paths. I feel the brambles catch on my clothes and ripped the ends of my frayed jeans, but I ignore it and just hiss when they scrape along my cheeks, drawing spots of blood. I feel a stick whip into my face when I try and push it back, and I wince and cry out, and then curse under my breath and hope that no one in the houses heard me.

It's when I'm through the brambles that I reach exactly where I was heading - a tiny clearing surrounded completely by brambles and it's just the way I remember it from months ago - before Avalon got caught. Her bag is there, her favourite hoodie, the bright pink hair extensions she nicked off a stall in town and never got round to using. I feel a lump rise in my throat as I look at it all and I sit down and take her damp bag, and unzip it and turn it upside down, looking through all the stuff there is and what she has in there that I could have.

After all, she's not going to mind and she doesn't need it.

I sort the stuff into piles; clothes I would wear, stuff I don't want and can be trashed, sellable stuff and stuff that I should keep, and I stare at one last thing, something that's right at the bottom of the bag and slightly damp.

It's a photo booth photo strip.

It was the day before she got caught.

It's us.

When I see our smiling faces, that's what sets me off and I can't stop the salty tears from spilling down my cheeks, from splashing on the shining paper, from landing on my hands and from making the dirt on my face come off on my hand when I angrily wipe my eyes. I trace Avalon's jaw line with my index finger and then mine, seeing our faces filled with hope and love and even happiness, because despite being on the streets, we had each other and we never gave up.

But now she's gone and it's just me.

I flop down in the cold leaves and lean on my bag and close my eyes, feeling the wind brush against my face and hearing an owl call from somewhere far away. I try to sleep and I try to forget.

It's not easy.

Half an hour later, I decide that sleep isn't going to grace me with its presence soon, and I get unsteadily to my feet and push my way through the brambles, not caring anymore about the scratches, just wanting to get out into the open air and away from here. I don't react as they claw at my face and limbs and I don't make a sound as I stumble and land face first in some nettles.

I just want to get out.

As I walk through the trees, not hearing anything but my footsteps and the occasion snap of a twig, I look up and stare at the clouds, the moon and the stars that are miles above me in the sky, and I decide something. I decide that I am sick of doing this - that I'm sick of stealing, of being on the streets, of running every day, of being on my own. I decide that I am sick of fighting, of hiding, of lying, of loneliness.

I finally get the edge of the trees and step out into the open, feeling the cool air strike my in the face with a blow and gulping it down into my lungs. I sit down just at the boundary between trees and open space and stare across at the big houses.

That's when I see a boy wearing neon colours unlocking one of the doors, and before he goes in he turns around and our eyes meet, only for a second.

I tear my eyes away quickly and turn my back on him.

And that's when, strangely, I start to cry again.