Her Words Would Cut Holes

There she sat. The warm salty tears that streamed down her cheeks mixed with the cold rain that fell from the sky. The wind whipped her wet hair around her face. She started to shiver as the cold seeped into her skin. She was completely alone, on the bench in the park. No one in their right mind would come out in weather like this, not if they could help it. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself, but it was no use. She was soaked to the skin, and the cold had latched onto her; sucking up her body heat and refusing to let go. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten all day. The tears continued to fall as she thought back to that night, two weeks ago when she'd run away from home.

It had just started out as another stupid fight between her and her mum. Her mum was mad because she had stayed out past curfew again. However, they had both started yelling, and things got worse. They started bringing up things from the past; things that neither of them meant. She knew her words would cut holes through the both of them, but she said them anyway. Painful subjects flowed in and out of the argument. Like how her father had walked out on them, or how her mother had almost put her up for adoption and the reasons why her brother had killed himself. But it was when her mother had slapped her that she went flying off the edge. That night she had packed her backpack with a jacket, a change of clothes, her toothbrush and the 72$ she had in her piggybank and left. She didn't know where she was going; she just knew that she needed to get away.

So now here she found herself, wet, cold, broke and hungry on a park bench in the pouring rain. She knew there was a warm bed waiting for her somewhere, somewhere she didn't want to be. But if she stayed here, who knows what could happen. It didn't help that she was scared of the dark, either. The fight played through her mind again and again. The tears that had overflowed out of her mother's eyes with every cruel thing she had said. The pain that festered around the barely healed wounds as each dark memory was brought up. The things that had been said, that neither of them had meant. They both had short tempers, and she knew it. It wasn't their faults that when they got angry, things just slipped out of their mouths. Suddenly a flash or lightning lit up the dark sky, if only for a moment and she knew what she had to do. She picked her backpack up from the ground and slung it over her shoulder, before getting up and starting the long walk back to her house.

The light that came from the house was so welcoming compared to the dark night that surrounded her. She stopped at the end of the driveway, looking into the kitchen through the window. She saw her mother, bustling around, cleaning the already spotless kitchen; probably humming along to the classical radio station. She found herself smiling. This was her home, it really was. How could she want to be anywhere else? Sure, she and her mum had problems, but if they tried they could work them out. Without pausing for another second, Sarah walked up the gravel driveway, opened the door and ran into the kitchen. Her mother looked up at her, shocked, and then started to cry. Sarah started crying too, and then found herself in her mother's arms. "Don't ever leave me again, you hear me?" her mother asked lovingly. Sarah couldn't help but smile. "I hear you."