I tend to run when I know I'm in trouble. Things have been easy most of the time, and my flightiness is further enabled by the lover and all those around me. Once I ran to New York every weekend because staying in the suburbs felt akin to settling down to something suffocating predictable. And Michael Jackson's Human Nature kept playing in my head as I sat anxiously on that bus, riding through the darkness, envisioning New York before me, before I even reached her. What I saw was freedom and calamity and nights that blurred into day. I wanted that so badly, thirsted for it.

There were nights where last call never came and we would sit over drinks and talk about everything under the moon until we were comfortable with silence. When I finally had the courage to step outside, I knew the weekend was coming to an end.