The water fed off her frenzy. It picked up pace from lazy to sloshing to roaring, til finally it mirrored her inner state and made her feel like the entire world was chaos. A moment of relief as muscle memory worked the paddle for her. She pushed hard off a rock, avoided going sideways down a rushing drop, felt the water swallow her plastic boat over and over again before running off its sides.

The water was carrying her fast - exactly what she needed. She was on an adrenaline rush and she hoped it would take her across multiple state lines before her arms gave out.

She didn’t look back. She didn’t want to. But if she had, she’d have seen the faint leftovers of early-morning city lights behind her. Worse than any bear, she thought. A bear was simple. Or a shark. She understood their motives. Curiosity, hunger, predator instinct. What were the motives of the people she was leaving behind? They changed every damn day. One day, she’d be struggling and would receive a pet on the back, soft words - not because she was loved, but because it made them feel good about themselves. The next day she’d do something that made her so proud - something big and bold and that made things easier for everyone - and she would be talked down to. How do you tell a motive for that? Insecurity? She couldn’t tell. Maybe everything she did was just wrong. It was so much simpler out here, even if more physically perilous. No one could claim that she was kayaking badly - she was staying atop the waves, that was the only measure that counted.

She felt haunted, actively chased. Every time she slowed down, memories of her last night there resurfaced. It was a boy, it was their mutual friends. She couldn’t believe how quickly everything had fallen apart. She had started to have hope, real hope, that if she shared herself freely there was a place where she could belong. A person, a group of people who could see her, who could understand the things she felt and expressed and who shared her tender desire to know them more deeply. Shared her tender curiosity. She had thought it could be everything she wanted.

And then.

She refused to go back there now. She needed to focus. Her hip dully ached. She refused to scan any other part of her body for injuries - safer to just push it to its limits instead. She squinted as the sun broke over the treeline. This is my path now, she told herself. No more can anyone tell me what’s right and wrong for me.