“One Night Out of Here”

You texted Kevin two words around 8:47 PM:

“Come get me.”

You didn’t need to explain. He knew.

Ten minutes later, headlights washed across your bedroom window. You climbed out quietly—hoodie on, backpack slung over your shoulder, lighter in your pocket, and nothing else. Your parents didn’t hear the creak of your window. Or if they did, they didn’t care.

Kevin didn’t say anything when you got in the car. He just glanced at you, his eyes soft, then turned up the heat and started driving.

You didn’t ask where.

That was the point.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, he pulled off a back road and into a quiet stretch of field behind some gas station that had been closed since before either of you were born. No lights. Just stars. Cold air. Silence.

You got out and stood in the field, arms crossed, watching your breath curl in the night air. Kevin leaned against the hood of the car, watching you.

“I want to leave,” you said finally. “Like, really leave.”

“I know,” he said.

You walked over to him, your hands shoved deep in your sleeves, and leaned into his chest. “Sometimes I think about just hitchhiking out of town. Becoming someone else. Somewhere no one knows me.”

Kevin wrapped his arms around you, his voice muffled in your hair. “You’d still be you. I’d find you.”

You let out a laugh, small and bitter. “You’d probably be better off if you didn’t.”

“Don’t say that,” he said, quietly but firmly. “Don’t ever say that.”

He tipped your chin up. His eyes searched yours like he was reading through the pages of a book he’d already memorized but kept opening anyway.

“You’re not a burden,” he said. “You’re just tired. And hurting. That’s not your fault.”

You didn’t respond. You just leaned up and kissed him.

Not rushed. Not desperate. Just soft. Like gratitude. Like love. Like thank you for not letting me disappear.

He pulled you onto the hood of the car, both of you laying back against the windshield, the stars blurring overhead.

He passed you the blunt he’d rolled in silence while waiting for you.

You took a slow drag.

Then handed it back.

Then you whispered, “Do you think we’ll ever get out?”

Kevin didn’t lie.

He just said, “Maybe not yet. But we will. Together.”

You didn’t know if that was true.

But for now, lying next to him under the stars with smoke in your lungs and nowhere you had to be—you believed him.

And for one night, it was enough.