Have you ever just up and dropped everything and ran away? Stopped what you were doing and just took off, leaving it all behind in an attempt to avoid facing something. It’s a really stupid thing to do, let me tell you, it helps nothing and just puts you in a worse situation. Take it from me, I’m sitting here under this old rickety bridge, you know the old wooden covered kind that creaks whenever someone even walks across it, freezing my ass off. My only company is myself and maybe a few bats flying around in the darkness. It’s probably around seven or eight at night but I don’t know because I took the battery out of my phone so they couldn’t track me, I’m paranoid about that kind of thing. You might be asking yourself ‘Why is this kid sitting underneath a bridge at night all alone?’ Well the answer is pretty complicated, but if I had to sum it up in two words it would just be; I ran.
Guess I should start from the beginning of all this crap. My name is Daniel Freud, like the famous psychoanalyst dude, but every calls me Danny. I’m sixteen years old and live with my parents and two younger siblings in a small town in Nevada. If I had to say anything about my parents it would just be that they are exceptionally average. My dad is the standard work all your life and do nothing special type of guy, he has worked all his life to support our family which has made him contented, no way to live in my eyes but I don’t really care. My mom is the new type of hybrid mom nowadays, she works most the time but also handles most of the housework and takes care of my brother and sister. I gotta tell you about my brother and sister, for one, they are fraternal twins. They were both born when I was 6 years old, on my birthday, so I’m exactly 6 years older than them to the day. I gotta admit it kind of sucks sharing a birthday every year with your younger brother and sister, but we get through it fine. I love both of them to death, I really do, and every time our birthday rolls around I always go all-out to get them something nice, like last year I got them a Nintendo Wii to share between them. It has always made me feel good to see them smiling up at me after I’ve done something for them.
Anyways, now that you know a little more about me, let’s get back to the real problem. I attend Piedmont High school, at the moment it is being investigated by the state, we’ll get to that in a moment, but a week or so ago it was considered one of the top school in the country. I had always been a top-grade student through elementary and middle school so my parents had of course wanted me to go to a prestigious high school. Of course Piedmont seemed like a great place, but it was all a lie. I remember on the first day of school everyone in the school took an aptitude test to place us in our classes, but in reality it was just to separate the students who would be able to make the school look good and the students who would need to be given extra “help” during the tests. This help included being told the answers to state-wide and nation-wide standardized tests right before they were given out. They also imposed duties on the smarter students by making them represent the school whenever they had guests, making us show them the better parts of the school, keeping them away from the more dilapidated classrooms and the seedier students. Of course, as you can imagine, this is all strictly illegal. That was how they threatened us, they told us if they were caught then they would take us all with them, they also bribed us by continuously telling us that if we just survived the four years of dishonesty we would be able to get into better colleges and universities. At first I tried to do as little as I could, passing on being the representative for the school quite a few times. This of course grabbed the attention of the teachers who eventually told the principal that I wasn’t doing the work I should. I still remember the day I was called into the Principal's office. The principal was a chubby old man, resembling an old hairy pig in a suit, you could tell he was most likely the one who benefited the most from the going-ons at Piedmont. He had these beady eyes that seemed to demand more from you just by looking at you.
“Do you know why you’re here boy?” The principal asked me with a wheezy, out-of-breath voice, it almost sounded like someone who had just run a mile.
“I can probably guess, sir.” I replied trying to be as formal as possible while not giving him the satisfaction of thinking he could intimidate me.
“Better cut that crap right now,” he said in an agitated tone, curling his chubby hand into a fist and banging his desk. I don’t think it had the desired affect because the fat of his hand cushioned the blow, making it sound somewhat like someone hitting a balloon.
“You think you can go against me you little twerp?” He asked, pounding out each word with his hot dog fist.
“I can destroy your school records, and when I do, colleges wont even breathe in your direction.” To be honest, this scared me, because no matter how much I hated this school and this terrible system I still needed to pass through here. I fully recognized that I needed to go to a good college if I wanted to live a well-made life.
“You better start doing your job or I swear you will regret it.”
“Yes, sir.” I said politely, getting up and leaving while hiding what I was really thinking. I wondered for a moment if going to the police would be a good idea, but then decided against it. I figured that greedy adults had made this messed up system so they probably wouldn’t be able to help it. The way I figured it, if I didn’t want anything to drastically change, then the easiest path to take would be to just do whatever they told me and just get it done with. Obviously I went with the easier opion. Honestly though, I’m pretty sure this was the beginning of the end for me.
Fast-forward about two months and you’d find me sitting up in my room late one night, the TV on while I sit in bed with a blank expression just zoning out the world. I was knocked from my daze when some light flashed by my window. It was just an average thing that happened when a car drove by at night, but it was pretty late so I went and took a peak out my window. I was surprised to see a police cruiser pulling into our driveway. I checked the clock and wasn’t surprised to see it was already midnight. I figured that my mom, brother, and sister had already gone to bed. If I shut my TV off I could hear the dulled sound of a TV playing downstairs, which meant my dad had yet to hit the hay. The knock I was anticipating came about a minute later, I could hear my dad opening the door and could vaguely hear him talking to someone. It sounded like he was getting worked up about something, I could hear his voice being raised. I figured that something was up, like maybe one of my relatives had gotten into an accident or something. Then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I guess I should let you know that there is only two rooms on the upper level of our house. One being my room and the other being my parents home office. It was pretty easy to assume which room my dad was heading too so I started to worry. What had done that would incite a visit from the police at such a late hour. The only thing I could think of that would be considered illegal was being involved in what was going on at Piedmont. When my dad opened the door I tried to glean something from his appearance, but he had a straight face an just told me to come with him. We walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, waiting there a our dinner table was a plain old police officer. He seemed like he wasn’t a bad guy,but I was still wary of him.
“Hello there, I’m Officer Tom Mader.” He started off, “Daniel Freud right?” he asked as my dad and I took a seat across from him. My only response was to nod yes.
“Alright, my son is here now, so what was it that you wanted to talk about that required him?” My dad asked in a slightly annoyed tone. The officer looked at me and said;
“First I’d like to ask your son if he has anything he’d like to tell us before I get started.” It seemed like he was trying to give me the opportunity to turn myself in or something. I cleared my throat, trying to get the words out, but I couldn't do it so I just told him I had nothing to say. He seemed slightly disappointed nodded anyways.
“Well I’m sorry to say, son, but we’ll have to take you in for-” I didn’t really give him a chance to finish because I stood up and walked out the door. Just like that, and once I was outside I stopped walking and started running. I could hear my dad calling after me as I ran down the street, and then it was silent except for my breathing and footfalls. I saw a pair of headlights poking out form my street and just hid behind a tree as the police car drove by. There was only one place I could think of where I would, and that how I ended up here. Underneath a bridge, all alone, with nothing to do. In hindsight it would have been better to just go with the officer and tell them everything I knew. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do now, considering the fact that I’m a runaway.Take it from my experience, its better to just face your problems, running away doesn’t solve anything, all it does is put off the inevitable. Anyways, I think maybe I should follow my own advice and turn myself in. Thanks for letting me take a load off, see ya next time.
