WHEN HE GETS to my house, they all there. Miss Saunders, Maleeka, JuJu, Cricket, and Mr. Bobbie, who sitting on the porch with a shotgun in his hand.

I almost hug the bus driver, but I can’t. I repeat myself. “Thank you.” Then my eyes find the sign over the porch again.

WELCOME HOME, CHAR!

WE LOVE YOU

The bus driver drove all night. His wife slept most of the way. I stayed awake the entire time, eyeballing every car, truck, motorcycle, and bike I saw. “Don’t let him get me.” I said that to the bus driver so many times I can’t count. He said he wouldn’t. And he didn’t, just like he promised.

A woman twelve blocks from Daddy’s house took me in. I ain’t tell her the whole truth about what happened. I was too scared. “My boyfriend did this to me,” I said. Then I asked her not to call the police. And to let me call my father.

“Help me,” I said to him on the phone. He was at her house in twenty minutes. I showered and got dressed at their place. Put on their daughter’s clothes. Two hours later we was leaving.

Bus drivers know all the back roads, little towns and places where there’s lots of state troopers and police watching out. I begged him again not to call the cops. But I ain’t tell him the whole truth either. I lied. Told him an old man with hair in his ears was stalking me, threatening to kill me, and all I wanted was to go home.

Walking up to the porch steps, I break down crying. JuJu run over and hands Cricket to me. They all circle around me, rub my back, pat my arm—even the driver and his wife.

Bet they think I’m the same Char they used to know. I’m not. She gone. And she ain’t never coming back.