On the Run

Raindrops plunked on the metal roof of Audrey’s slightly beaten-up Forester as it idled in the gravel driveway, and she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Her mind wandered. She shuffled through various aspects of her life – her job, her house, Autumn – never stopping on any one long enough to put it into context or remind herself that almost none of it means anything anymore.

Except Autumn.

__

One and a half years earlier

Autumn’s caramel skin glistened in the sunlight as the two women sauntered over to an open bench in the park. Autumn skipped ahead of her, matcha in hand, and sat down, patting the seat beside her.

Audrey’s hands began to shake as she sat close to Autumn – she knew caffeine on a date was a bad idea. She was nervous enough already.

“Okay, so you’re new to Denver, but your brother’s been here for years, right?”

Audrey nodded as she sipped her iced coffee.

“Are you guys close?”

“He’s great, I’m glad I get to spend more time with him now. He was so ready to move out here after high school, he hated it back home.”

“Where did you say you guys grew up?”

“My family’s from California, the Bay Area. My mom died when I was a kid, and our dad passed a few years ago. I stayed in the area for a while after that.”

“I always wanted to live in California when I was younger,” Autumn sipped through her straw. “It seemed magical to me.”

“Well, I’d say it’s far from magical. I didn’t realize until I had no family around that I just…didn’t belong there.”

“Do you think you belong here?” Autumn’s long eyelashes fluttered as she looked at Audrey inquisitively. She didn’t remember the last time someone seemed so interested in her.

“I don’t know, I’ve always wanted to move to the middle of nowhere, kinda. I really want to see Montana.”

“Ooh, me too actually! It’s gorgeous out there. But, is that why you moved here, to be near your brother?”

“Eh, kinda. It’s a long story, I don’t know if I wanna get into it…” Audrey trailed off awkwardly, avoiding eye contact with Autumn.

Autumn began to stroke her thumb against Audrey’s hand.

“Okay, I won’t pry. But I’m easy to open up to, when you’re ready. And I’m patient, so even if it takes months…you won’t scare me away.”

Audrey raised her eyebrows.

“Months? It’s only been a few dates, you’re pretty confident,” she teased.

“I have to be – I refuse to think about any other possibility.” Autumn leaned her head on Audrey’s shoulder as their legs swung beneath them on the bench.

Audrey was beginning to realize that she couldn’t see any other future either.

__

Chester mewed in the backseat as that thought crossed her mind, as if to remind Audrey that there was something else still important in her life. The noise pulled her out of the mental photo album she was flipping through.

She couldn’t ruminate for too long or else she’d lose the nerve to do what she needed to do. With a sigh, she turned the ignition.

With the car off, the sounds of nature created a bubble around Audrey. The absence of human noise pollution made her feel far away not only from the city, but from the reality of her own life. She was insulated by the mountains, the trees, the denser air – both the physical distance and the figurative separation from civilization lulled Audrey into an easy fantasy. Her life remained as it was the day before, as long as she stayed in this exact spot.

Unfortunately, Audrey knew she had to move. She had to pop the bubble, or someone else would, and it would cause a lot more damage.

She stepped out of the car, walked around to the trunk to gather her things, and brought them to the front steps of the cabin. On the second trip, she brought Chester in his carrier and the extra throw blankets from the backseat.

Audrey had to jiggle the door handle a bit after unlocking it to unstick it. Pungent scents of wood and mildew swathed over her. Once she dropped her bags on the dusty floor and opened Chester’s carrier, with no immediate tasks requiring her attention, her mind was forced to focus on her circumstances.

__

Two months earlier

“Apparently, he’s been calling my brother’s job, too. I can’t believe he waited this long to tell me,” Audrey sighed with her head resting in her hand. Autumn placed her smooth, tan hand on top of Audrey’s free one on the table.

“You know how Justin is, he’s just being protective of you.”

“I just feel like I’ll never really be rid of him. It’s like a stain on my life, like he’s looming in the shadows somewhere. Colorado isn’t quite far enough away for me to feel safe from him.”

Autumn looked at her with sympathy, then brough their interlocked hands to her lips to kiss Audrey’s knuckles.

“One day, we’ll get out of here and just disappear. But in the meantime, I really do think you’re safe.”

“I can’t stop thinking about something he said to me once…”

___

Two years earlier

When Audrey came to after a few moments, she immediately felt the fresh lump on the back of her head pounding. Blood trickled from a gash on her upper arm. Shattered glass lay on the floor around her. Aaron stood a foot away from her, sneering as she scrambled to sit up.

Every time this happened the same thoughts bubbled through her mind like a mantra as she waited for the blows to cease: I want to disappear. I want to be anywhere else. I want to not exist in this life, this body.

Audrey had finally had enough. For the better part of her mid-twenties she had endured emotional and physical violence from a man who had claimed to love her, a man that took care of her. She depended on him for almost everything – which, Audrey eventually realized, was a product of his design.

“I’m fucking done with you! I’m done!” She didn’t even say that when one of their fights landed her in the ER.

She had wasted what should have been some of the best years of her life with a man who drained the passion and energy out of her, who isolated her from friends and family. The once-vibrant young woman, with goals and optimism, had been reduced to a shell of herself, going through the motions to survive and hoping his promises would prove true one day.

“I’ve heard that one before. Believe me, sweetheart, you’re not going anywhere. You need me.” Aaron’s icy calm tone and hardened eyes pierced Audrey’s core. She shivered but stayed silent.

“And I need you. So trust that if you leave, I’ll find you.”

___

That night as Aaron slept, Audrey had hastily packed as much as she could in the pitch-black apartment, jumped into her car, and sped off toward her brother’s home a couple hundred miles away. As she harkened back to that moment, she drew an eerie parallel to her current situation.

The key difference in the present is that there’s no chance Aaron will ever catch up to her again.

Audrey’s eyes glazed over as she played these moments back in her mind. The grandfather clocked chimed once, pulling her out of her reverie.

There was time to kill before Autumn met her, and there were quite a few things she needed before they began their journey. She grabbed her car keys and ducked back out into the rain.

___

Audrey paced down the carpeted aisles of the Just-a-Buck under flickering fluorescent lights. Under different circumstances, she might have stopped in the toy aisle and let the nostalgia creep over her as she reminisced about picking up a haul of cheaply made treasures with her Nana when she was a child.

This time, she was on a mission. Having left home so quickly, she didn’t have time to pack most of her toiletries. Since she didn’t know when she’d have a source of income again, she needed to ration the cash she had on her.

Most of all, she needed to look like anyone but herself.

Pulling her cap lower over her head, Audrey squeezed past one of the few other people in the store to peruse the small cosmetics section. She plucked shiny black containers of LA Colors foundation and concealer in her shade and dropped them in her basket. She also grabbed a tube of mascara, some light pink blush, a hairbrush, and a pair of tweezers.

Further down the aisle she grabbed Suave shampoo and conditioner. Her eyes darted one section over to the hair dye – she really didn’t want to trust dollar store box dye, but what choice did she have? She picked up a box of a dark auburn-red color and turned it over in her hands, ultimately throwing it in the basket.

She moved throughout the store and collected makeup remover, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a two-pack of black tights, Blistex, a pair of gloves, a hat, a scarf, a pack of five pairs of cheap earrings, a pair of scissors, a six-pack of socks, a flashlight, and a pack of AA batteries.

At the checkout, Audrey grew nervous. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up every time she noticed a man give her even the slightest glance. She raced back to the house, being careful to drive as fast as she could without risking being pulled over.

After she had brought the shopping bags into the house, she returned to the dented SUV. She put it in drive and carefully guided it off the driveway and around the back of the cabin, further hiding it from view from the main road.

Audrey stepped out and walked back to the trunk, her boots sinking into the soft earth beneath her. She pulled out a large tarp and draped it over the car before heading inside, transitioning to a slight jog as the rain intensified.

She locked the door behind her and ensured all the curtains were closed before curling up on the couch with Chester.

Now all she could do was wait.

__

Gray skies turned grayer, clouds hiding the sunset and obscuring the transition from day to night. Audrey cupped her mug of tea at the big oak table. The old lake house’s insulation was sub-par, so Audrey had kept her sweater on and wrapped a throw blanket around her shoulders.

She was so mesmerized by the ceaseless rain outside she didn’t notice the sound of a car nearing the property on the winding road. Headlights slowly turned to point directly at the window. Tires crunched over the gravel driveway. A glance at the microwave clock: 9:24 PM.

The driver of the black sedan cut the ignition, enveloping Audrey in silence again. She heard the door open and close, but she couldn’t see through the thick, blurry trees. Her breath caught in her chest as a hooded figure approached the front of the cabin, moving out of view of Audrey’s perch in front of the window.

Audrey hopped out of her chair and darted to the entryway. A few seconds that felt like an eternity passed by. Then there was a knock. She pulled the door open and was immediately met with familiar honey brown eyes twinkling in the dark.

Without a word she pulled Autumn in from out of the rain and embraced her, ignoring the moisture transferring from Autumn’s windbreaker to her own top.

They stood in that position in the doorway, wrapped around each other, for a few moments. Autumn was the first to pull away.

“I’m so happy to see your face.”

Audrey’s eyes watered.

“I’m so sorry you’re in this mess,” she croaked out.

“All I care about is you. I just want you to be okay.”

“Have you spoken to Justin? Is he okay? What’s he going to do?”

“He’s fine. He’s going to lie low in the area so it doesn’t look suspicious, and we’re gonna let him know where we end up when we get there. He’ll meet us where we are in a few weeks.”

“I can’t believe I got both of you involved in this.”

“This isn’t your fault, Audrey. You know we would both do anything to protect you.”

Even with her girlfriend’s reassurances, Audrey still had the sinking feeling that she was the common denominator, the black hole that sucked everything near her into her own chaos. She didn’t want to ruin the lives of the people she cared about most in this world.

The previous night

Audrey’s head spun as shock waved over her body. Finally, her eyes adjusted, and her brain registered that the mass on the ground in front of her was Aaron. More specifically, it was Aaron’s body – limp, unmoving. Justin stood over him, shovel in hand.

A familiar tightness constricted Audrey’s throat and she struggled to breathe. Her mind was unable to recall her therapist’s tricks for quelling panic attacks and she began to tremble.

“Audrey, you have to get out of here,” her brother said in a voice much too calm for the situation. She stayed put.

“Go, now! Take her!” He motioned to Autumn.

Autumn wrapped her arm around Audrey’s shaking body and led her to her car.

“What did we do? What is he going to do now? What’s going to happen to us?” She asked these questions in quick succession and a monotone voice. Before Autumn could answer, Justin called from behind her.

“He’s still alive – I’m taking care of it, just go!”

Audrey disassociated the entire ride home. She wordlessly followed Autumn’s instructions:

“Pack what you can. Take this key and drive out to my lake house first thing in the morning. Turn your phone location off. I’ll meet you there tomorrow night. We’ll figure it out. We always talked about Montana, right? We’re going to disappear.”

We’re going to disappear.

___

Autumn’s eyelashes fluttered against her sharp cheekbones. The blue light of dawn shone on the bed’s satiny sheets through the triangular windows. Blue jays fluttered between the pines, chirping not quite loud enough to wake her.

On the other hand, Audrey’s eyes, which had been open for the better part of the night, were glazed over and glued to Autumn’s face. She had spent the whole night tossing back and forth, both literally in the bed, and in her own mind. Her violent past and her uncertain future took turns haunting her for hours.

“Good morning,” Autumn mumbled before even opening her eyes.

“Morning,” Audrey stroked Autumn’s cheek, feeling the texture of the mole on her cheek.

Autumn opened her eyes a crack, then wider, taken aback.

“I forgot about the hair. It looks good,” she smiled.

__

As the sun rose over the side of the mountains to their west, Audrey and Autumn hurriedly packed the small Honda with their meager belongings. Audrey tucked Chester in his carrier snugly between the car door and the blanket from the cabin, folded neatly on the middle seat for the cat to curl up on once they were on the road and they allowed him to roam the car.

“What’s going to happen to him?” Audrey asked as she ducked into the passenger seat of the small car, broaching the topic for the first time since Autumn arrived at the “safehouse.”

“Please, try not to think about it.”

“I don’t know how that’s possible. We’re literally on the lam.”

Autumn chuckled wryly and gave Audrey’s hand a squeeze over the gear shift.

“Just think of it like the adventure we always dreamed about.”