Chapter Eight-Sunny Days

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Again Rinoa awoke, and felt the lump on her head. For a moment she couldn't remember what had happened, but then it all came flooding back: the argument, her father hitting her, everything.

Woozily, she dragged herself to look at her clock. Three forty in the afternoon. Her father was at work. Just to make sure, Rinoa peeked out her window. No car was in their driveway.

Rinoa decided then and there that she had to leave. Now. She couldn't tell the cops what she knew, because then for sure Caraway would find her. Maybe if she kept her mouth shut, she could get away.

Grabbing a sheet of stationary off her desk, Rinoa wrote a not to her father:

Mr. Caraway:

You probably noticed that I did not refer to you as 'father.' You see, Mr. Caraway, I do not consider you my father anymore. I'm leaving right now. I won't tell anyone what you did, but if you ever try to harm me or find me, I will. That is not a threat; that is a promise.

Rinoa

Rinoa signed her name, then decided it was incomplete. She needed a new last name if she was to completely sever all connections to this man. What to put, what to put? she wondered. The name flew to her from the air. "Heartilly." Julia had always told her that if anything was to be done in life, it must be done heartily. It would make a good last name. She signed it, hoping the irony would not be lost on him.

Rinoa grabbed her backpack and threw in a few clothes, and enough gil for a train fare. Then she took her chair and smashed the window. Faint sunlight managed to filter through the tall bushes around her home.

She leapt out onto the concrete below, and took off running towards the train station. Everything would be just fine. She was going to go...where?

"So, sweetcheeks, where will you be going?" the clerk at the train station asked.

Rinoa gritted her teeth at the name he called her and said, "That depends. Where is the furthest place I can go for four thousand gil?"

"Well, sweetcheeks, that'd be Timber, but you don't want to go there. There's a rebellion growing there against Galbadia. Too dangerous for someone like you."

"It's perfect. One ticket please," Rinoa said. The warm sunshine warmed her as she stepped onto the train, and rode off towards what looked like a much better place for her.