Shauny sat quietly and stared out of her car window and into the bay window of the house she parked in front of. Her house. She was only 16-years-old, and she was contemplating never seeing her family again. Her boyfriend, Jared, was seated next to her and nervously rattling off reasons why they should run away, but she wasn’t paying him any attention. Shauny was focused on the lights coming from the house. They were still on, which meant her family was still getting ready for bed. Who was she kidding? The lights were still on because her parents were waiting to confront her.

“It will be hard at first, but it shouldn’t take us that long to get jobs…find a place,” Jared said. “We have a little money in the bank.”

No, I do. And we’d have to empty it before we leave, Shauny thought to herself. Bank transactions are too easy to trace.

“We’ll just drive as far as we can in the next couple of days,” Jared was still talking.

“You don’t think they’d report this car stolen? It’s their car,” Shauny was barely able to keep the frustration out of her voice. It was the first thing he’d said in the last ten minutes that she had even bothered to respond to.

“It’s your car. They can’t say you stole your own car,” Jared mumbled.

“I’m 16! Do you really think I bought this car?” Shauny asked him.

She turned back towards the window. She just needed time to think. Jared was 19-years-old but it was like talking to a kid. She was going to have to make this decision on her own. She had plenty of reasons to run away from home, but she was having second thoughts about running away with him.

“We love each other. We’ll find a way,” Jared continued talking and Shauny tuned him out. She was thinking about how they ended up in this situation. Admittedly, it was her fault. She had snuck Jared into her house last night because he had nowhere to go. He had gotten fired a month ago, lost his apartment, and then had gotten kicked out of his aunt’s house after a couple of weeks. When Jared had called Shauny crying, and asking for a ride, she went to pick him up but had nowhere to take him. Her parents didn’t like Jared, so she knew she couldn’t ask them to help him. Sneaking him in seemed like the only option at the time.

The plan had been simple. She snuck him in through the garage, and hid him downstairs until she could sneak him upstairs and into her room later that night. The house was supposed to be empty the next day. It was summer break, so her brother would be outside or at his friend’s house and her little sister would be at the babysitter’s. Same as always. Jared would leave with her when she went to work the next day, and by then they would have come up with a more permanent plan.

Of course, it had not worked out that way. Shauny’s mother had left for work, but her father hadn’t. Her brother had friends over and they were all playing downstairs and in the garage. Since her father hadn’t gone to work, that meant her little sister was staying home for the day and she was playing in the living room. Jared was basically trapped in Shauny’s bedroom. She had stalled as long as she could, but eventually Shauny had left for work. She hadn’t wanted to draw any suspicion to herself by calling out of work and staying at home. So, after sneaking some snacks into her room, she had locked him in and prayed that he stayed hidden until she got off.

Shauny hadn’t known her plan had failed until right before she got off. She worked at a clothing store in the mall and Jared had casually walked up to her register as she was ringing up a customer. She had smiled at first, until she realized that there would have been no way for him to get out of her room undetected.

It had been two hours since she’d gotten off work and Jared had told her how he’d been caught and chased out of the house. Two hours since she’d first began contemplating running away. Jared had suggested it an hour ago, and Shauny had kept quiet and let him think he’d come up with the plan. Shauny had driven them to her house because she was torn between letting Jared beg her parents for forgiveness and facing her punishment afterwards, and using this as her way out. There were things her mother and father had done that she would never forgive them for. Things that she didn’t talk about, and that they tried to pretend didn’t happen. She had been too young to run away back then, but she was older now. Could she really do it?

Shauny continued to sit silently, thinking about what she would be giving up. She wouldn’t graduate from high school with her friends next year. She could always get a GED, but she could kiss her scholarships goodbye. Jared wouldn’t really be that much help, but at least she wouldn’t be alone and he might be able to protect her…somewhat. A slight movement in her bedroom caught Shauny’s eye. Her bedroom faced the street and she could see her brother and sister peeking out of her window, staring across the street at her car. They dropped the curtain when they spotted her.

“It’s now or never,” Jared said softly.

Shauny glanced back at the window just as her as sister peeked from behind the curtain again. They locked eyes briefly, but long enough for Shauny to decide.

She squeezed Jared’s hand and reached for the door handle, “we’re going in.”

“That’s it? We’re giving up?”

Shauny didn’t answer, she was already outside the car.

Written By: SM Grady

© 2018 SM Grady