Memory Lane

"Run!" My father had yelled at me. That was four days ago. Since then, I had stolen a number of cars and travelled the thousands miles to get away. I knew it was time to take a break from driving but I was so close to where I wanted to be that I didn't want to take that last break. One more hour, I kept reminding myself. One more hour and I'll be there. I could hear my mother's angry voice in my mind, admonishing me for something I hadn't done yet again. Shaking my head to try and rid myself of the voice, I focused more intently on the road in front of me. One more hour. Memories of what my life has been like before I left flashed through my head. Things being thrown at me, people coming after me for reasons I knew not, family not looking me in the eye when I sit down to dinner with another bruise on my face. My concentration wavered from the road quickly and I lost myself in the pain I had lived through up to this point. Images of my last few days there flooded my mind and my father's voice yelling snapped me out of the daydream, just in time to see headlights coming directly for me. The impact came a second later. The other car tried to swerve out of the way but in doing so made the crash much worse. Our left headlights connected and threw both cars into a spin. My car dropped suddenly and began to flip. It settled on its roof and I managed to unstrap my seatbelt and climb out of the broken window. Dazed, I looked up and saw the road, the other car still on all fours. It must have just span out then, I thought. Good, they shouldn't be too injured. I collapsed on the ground as I became aware of my breathing. Laboured and irregular, it sounded awful. The daze I was in was slowly wearing off and pain began to overwhelm my senses. My head lolled to the side and I saw trees. I was near a forest. That gave me a bit of comfort. Blue skies today too. No, that was an eye, a blue eye. The other was green, the shade of lily pads. "Mate," a faint voice spoke. "Yes," he replied. "I'm your mate. You can't leave me now. Not when I've just found you." I couldn't see anything but his eyes. They had laugh lines around them. Or were they stress lines? "I would never leave you," I mumbled. "Good." The eyes left for a second and then came back. "I can help you but you need to trust me. Can you do that? It might hurt." "You're my mate. You would never hurt me." My head rolled backwards as he picked me up. When he put me back down, his eyes came back into view and were filled with tears. "I'm sorry," was all I heard him say before everything went black.