My mum is the reason I ran away. She slept around with guys and wouldn't come home some nights. That wasn't the problem though, she used to come home drunk and hit me quite a lot. And that's where my story began.
She came home one time when I was fifteen. I'd been at home alone for a few days, going to school, coming back to an empty house and eating what was in the remains of the cupboards and freezer. I was quite thin back then but I survived on what I could scavenge.
She walked in through the door in a drunken rage, screaming at me, asking me about "him". I had no idea who it was but I didn't care, I had to hide, despite knowing she had seen me. I quickly wandered over the other side of the kitchen but she was charging at me. I was scared and didn't know what to do. I wanted to be in bed. I closed my eyes as she approached close, flinching from the swinging fist aimed my way.
I opened my eyes, she was gone. Or at least I was gone, I was in my room. Had I blacked out and woke here? I heard a crash downstairs. I heard her scream in pain and shout out asking where I was. I hid under my bed. She knew to look here though, I always hid there. I heard her stumble up the stairs, more screaming out loud though it meant I knew how close she was.
I wanted to be far away, the school canteen, the tree in the field in my dreams, the restaurant where I last saw my dad. I could only think of then. I couldn't get it out of my mind. I closed my eyes and blocked her out. I felt happier again. I remembered the hit lasagne that I had there, the warm scents of the kitchen when the doors opened, the sound of knives and forks on plates, like I was there. It felt real, so real that when I opened my eyes, it was there. I was there. How could this be? My mum had gone and I was laid on the floor in the middle of the restaurant. I thought of the canteen again and with a quick fade, I was there. I saw the change this time. It was actually happening. The tree in the field from my dreams. The idea popped in my head and it quickly faded there. It was instant. I walked across the field thinking that I could go anywhere. London, Sydney, Paris, Rome. I could just pop in and then out. I appeared in Paddington station in London, I picked up a sandwich from a shop and popped off to Sydney. I watched the Sunrise then off to Paris, standing next to the Louve, darkness had consumed the sky and I disappeared and reappeared in a Rome garden. It was beautiful but there was a shout behind me probably from the owners I popped away and that's when I bumped into Daphne.