Let's Get Lost

Chapter 2

We ran up to Sara. As tears raced down her cheeks, worried thoughts whirled through my head. I had never seen her crying her heart out and I wondered why she was alone. Was she lost? Perhaps she was, but only inside her mind.

"Sara what happened?" I asked her. She looked at me with teary eyes. She explained to me that she had to be home before midnight, otherwise her strict dad wouldn't let her in. And if he did let her, she knew he would hurt her. When she left the beach, it was already too late. She had nowhere to go.

"My parents won't let me in the house," She tried to catch her breath, her lips were shaking. I could smell the nicotine. Smoking would never take her pain away, but unfortunately, she did it anyways. It was her way to escape from the peer pressure of reality. "I'm such a failure" she said.

It wasn't true — she was brave and strong, but she never admitted. She never talked to me about family problems because she didn't like crying in front of people. She believed showing her emotions was a sign of weakness. I believed crying is often a sign that we've been strong for too long.

As soon as he heard those words, David posed his hands on Sara's shoulders, looking straight into her green eyes defined with a black thin eyeliner look.

"Sara, you're not a failure. It's not your fault if your parents aren't able to take care of you". She wiped the tears away from her red cheeks and looked around her, only to see the darkness of the night.

"Don't worry, you'll sleep at my house and you'll talk to your parents tomorrow" I told her. I could see the fear in her eyes, but she hugged me tightly, to thank me.

"How did you get those?" I said as I took out the red packed cigarettes from the pocket of her light ripped denim jacket. I managed to change the subject of the conversation.

"Tom gave them to me. I tried to quit but I can't" she said. She was wrong. I told her that she could, that she was just afraid to. She feared that if she did, she would lose the bad habit that gives her shelter from the world.

"What do you want me to do? Drop out my night cigarette for a night run?" Sara laughed as if it was a nightmare. Seeing her smile, no matter how ironic it was, made me feel better.

"Doesn't sound bad to me" I smiled. I was the only one in my group of friends who loved running. I would usually wake up during the dawn of summer days, put my hair up in a ponytail, wear my sports bra, black shorts and a t-shirt that matched my running shoes, and go for a powerful run. I challenged myself to push through the pain because giving up would be worse. Running made me feel strong and free. Perhaps, in the world we live in, freedom is to choose the cage in which, us, birds, are trapped.

I turned to my boyfriend and asked, "What is your own escape from reality, David?"

"Music" he said. He didn't feel the need to add anything else because he knew we could relate.

Later that night, I understood that we were not carefree teenagers, as I thought we were in the beginning of our adventure. Rather, we cared. We cared too much. We cared about not living life to the fullest and we cared about each other.

Through deep conversations, we lost sense of time. While we walked around the city and ate ice cream bought from the stall we had found, we bumped into Tom and Nick. They looked somewhat drunk. We had no idea what time it was, but we knew the late-night adventures were not finished. That night, we took the path our heart lead to.