Meeting Fear

In a taxicab on way way into the unknown, the driver asked me where I was headed. He had to have known I was running away. He had to have known what was going on. But hey, a paycheck's a paycheck, and who's gonna question you at the end of the day?
He mentioned the Greyhound Bus, and I knew about it, but hadn't thought about that idea. I asked him to take me to the bus station, and after an eerie ride in the dark, I arrived, spending almost all my money on the cab.
I checked into the bus station, feeling about as strange as I had ever felt. Men were smoking outside giving me feaverish glances, even though I felt very androgynous with my short hair and black beanie. The security searched my backpack, and I went to the desk to ask about bus tickets. I had six dollars. Not enough to get anywhere.
So I started walking...and tried to hitchhike. I got picked up by an elderly African American man. He asked me how old I was. I told him I was eighteen. I told him I was headed towards New Orleans or California.
We weren't driving for long when we turned into an alleyway so he could urinate in a gutter. I guess he couldn't be bothered to find a toilet. Or a bush. That would have been enough for me. A gutter is stooping pretty low. But looking back on the situation, I'm somewhat certain that he was already drunk; if he wasn't, than his car smelled like booze and cigarettes, and he was searching out his first drink of the night. We stopped to buy it at a small, late night liquor store. He asked me to go in and buy it for him, then he remembered I was 'only eighteen'.
We raced through traffic after he had failed to find his drink of choice, and stopped at this tiny place that seemed to act for him as a drive through. Everything was closed between those hours of the night, and he seemed downright pissed about it.
He dropped me off at the Greyhound bus station, and I hung around feeling desperate. He had told me to go back to my parents. I knew I couldn't do that now; now I was committed.
So I walked. For miles through the dark, and the cold, I hummed songs to myself, I heard the radio playing when I passed car dealerships. I wanted to cry, but that would be giving up I wouldn't let my tears flow. Passing by groups of men huddled together drinking and tossing me glances, and those moments when a car would slow down next to me as I walked, and I would feel my heart race and adrenaline speed through my system as I could not see their face, new only that a man was offering me a ride, and that if I got into that car I might never see another human being again. I was afraid, and I believe somehow that despite this being less physically damaging, and although I have been through 'worse' than this since then, I have never forgotten the ever present fear of that night, even though nothing came of it at the time.
In the end, I gave up. Dawn was coming, my parents would be waking up soon, and my epic plan to escape was indeed an utter failure. I entered a seven-eleven and bought a drink, and paced the floor, attempting to make a decision.
I made one.
I called the police. Who came.
Convincing me to tell him what happened, I made the decision that became a turning point in my life.
He called my parents, and I told them the same story...I even began to believe my own lies. "I don't know what happened! I just woke up and found myself here! I thought I'd been kidnapped!"

That night I first experienced real fear. I didn't think that we would meet up again so quickly.