I yawned. The sun was just setting behind a few skyscrapers, so I figured it was about five o'clock in LA. I looked at my hair, it was a disaster. How long had I slept? I looked in my bag and grabbed my water bottle, spraying the last few drops of water on my burgundy waves. I brushed out my hair as painlessly as I could and then did a quick braid.

My black shorts felt a little baggier on me, as did my hot pink tank top. I probably smelled disgusting. I put my water bottle and brush back in my Victoria's Secret tote and stretched, popping my back. I put on some clinical strength deodorant and sprayed the last of my country chic body spray before chunking it in the trash can closest to me.

Only running away last week, I already felt like I have been on my own for a month. I couldn’t take the stress of my parents and school and everything else anymore. When people look at me all they see is a pretty face, maybe even a beautiful one. I’m not about to cry for a pity party and say that I don’t think I’m pretty and I feel fat and I have thunder thighs and whatnot. I don’t. Honestly, I’m one of the thirty percent of girls who look in the mirror and don’t feel bad about themselves. Anyways, when people look at me on the streets they think that I ran away because I didn’t get a new cell phone for my fourteenth birthday so I threw a fit and left.

No.

It’s much more complicated than that. If you want to know, I’ll tell you, when the time is right. I don’t trust people very easily, especially not with my problems. I feel like if I have a problem that problem is my own, no one else needs to worry about it, or how I handle it. My business is my business.  Maybe that’s why I get called a !*%%! or whatever. Maybe other people are just jealous. They shouldn’t be. My life is no different than theirs, besides the fact that my parents are rich. My parents are clueless with everything but business. They know how to build a business like Donald Trump.

That’s their problem though. They only know how to build business, not family. So here I sat in a tiny alley at about five in the morning in the beautiful city of Los Angeles. Hoping someone would find me. I was tired of being alone.

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Author guidance for This exercise

http://www.protagonize.com/group/planning-brainstorming/topic/4472

^^ Thread for this collab.

Name: Aphrodite Woods
Age: 15
Looks: Long wavy burgundy hair reaches to bottom of ribcage. Bright blue eyes, honey golden skin. 5'4". Curvy, but with a tiny frame.
Reason for running away: Brother's best friend raped her, and when she told her family they called her a compulsive liar. There's going to more to it, just haven't thought that up yet.
Author: Jordiepop14

Name: Kimberly Goode
Age: 16 and a half
Looks: Electric blue eyes, wavy brown hair that falls to her waist, medium height, slender.
Reason for running away: Issues with parents
Author: MoonBean

Name: Minami Hine
Age: 16
Looks: has white emo hair which fades into black (is albino). Black pony-tail. He is half Japanese and half Canadian. He wears a T-shirt that is blue and has red flames at the bottom of the shirt and has a skull on the left breast area. He also wears a striped long sleeve shirt underneath which is auburn and black. He wears black pants and has a belt that hangs from the front and goes to the the back. He wears red sneakers and wears a blue and red barrette.
Reason for running away: Is whole life he has been ridiculed for being gay. He hasn't told his parent he was gay and he is afraid of what they will think. He couldn't take the shame and therefore he ran away.
Author: Hikaru101

Name:Lucas Shaw, but tells people to call him Sam
Age:16-17 never says
Looks: rather pale, but naturally and is new to America so lacks a tan. He has long hair down to the small of his back, it's mousey brown and thick. He meticilousy brushes it every day and does his best to keep it clean. He often weves coloured sashs into his hair and uses their ends to tie areas of his hair into dreadlock like shapes, but they aren't dreadlocks just tied together. He wears light blue baggy jeans, which have been repaired beyond counting, and the knees are padded on the inside, visable sticks run all around it. He wears a band-shirt but has no idea who the band is. He has sea blue eyes. He wears gaurtext boots which are well servesised but bear the scars of long use. His left arm has a burn scar from the wrist up to his shoulder. He wears fingerless bike gloves as well. he also has a zip up hoodie, which is a dull gray. Finally he is never without his token belt. a studded black belt onto which he ties tokens. These tokens are: any of the many coloured sashs he isn't wearing in his hair. a dull silver locket, which he never opens, three wedding rings on a small steel shain and then he routinly adds or takes off various miscalous items such as key rings or cheap embelshments.

Reason for running away: Lucas has a shady past, his parents died when he was six and its their rings he wears on the belt. He lived with his foster parents in Birgham (England, UK, EU,) When his foster father died at christmas of a heart attack when Lucas was 15 he added the ring to his collection, After a year his foster mother remarried and a after a few months the new one began to abuse Lucas and his foster mother, finally Lucas snapped and murdered his foster father, The Detective on the case made a secret deal with Lucas that he should leave the country and pulled strings with his overseas freind to get him a perminent visa in america, but they were found out before Lucas could leave so he had to travel across the mainland by trians and buses until he reaached siberia, where he and other illegal migrants stole onboard a cargo ship bound for LA. Oh one more thing he is Bisexual, and did terrible things on his journey which took over a month. he doesn't talk about it but shows in his eyes internal scars. He is also very intellegent, and has hidden his emotions, leading a few to see him as a sociopath, even though he is not.
Author: d-w

updated Aug 8 '11 by JordiePop14