It was dark and I was shivering and trying to make myself smaller. I huddled into the corner tyring to pull the shadows down to close their eyelids incase they looked up. I felt that I was infringing, but they were infringing on me. I felt that I was commiting them some wrong, like I shouldn't have been up here, that I shouldn't have been out here seeing them and looking down on them and wanting them to go away or to never have come at all. And yet it was they that were pushing me back, they that were holding me down with my own free will, they that sent me packing the moment that I knew that the car lights that were heading towards me were theirs, that the car lights would sweep to the right as they pulled to the curb, that the car door would open showing a worn paperbag face with eyes that could see me, and thoughts that could judge me.

Prejudgement that was my flaw wasn't it? All these years I had overlooked it, seen only the results but had no idea how I had gotten there, recieved the truth of my giving mind. In my prejudgements I was the one with the power, but what I weilded put no handcuffs on others, didn't turn a key to keep you in when we ran away all those years ago. I'm sorry that I didn't go with you, and you knew that I would be. I'm sorry that I didn't take your hand as you reached out to pull me along with you, because you knew what was better for me eventhough I had no idea.
We left late in the night and late in the year. The dead leaves would give us away, but their sounds couldn't be followed like snow tracks, and you said that the time was right, that it was now or forever.
I made it as far as the road, far enough to not be seen by the houselights that looked out the windows into the prairie-dark. Panting you looked back at me and you were smiling, but I knew from the look in your face that I was not. I was worried, worried about taking another step as if the road were a rushing river of gravel and dirt that would take me powerless against its twists and turns.