Stranded

Last Sighting

Being able to run was just about as important as being able to breathe, in Able's opinion. Psychologically and physically, she needed to be able to run. To leave her troubles behind, to be able to feel that burning in her lungs and the strain in her legs. To feel the hardness of the ground under her feet, and that rhythmic thud of her heart. 

Arms swinging up, propelling herself forward, she took off down the drive way. The trees moving by quickly, as if they were all a blur. She loved to run for leisure, a nice run in a cool morning air or a jog in the afternoon's stifling heat. 

But, she wasn't running for fun this time. She was running for her own life, her own sanity. Clad in jeans that were ripped and caked in mud, an open sweater keeping her warm in the cold night, she took a sharp left at her family's driveway in a continuous sprint.

Her breaths came out in shallow gasps, making her cheeks puff out as she blew out the air.

Calls of her name rang through the air, making Able shut her eyes tightly, making her nose wrinkle. She couldn't go back, not to that place. 

Her eyes popped open as she continued to run, and she could imagine that place just above her own limits that holds her freedom. A "runner's high", as they call it. She ran down the long road from her house where her controlling mother, demanding father, and goodie-two-shoe brother were waiting for her. She just needed to run, and, at this moment, she actually didn't have a place to run to. Only what she was running from.

Her knees stung from where she had fallen down the steps of her house's porch, but that pain was slowly being replaced by the quickly spreading burn in her calf muscles. Soon, she'll just be running, her mind blank, and all there would be is the sound of her breath, the thumping of her heart, and the soreness of her muscles. 

She had ran down the dark road and out by the small park by her home before she cullapsed onto the dry ground. Huffing, Able rolled onto her back. The sky above was dark, clouds covering the moon. 

Thoughts started to come back to her, Able's mother's glare and her father's disapproving stare. Her brother's smirk. 

"You can't get anything done right can you, Able?" 

Able's lip quivered, her eyebrows pulling down as she fought back the tears. Her eyes throbbed as she screwed them shut, letting the wetness out onto her cheeks. 

I'm trying! Able's thoughts screamed back at the memory, you just can't see it! 

Able's hand came up and pressed against her face as she felt her pounding heart slow down. Her legs loose and almost numb. She needed to leave this place, she wanted to go. 

But, being sixteen, she was still stuck under her parents rules. She let out a few shaky breathes, looking up at the sky. 

Hours seemed to pass, Able just laying in the grass. She pulled her sweater tighter around herself as she stood, starting the long walk back home. She was exhausted, and just wanted to sleep. 

Her feet seemed to drag across the ground, the darkness engolfing her figure as she walked. It was like she was sleepwalking, the way her mind had drifted completely from the moment she was in. 

"You think you are somethin', huh?" her own voice rang out in her head, she could see herself step towards her brother, Brad. 

"I am. At least Mom and Dad respect me, know me. Unlike you, Able. You should hear some of the things that they say about you. You are their problem child, the one that they are always looking after. Picking up your messes." there was that pause, the one that told you that when you thought that the worst was over, there was still that final stab. Then, the bomb would be dropped. 

"Their mistake." Able could see her brother's sneer in her minds eye. 

A bright light caused her to come back down to the present moment, to the dirt road and the night. She squinted, grimacing from the brightness of the on coming car. The car came to a stop beside her, the door opening. She could see the black paint from the light that the headlights were producing. Able's eyes landed on the figure walking towards her. 

"Able," that gruff voice almost made her scream, and she was close to doing just that. "Get in the car, you have no idea how pissed off I am at you right now." 

"Shut up," Able muttered, wrapping her arms around herself as she turned to continue walking. 

"Excuse me?" 

Able turned on her heel to face her father, who was standing a mere foot from her. "You heard me!" she shouted, "Can't you listen for once? Just once in your life, you're going to listen to me! I'm sick of you, Mom, and Brad. Just leave me alone, I'm not coming back home with you," she punctuated that statement by spitting at the ground near his feet. 

"Able, you get your ass back here, or so help me..." her father threatened, stepping towards her with a start. 

"You'll do what?" Able hissed, "hit me? I'm surprised you haven't hit me before, I mean, I'm just a mistake," she said, then turned back and continued to walk.

Able took long, angry strides towards her destination, which just happened to be the home she was running from. She just didn't want to lose enough pride to ride home with her father like some brat that had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to do. 

"Why don't you just go?" Her father shouted at her, causing Able to pause and look back at him. He was standing in the light from his car, arms resting limply by his sides and face dark with anger and tiredness. "You pull stunts like this every week, Able. Why don't you just leave this time and don't come back?"

Able seemed frozen in her tracks, staring at the figure of her father. She sucked in a breath of air, shoulders tense and hands curled into tight balls. 

"Oh, I won't be going back," she said, "just you watch me, I'll be the better than all of you. And I would have done it myself!" 

"Well, since you already have this planned out, then you can go," Able's father said, turning slightly. "Don't come around my house, you've just proved that you don't want to be part of this family."

Able stood on the road as she heard a car door slam shut, the headlights becoming brighter until they passed her, leaving her as the darkness claimed her back into the night.

Until she was just a figure standing alone in the dark.