have you seen me?

She always dreamed of a life on the run. Not because it was exciting or glamorous, but because on the run was the only place she felt she could ever be free--all she knew at home was restriction and judgment. One day she finally did. It was frequently exciting, though never glamorous.

She took a bus across state lines and found work at a restaurant that wasn't really worried about asking questions like how old she was. She stayed with other people on the run, the sorts of people her parents told her not to associate with, or would have if they'd known it was a possibility.

The idea of "home" never really came back to her until she ran into her picture on the internet. It was a school photo, one she hadn't seen but instantly hated when she did. And there was something about that: the only picture they had of her that was recent enough to merit showing was this one. For all the time she spent at home there were no other pictures of her. No real record she'd ever even been there.

Maybe she could go back one day. For now, she snapped a few pictures of herself in the bathroom mirror and emailed them to her family, with the text: "I like these better."