She stepped over the cracked pavement, her sneakers barely making a sound as she walked, eyes fixed on the ground. The houses around her were all the same: faded, peeling, and suffocating in their sameness. She didn’t glance at them anymore, didn’t let herself see the worn-out fences or the dirty yards. She had stopped caring a long time ago. The noise in her head was louder than any argument she could hear through the thin walls at home. Every step she took away from it all was another step toward nothing. And that nothing felt better than the life waiting for her behind the peeling front door.

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She didn't look up from the cracks in the sidewalk, nor did she turn down her street to go home. Instead, she just kept walking.

of course she did, why would she not? her parents don't care, they never did, their words flood her mind "Don't think for a second that anyone will care if you disappear."

her mothers words flood her mind, and they push her to keep going.

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Her planned destination is a vast, sprawling state where the cities are far apart, and the land stretches out endlessly. Somewhere in the heart of it, there’s a small town tucked away in the desert, far enough from any major roads that nobody would think to look for her. The isolation is both a comfort and a challenge—no familiar faces, no history to trace her steps. She imagines blending in among the locals, fading into the scenery of endless sky and dry, empty roads. It’s a place where she can start over, lost in the vastness, where no one will know her name or her past, California, she thought "that's where I want to go" so there she went.

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When she finally steps off the bus, the heat hits her like a wall, dry and suffocating, but oddly freeing. The town feels like a forgotten relic, frozen in time, with its cracked sidewalks and faded storefronts. Dust hangs in the air, and the sun beats down relentlessly on the small cluster of buildings. She takes a deep breath, the scent of hot asphalt and dry earth filling her lungs, and for the first time in a long while, she feels a flicker of something—maybe hope, maybe just relief. The people here move slowly, as if they’ve all learned to live without hurry. She keeps her head down as she walks, passing a few weary-eyed locals who don’t bother to look her way. She can already feel herself becoming just another shadow in this place, a face in the crowd no one will remember. It’s everything she wanted—forgotten, invisible, and free.