It is around 8 in the morning; both my sisters and dad have left for school. My mom is in the room sleeping with the door open and I am awake walking my dog. Today is the day. I have been here for only a few days and I have been getting yelled at and threatened to be trapped in the room. The bookbag is packed and ready to go. It is time. The dog is walked and my heart is beating out of my chest faster and faster every moment up till the time. Here we go. I walk out of the house, I start going towards the hotel across the street with my heart beating so hard out of my chest that I start not being able to breathe. I have the email ready to send to my family about why I am leaving. I send it. I hurry up and put my phone on Airplane mode so that no one can text me or figure out where I am. I get into the taxi and he already knows where he is going thanks to the plan. We start moving to the destination: a bus station owned by Greyhound.

I sit in a Burger King next to the station, I try not to touch my phone, and my ticket is being crushed by my hand because of the stress. I am waiting and waiting for the bus. I am scared to turn on the data to my phone because I do not know what is going to happen or come up. I was so scared and this was the biggest thing that I ever did against my family. I have never run away before, but I knew that I needed to. This was the day that everything would change in my world. Was it for the good or the worse? I still cannot tell you to this day because it is something that I have yet to still learn myself. I wish sometimes that I knew what was going on in my life, but I can’t, and that hurts.

I sit in the uncomfortable booth, just waiting and waiting. Then it comes. I grab my bag and head outside. I wait for a little while outside of the bus. Then I check in. I try to sit where I know no one will sit, and I put my bag in the overhead bin. I sit down, put my headphones in, look out the window and think about what song to play first on this journey.

It has been two hours on this long twenty-hour ride on the way back to LC. Traveling from Florida to Virginia on this bus is already horrifying because of the amount of time and transfers from one bus to another. It also terrifying because I know people are going to start crowding the bus. I am now at my second transfer station; the bus is gassing up and I am starving. I want to eat, but there has been a pit in my stomach that is blocking my appetite from coming through. I am getting onto the WIFI at the station and I am starting to get many things coming through, so then I decide to take off airplane mode. This was the worst mistake ever. I see text messages from my parents, voicemails making threats to call the police to come search for me, messages from my godmother crying harder than ever. I don’t know what to do. I feel like dying. My head is throbbing like a bullet just went through it.