Benny ran away from home On his 17th birthday. His parents called him a problem child. Neighbors called him a menace. Teachers called him a waste of potential. I called him my best friend.

Kinda cliché if you think about it, “star student” befriending the kid on the wrong side of the track. But that’s only because I saw him for who he really was. I saw him as someone quick with a laugh. Someone who wasn’t afraid to show how tough he was. Someone who wasn’t afraid to show how scared he was.

Scared of his parents, of the school they wanted to send him too. That place where troubled kids go in and broken kids with straighter backs come out. He would have done anything, anything, to break away from that reality.

So yeah, people might remember Today, the day of Benny’s 17th birthday, as the day he ran away. But I mostly remember it as the day I helped him. The day we hatched a perfect get away. The day we got his freedom.