The bus smelled like old coffee and sweat. The kind of stink that clings to the walls of cheap motels and men running from something.
Claire sat by the window, forehead against the glass. Outside, the desert blurred past, endless and dead. Her mother had always said the West was where people went to disappear. Claire was counting on that.
Her fingers traced the bruises on her wrist, the ones Dan had left behind. A reminder. He’d told her she’d never make it out. But here she was, heading west, the way dreamers and drifters always did.
The man beside her turned his head. Greasy hair, yellowed teeth. “Where you goin’?”
“California.”
He laughed. A dry, wheezing sound. “You don’t look like no California girl.”
She didn’t answer. The bus rattled on, past signs for places that barely existed. A gas station. A diner with flickering neon. The world shrinking into dust.
Night came. The stars spread out, cold and distant. Claire closed her eyes. She thought of ocean waves, of fresh air, of a place where nobody knew her name. A place where Dan couldn’t find her.
The bus pulled into a stop. Just another nowhere town.
She opened her eyes.
Dan was there.
Standing under the buzzing streetlight. Smiling.
Waiting.
Her breath caught. The doors hissed open.
Nowhere left to run.
