By eleven years old, I was already done with the life I’d been handed. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew it wasn’t in that house, wasn’t in the sour smell of my mother’s drunken slurs, wasn’t in her hands that only knew how to grab, slap, or push away. I needed out.
Her latest man had moved in—a squat, unlikable guy with a permanent scowl, and a son who looked just as miserable as I felt. He wasn’t family. He was just another ghost in the revolving door of her life. He’d leave eventually. They all did. But this time, I wasn’t going to be the one left behind to sweep up the wreckage.
I had a plan, or the half-formed version of one that an eleven-year-old with a head full of escape fantasies can muster. And I wasn’t leaving empty-handed. I took over a hundred bucks from the new guy’s wallet—more money than I’d ever seen—and pocketed some of my mother’s cheap jewelry, figuring I could pawn it. I wanted to be self-sufficient, even if I barely understood the goddamn word.
I wasn’t going alone, either. Every kid in my neighborhood carried some version of my story—broken homes, stepdads they hated, mothers who drank, fathers who vanished. I found two others just as eager to run. We weren’t just escaping a bad night; we were running from the whole damn shipwreck of our lives.
The plan was simple, naïve, and doomed from the start.
We’d follow the San Gabriel River north, all the way to the mountains, nearly fifty miles. We had no map, no real food, just whatever junk we could stuff into our backpacks—Hostess donuts, Cheetos, a couple of warm sodas. It wasn’t an expedition; it was a child’s pathetic version of survival, built on sugar and the vague idea that mountains meant freedom.
The first night, we made it to the riverbed and set up camp under a crumbling concrete overpass. The city lights flickered in the distance, but out there, we felt untouchable. We lay on our backs, whispering about what we’d do when we reached the mountains—hunt our own food, live like the kids in some adventure book. We laughed at how easy it all seemed.
By the third night, the joke was over. Reality had set in, cold and hard.
The San Gabriel Mountains were still there, looming in the distance, but they didn’t look like salvation anymore. They just looked far away. We were tired, hungry, and freezing. The cold bit at our fingers, our clothes were damp, and the great adventure had turned into a grim, silent march. The food was gone, the excitement had burned out, and all that was left was the slow, dawning realization that we had no idea what the hell we were doing.
That’s when we made our mistake. We sent the smallest of us into town for supplies. A scrawny, innocent-looking kid. We scraped together our last ten bucks and told him to buy whatever he could. He hitched a ride from a stranger—an older man who, unfortunately for us, was a “good citizen.”
The kid, proud of our little rebellion, let the whole story slip. Told the guy everything. The man listened, nodded, smiled, and then drove him straight to the goddamn cops.
That night, shivering in our tent, we heard the footsteps. Flashlights cut through the dark. Before we could even react, we were surrounded. The cops didn’t have to say much. The game was over. They weren’t cruel. Their disappointment was worse.
They loaded us into their cars. “Why did you run away?” one of them asked.
How could we explain? It wasn’t one thing; it was everything. It was the fact that a dirty riverbed under a freeway overpass felt more like home than our own goddamn houses.
Back at the station, my mother’s reaction was predictable—a flash of anger, a wave of frustration, but no real concern for me. Just for how this made her look. Her boyfriend stood off to the side, arms crossed, with a smug look on his face that said, “I knew it. I told you he was trash.”
I stared right through them. My hatred burned clean and hot.
That was the night I truly realized I didn’t belong there. Not with them. That runaway attempt, it wasn’t just a stupid kid’s rebellion. It was the first time I saw, clear as day, that I would never have a home in that house. The San Gabriel Mountains became more than just a place on a map; they became a symbol of something better. Of a real escape. Of a future that wasn’t going to be written for me by people who didn’t give a damn if I lived or died.
Even though we were caught, even though our great adventure ended in flashing lights and the cold silence of a police station, I don’t consider it a failure.
Because it taught me something I’d carry for the rest of my life: I wasn’t willing to just sit still and accept the shit I’d been handed. Even at eleven, I was ready to fight for something else.
And if I had to keep running to find it, then so be it.
Auther’s Note:
My thoughts are this: that story isn’t about three dumb kids getting lost. It’s about the first time you drew a goddamn map of your own, even if it was a shitty map that led straight back to hell.
The first night, you’re kings. Untouchable. You’re surviving on Hostess donuts and the grand, beautiful illusion of freedom. By the third night, you’re just three cold, hungry kids learning a hard lesson: “freedom” is just another word for starving in a place you don’t belong.
And how does it all end? Not with a big, dramatic showdown. No. A “good citizen” turns you in. That’s the best part of the whole damn story. The world doesn’t need monsters to crush your dreams; it’s got plenty of well-meaning, decent people to do that for you. That’s a lesson that sticks in your teeth for a long, long time.
So you “failed.” You got caught. Bullshit. That wasn’t a failure. It was a declaration of war. It was you, at eleven years old, telling the world, “Your version of a life for me is unacceptable. I’d rather eat shit in a ditch than choke on what you’re serving at home.”
You didn’t learn how to survive in the mountains. You learned that you could survive your own bad decisions. You learned how to run. And for a kid in your position, that was the only goddamn skill that ever really mattered.
