Somewhere better.

There's a girl in some big city somewhere, who falls asleep to screaming sirens and honking cars, too-loud laughter and clinking wine glasses.

In a small town somewhere else, there's a boy who drifts off every night to the chorus of frogs and crickets, wind-rustled leaves and old floor boards creaking.

Every night she cracks her blinds just so, so that the light of the city pours into her bed room with a soft glow. She'll pretend it's a dreamy mixture of star-and-moonlight, and wriggle her toes in the artificial light beneath her blankets.

He plasters his walls with photographs of busy cities and crowded intersections, and daydreams of far-away night-life. Dancing, flashing lights, pounding music, taxis honking. . . In comparison to his monotonous life and boring school dances, he imagines it to be a wonderland of sparkling cityscapes.

She'll call a taxi after school, and give the address of the drawbridge over the polluted lake. She'll plug into her music, and escape into her own world behind closed eyes during the ride there. When the cabbie yells at her that they've arrived, she pays him, tips him a tad bit too much so he gives her a quicksilver smile, a flash of a silver tooth before he peels away too fast, merging into the yellow sea of honking horns and squealing tires.

He takes his long-gone elder brother's truck after school band-practice ends, throws his guitar into the cab and drives, drives, drives. It takes him an hour to drive to the nearest city, and another 15 minutes to actually find a parking space. Then he walks, guitar slung over his shoulder, until he comes to a bench right near the busiest intersection. He'll sit there for hours, strumming his guitar in harmony to the sounds of the city, pretending he's somewhere different. Somewhere better.

She takes a deep breath and walks for 5 minutes down past the bridge, past the roller skaters and screaming children tugging on their mother's arms, until she comes to an old bench near a tiny beach. She remembers when she first found the place; the little patch of grey sand had been full of glass shards, plastic bottles, even an old tire. It took 11 afternoons, but in the end she had it cleaned up well enough. She'll curl up on the dilapidated bench and watch the sun sparkle off of the dirty water, listen to the little waves lap up onto the sand and pretend she's at a beach. Somewhere with white satin sand, and crystal clear water. Somewhere better.

He doesn't get off of the bench until the sun has set, the lights have turn on, the tiny night-life has begun. It takes him another hour to drive home, and it's past 11 PM when he pulls into the gravel driveway. Some days feel better then others, the weights are lifted off of his shoulders and he is free, free, free. But no matter what happens, when he returns to his cage the weights come back twice as hard, until he can't breathe. He’ll curl into fetal position on the front seat of the truck and cradle his chest, trying to breathe while he watches that one window’s blinds be pulled to the side, before falling back into place and the light being turn off.

She always leaves at the exact same time every day. She’s timed it so that the exact minute she closes her bedroom door is when the front lock jiggles, when her mothers heels click through the foyer, calling out idly to the maid, who’s long since learned to never tell the Madam when her precious daughter came home, even when she asks. Some nights she gets lucky, and her mother and father just sit in the extravagant living room, watching television and sipping wine. But nearly every other night there’s a business partner, old friend, distant relative, social benefit, charity fundraising, coalition, something that requires her mother to throw one of her infamous dinner parties. And she lies in her bed and stares up at the ceiling, clenching her teeth and praying, praying for the high-heeled clicking to STOP, and the forced laughter to STOP, and the hollow praises (Oh what a beautiful house! What a lovely party! Such a gorgeous family!) to stop, STOP, STOP.

He pulls open the screen door and doesn’t both to stop it from slamming behind him. His step-fathers truck is gone, anyway. He skirts around the broken beer bottle on the false linoleum tiles, the overturn plastic chair and the ripped envelope. He doesn’t take his shoes off until he’s reached his room, locked his door and carefully inspects the bottoms for any stray glass before he puts them away and peels off his clothes. He lies on his side and stares at a poster of a sea-side town on the opposite wall, remembering. Remembering the time before he’d known what happened, the time when his elder brother had been the one slamming the screen door and taking the truck out. Back then, he’d place pillows under his sheets in a kid-shaped lump, unlock the window (just in case) and crawl into the corner of his closet holding the best weapon he had; An old Star Wars light saber, and one of his mother’s sharpest knitting needles.

But he doesn’t want to remember all of that, not tonight. So he puts on his headphones and falls with his iPod still on.

(Should I continue, I wonder?)