Of all the ways to run away

He still has $358.20 left. All in cash of course. Recent experience has told him that hes not the type of person to have a credit card. If he had one of those, he'd probably be home right now. Wherever that is. 

The dusty building in front of him will be the third cheap motel he's stayed in since he woke up at the rest stop after getting off the first bus. That was a week ago now. 

...

A week ago, he'd lifted his head from the wooden picnic table, chips of paint falling from his head in pale blue flakes. There had been no cars in the parking lot. Just him and a ratty backpack and the noise of the road reaching him through a sparse stand of trees, bare branches rattling in a chill breeze. The only evidence of his current location was the map of Arkansas on the back of the door to the public bathroom. There was a little red star near the bottom of the map saying 'you are here!' in a cheery cursive font. 

Following the asphalt lane back to the highway just showed him a bigger road, with few cars passing by. There wasn't even something as simple as a speed limit sign to help him decide which way to go. Lacking any evidence of amenities in either direction, he picked one, and started walking along the side of the road. A motel came into view surprisingly quickly, and he went inside.

A bell jingled anemically when the door swung close behind him. It was stiflingly warm and dim inside, and the lady behind the check-in desk seemed to blend into the wall behind them. She were lit mostly by the phone in her hand, and she didn't look up until he reaches the desk. "$85 bucks a night," she said, eyes flicking up briefly, then back to the phone. 

He peeled off five twenties, still slightly stuck together from what must have been a sticky, chocolaty breakfast, judging from the brown smudges. The lady behind the desk took the money and gave him his change without another word. Stepping back into the brisk afternoon and shivering, he found his room quickly.

The hotel used old fashioned keys and the door stuck when it opened. It stuck worse when it closed, but he didn't care. He was tired. He immediately turned the thermostat up, then let his backpack fall with a soft thump as he flopped onto the bed. Sinking into the mattress, he let his fatigue settle over him. Whatever he was doing before he got on that bus, it must have exhausted him down to his bones. Yet he still found the energy to run.

...

"I can't stay here."

"I can't stay here."

And he bolts from the room.

...

The funeral had been a small, private affair. His parent's bodies in their coffins at the front, friends and family scattered behind him. He barely spoke to any of them. After the service, his sister went up to speaks with the funeral director, and he'd been left alone in the room. Alone, with his parents. Alone with his parent's bodies. Alone with two corpses that he still had trouble believing were once his family.

That's when he ran, bursting into the hill winter air. His frantic steps slow just a few yards past the doors. He stumbles to a walk, heaving great burning breaths. When had he started breathing so hard.

There's a park at the end of the street, and he sinks into swing to catch his breath. His knees are nearly at his ears with how low the swings are, but it's better than sitting on the freezing ground. 

The funeral home is just barely visible from here, but still close. His sister won't have reason to worry too much about him. She knows him, knows that he tends to wander even on happy days. She knows to give him space. She'll text him when she's ready to head back to the house.

...

He doesn't go back to he funeral home, and he doesn't respond to his sister's text messages. In fact, he doesn't even have his phone anymore. He doesn't know where he dropped it. 

'Getting on this bus was a stupid decision'

He's sitting on the bus as it travels to a destination he's already forgot. All the while he's staring without seeing at the road passing by and trying to reckon with what he's done. Frustration kept distracting him. Frustration at his shitty feelings, at the fact that he got on this goddamn bus in the first place. 

No luggage, just a backpack with a change of clothes for the gym, a bottle of water and a notebook half filled with haphazard notes from last years classes. Does he even have his wallet?

So wrapped up in his thoughts, he doesn't even notice the person who sits next to him. When he finally startles to awareness, they don't give him a name, they just ask him a question. He won't remember their question, or his answer, but he doesn't want to anyway. That's the whole point of him running in the first place, and the whole point of them sitting next to him and asking him that question. He doesn't a thing after they shove a wad of paper-wrapped wad of money into his pocket. At the next stop, the person who'd sat next to him was gone. 

...

At his current hotel, he's sitting on yet another dingy bedspread eating another dinner of gas station snacks. Tossing the wrappers in the trash, he tugs the damp and crumpled paper from the pocket of his jeans and unfolds it to see the message scrawled on it. He's read it before, but was just too tired to think of anything but moving forward. Now, he finally has enough distance from whatever he's running from to think clearly. 

The paper is mostly blank, just an address and a sentence fragment smudged by his frequent handling over the past few days. It's still legible though; he knows where to go.

Below the address, all that was written was, " When you're ready."