Even though it was summer it was cool at night. Sometimes the warm summer days fool me and I forget how quickly it gets cold.
I'd run away. I don't know what made this time different, this start of the school year. I'd started school years before, dodging my dad's temper, putting up with the beatings. Putting up with his sarcastic tone. I'd never thought to run away before.
It was night, and even though I was 14 and in high school that scared me. It had been better when it was still daylight somehow. Now it was dark and I was cold in this thin short sleeved shirt. I ran away on the edge of fall in Canada without even a jacket. But it's hard to think when your dad's pounding down your door with a golf club.
Despite all my denials, my need to think and act like everything was okay, I knew what would have happened if I stayed in my room, my dad screaming at me on the other side of my locked door.
"When I say open the door you open the door!" I could hear him say it in my head, and I shivered.
Despite trying to think that things were fine, despite joking and laughing and hiding bruises and telling lies, I knew he would have beat me with that golf club if I'd been on the other side of the door when he broke through.
I glanced sideways at the kids standing by the fires beyond the train tracks. They weren't just glancing at me, they were staring. I swallowed hard, thinking of all the things that could be going on with them. Drugs, poverty, abuse. I knew where I stood with this stuff. I knew my dad was abusive but I also knew that he was rich and I was coddled by that wealth. I didn't know squat about surviving on the street.
But I didn't care. I'd reached a breaking point, that's what happened. I'd rather be cold and out on the streets with petty criminal drug addicts than at my house.
I could smell the smoke from the fires, heard the crackle of it in those trash cans. Saw the gleam of the eyebrow rings and nose rings on the dirty faced kids shivering around the fire. I couldn't go over there despite being cold because I was scared of them, scared of everything. That was my predominant emotion lately, fear. It sucked.
I kind of wanted to go to Florida or California or somewhere warm, but those places were in the U.S. and how was I supposed to get there? Those border patrol people might not believe I was just traveling legitimately by myself. They'd trap me in customs and call my dad and then that would suck. So I was stuck with Canada.
"Hey, kid," I turned around at the voice, one of those smooth female voices like a teacher or a librarian or something.
"Yeah?" She was sitting on the ground, knees drawn up under her long coat, and she sure didn't look like a librarian. She looked like a junkie. But there was something, some kind of calmness in her eyes and voice that I liked.
"What are you doing out here?" she said softly, and I could see the dark circles under her eyes even in the dark, and I could see how she was too skinny, her hair too thin. She was a mess, but so was I.
"Running away," I said, and I heard the crack in my voice when I said it. But I was beyond bullshit at this point. She nodded, her eyes still calm. She didn't question me or tell me to go back, or lecture me. I liked that. I'd had enough of adults telling me what to do, and what not to do. Like my dad, it was always come home at this time and don't see Angela and blah, blah, blah. And he still hit me. And Joey. Joey's like, leave Angela alone just like your dad said. So fuck them.