The ex-runaway's deep anxieties are poorly understood by a world programmed to pity her. What if your defiant escape – your sneaky, skilful assertion of independence – turns out to be the most ingenious or daring thing you've ever done? Will you discover, like a regretful cheerleader, that you peaked during puberty?
My own breathless journey was from the front door of a house in north Wales, dashing through a narrow country lane under a drizzling sky to catch a bus that would take me to Newcastle, where I scrambled onto a London-bound train. I sometimes tense up even now, afraid I will miss that bus. How many days until the next one! I am ridiculously pleased with myself for getting away with this and should really move on. But whenever things are going badly, I console myself with this accomplishment.
As a child with sketchy ideas about making a run for it, I had few role models until I heard about an older cousin who took to the road at 15. She returned within a year, pregnant. When I heard this cautionary tale, a seed took root: people like us... do that? Since early childhood I had worn my cousin's hand-me-downs, learning to make clumsy adjustments with needle and thread. So it should have surprised nobody when I proudly refashioned her teenage ambition as my own, arming myself against pregnancy (the event that curtailed her journey) and restyling myself as the more competent delinquent.
