Chapter Two: Runaways
The bus station was practically empty when Emily arrived. A mother and son sat together, the boy wheeling a toy truck up and down the arm rests; on the opposite side of the waiting room a short-haired girl sat alone. When Emily entered the waiting room the girl snapped her head up with a scared expression on her face, jumping as though she was expecting somebody to burst in and take her away. Emily supposed she was running too, thought she looked few years younger than herself; maybe about twelve?
Emily raised her head to see what bus was leaving next. The next bus was headed for a place called Anansie. That sounded as good a place as any; she bought herself a ticket, seated herself and waited.
Ten minutes later the bus arrived, Emily, the mother and son, and the young girl climbed aboard the bus silently, displayed their tickets and took their seats among the scattered passengers aboard the bus.
Not long after they had settled themselves the bus heaved its way out the station. Emily gazed out the window and saw a girl running along the sidewalk chasing the bus. Emily couldn’t hear her over the roar of the engine but saw her mouth what looked like the word “wait”, and another word Emily couldn’t make out. Any other day she would have asked the driver to stop, but today she had to remain inconspicuous; so she stayed quiet as the bus pulled away from the station and the girl faded into the distance.
The young girl from the waiting room was sat in front of Emily, and she watched as the girl glanced back at the disappearing girl in the distance, a tear rolling down her face.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bus drove for a steady three hours before pulling into Anansie Station. They had arrived.
Emily left the bus with her satchel slung over her shoulder, the high noon sun glared in her eyes, making her squint as she took in her surroundings. Opposite the bus depot was a gas station, to the right the road led on down a hill to Anansie Town. Apart from that, all that surrounded them was desert.
As Emily tilted her head left she was surprised to see the girl from the bus stood next to her.
“Hello,” Emily surprised herself by saying. The girl looked surprised too as she jumped slightly.
“Hi.”
“I’m Emily,”
“I’m Br... Briony?” the girl replied bemusedly.
“Briony? Look, I’m guessing that’s a fake name because you’re running away from someone or something, but I’m running too. I don’t know where to go or what to do and... I just figured we could... maybe, run together?” Again, Emily had surprised herself. She was never usually so blunt and she certainly hadn’t meant to tell the first person she met that she was a runaway.
The girl trained her green eyes on Emily’s, and Emily wondered whether or not to live up to her runaway title and start running towards Anansie and away from the girl, as soon as possible.
“Brooklynn,” the girl interrupted Emily’s thoughts. “My name is Brooklynn. I don’t know why I’m here or what I’m doing, but I do know I’m not like you.”
“What?”
“I’m not running from anywhere, I’m running to somewhere,” as she uttered the word ‘somewhere’ her eyes gazed into the distance and her eyes misted over slightly as if she had retreated somewhere in her mind, playing out a movie on the back of her retinas for only her to see.
“Somewhere, where?”
Brooklynn blinked but continued to focus into the distance. “I don’t know. Somewhere with bright lights and loud music. New Orleans or Vegas? I only had enough money for a one-way ticket to here, so I figured I would just go, try to get a job somehow and save up until I can make it,” Brooklynn paused and turned to look at Emily’s face. “What are you going to do?”
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