Chapter 1: Ready to Run
Growing up, all Aaron ever wanted to do was get away. Get away from the fear he faced every day. From the time he was old enough to piss his father off, he was always running.
He would run to the fields in the early hours of the morning to get away from the horrors that waited for him if he didn't get the chores done in time. If he didn't get everything done before breakfast, he was in for a beating. And depending on his father's mood, the punishment was anyone's guess.
He would run to school so that his father couldn't blame him for some obscure chore that he didn't do right. Something so asinine as putting the toilet paper roll on the wrong way.
Aaron was always running. He was always running away from the small little hell he was born into.
When Aaron was 12, his mother, after years of what felt like shoveling shit in Hades, finally had had enough. She would later tell Aaron that leaving him with that sorry excuse for a father was the hardest thing she had ever done. She just didn't know how to start over with a 12 year old. Aaron didn't blame her. He hated her, that's for sure. But he never blamed her. He always thought that if the rolls had been reversed, he probably would have done the same thing. That was a thought that he pushed to the back of his mind. He never wanted to think that he would ever leave his child so the easiest thing was to shove it into the box labeled "You Will Never Turn Out Like Your Parents".
The following 3 years proved to be the worst so far. His father had become more of an alcoholic then he already was, and Aaron never knew what was waiting for him when he came home. All he knew was that he would probably be rewarded with a pillowcase full of bars of soap because the only bruises they left were internal.
As the numbers on the clock changed to 12:00am, it was now November 2. Aaron's birthday. His 15th birthday. Aaron knew what his father would get him for his birthday and he knew that this year, he really didn't want that particular gift.
He had had his bag packed and hidden for a few weeks now. He was just waiting for the perfect moment to run for the last time. He checked his watch as it beeped in the silence. It was 12:30am and he was running to catch up to the boxcar that was pulling out of the train yard. He threw his bag into the empty car and jumped in just before the train picked up speed.
He looked around at his new temporary home. He couldn't believe he was finally free of that asshole. It was pretty much the single most exhilarating moment of his life. He sat in the corner of the car in the dark of the early morning and breathed a sigh of relief for the first time in 15 years. The only thing he regretted about leaving the way he did was that he wouldn't be there to see the look on his good-for-nothing-losebag-of-a-father's face when he woke up to find that he wasn't there.
As Aaron thought over that for a while, he closed his eyes and slipped into the first peaceful sleep he'd had… ever!
When Aaron woke up later that morning he was a little disoriented. He didn't know where he was and he knew that it was WAY past the time he should be up. He sat bolt upright, fear instantly streaming through his blood, beads of sweat starting to glisten on his forehead.
It took him a moment to recall the events of last night. And when it hit him where he was, the fear he initially felt upon waking up was replaced with relief. He was finally free to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. The first thing he wanted to do though was go back to sleep. In his hurry to get out from under his fathers iron fist, he forgot to grab his pillow and a sleeping bag. He had never had a kink in his neck like he did now, but that didn't mean he wasn't exhausted. With the adrenaline from last night long gone, and the stiffness that was creeping in all over his body, Aaron realized that he was indeed in need of a few more hours of sleep. Albeit extremely uncomfortable sleep, but it was sleep that he needed.
With a few more hours of sleep in his system, Aaron decided it was time to try and figure out where he was headed.
He was standing at the open door of the boxcar taking in the scenery passing him by. He had never been out of his small town nowhere USA and he couldn't get over how beautiful everything was. He couldn't believe that all this was out there and he had never been allowed to be a part of it. He suddenly became very angry with his father for keeping him from experiencing all of this.
Not realizing how much pent up anger he had inside of him, he punched the wall of the boxcar. He punched it a lot harder than he had ever intended and he was instantly regretting that decision. He knew his hand wasn't broken because he could still move his fingers and rotate his wrist, but it still hurt like a bitch.
As the hours ticked by, Aaron was alone with his thoughts for the first time in a long time. Normally the thoughts that he had revolved around coming up with creative ways to escape a beating. But now that he was alone in a boxcar, he was bombarded with thoughts of insecurities, fear, excitement, and an unbelievable pleasant anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach.
As Aaron's stomach was doing giddy little summersaults, a childlike smile crept across his lips. This small, smelly boxcar was his new favorite place in the world. It was so far from what he knew but at this moment, with the sun, the wheat swaying in the breeze, the absolutely beautiful day outside made this shabby little car look just like heaven.
Aaron held onto the ladder and leaned out as far as he could, for no other reason than because he could. He noticed up in the distance a town coming into view. I should probably find something to eat. I'm starving, Aaron thought. It had been almost 9 hours since he last ate and it was really starting to hit him that there were some kinks to his well thought out plan of escape that maybe weren't so well thought out.
As the train slowed down and pulled into the train yard, Aaron grabbed his oversized backpack and jumped out of the boxcar.
Walking down the streets of the town felt so strange. Normally Aaron was running down the alley's to avoid nosy neighbors wonder what he was dong. For the first time, Aaron just walked. He never walked. It was something that he never realized could be so fulfilling. He would never take these little things for granted.
With all the new thoughts going through his head, Aaron realized that he needed to get a life. He kind of felt like a loser having all these girlie, poetic thoughts. Enough with feeling sorry for himself. He was starting a new life and that meant that he needed to get one. He just didn't know what he could do. In the meantime, he needed to find something to eat.
As he walked past a restaurant, he looked at the menu and knew that he was going to have to steep to a new level. If he wanted to make what little money he had last, he was going to have to do something that made his skin crawl. Dumpster diving was not something he ever thought he would ever find himself in a position to have to resort to, but here he was. Actually contemplating it.
Aaron was a rational teenager. This new way of living was going to have to be justified. How on earth can you justify eating food that was thrown in the garbage? The only thing that he could think of that would make this make sense to him was that he was living the life of a hobo, so he might as well eat like one. What is it they say? When in Rome! Well, he certainly wasn't in Rome, but he had to do this if he wanted to survive out here.
He figured that if he was going to do this, he might as well eat something half decent. He found a Red Lobster and went round back. He rummaged through the dumpster and found that this place had some pretty good food. Granted it came from the garbage, and other people had eaten off of it, but it was a pretty good meal. He had lobster, shrimp (God he hopped he wouldn't go into anaphylactic shock), chicken, steak and these little biscuit things. This was better than anything he had ever eaten while back with his dad.
He didn't look like he had slept in a train and no one would have guessed he had just feasted on food that was only good for dogs. So taking a tentative step inside the restaurant, he asked the hostess if he could just have a plastic bag. Even if Aaron Hotchner looked like a vagrant, he had a way of getting what he wanted. Especially from women. He wasn't beyond using his dimples to get ahead in life. In this case, he just wanted to go and bag up some of the feast he left behind in the dumpster.
As he made his way back to his boxcar, dinner in hand, he tossed his bags back into his new 'home'. He felt the now familiar movements of the wheels coming alive. Last night he never got a chance to see what life was like after dark. Tonight he wasn't going to miss it.
He couldn't believe how clear the sky was. He had never in his wildest dreams imagined a sky like this. Aaron knew about constellations from the astronomy portion of his science class, so he spent the next several hours finding and naming constellations, and making a few up as he went along.
When his watched beeped he looked down and saw that it was 12:00am, November 3rd. Aaron sat back against the frame of the door and let the cool night air envelop him. As he let out a contented sigh he thought, Happy Birthday to me! Happy. Birthday. To. Me.