Fourteen
“TOM! TOM!” HELEN CALLS after me as I walk. I don’t turn. I just keep my eyes fixed on the woods.
Gus, Charlie, and I cut the path ourselves when I was twelve years old. It’s overgrown, but still passable. I rush past the treeline onto the path. As I walk, branches and thorns brush my pants; I’m fortunate I’m wearing long pants and my clerical shirt, otherwise my arms and legs would be a bloody mess by the time I get to where I’m going.
I don’t even stop to consider that it probably fell down a long time ago. But I don’t care. I have a primal urge to run to the place where I went when home got too much.
A branch scrapes me on the forehead. A moment later I feel a trickle of blood flowing down my face. I keep running.
The thunder is closer, lightning is beginning to flash, and
