By the time I hit the highway, the sun was beginning to dip, turning the Romanian hills into silhouettes of sleeping giants. The radio played a scratchy folk song about a traveler who forgot his name but found his soul. I rolled down the window, and the air changed. It was no longer the scent of my mother’s laundry detergent or the dusty hallways of school. It smelled like wet pine, asphalt, and the terrifying, beautiful unknown. Every kilometer was a cord snapping. Am plecat. I had left.
I didn’t leave because of a fight or a broken heart. I left because the walls of my childhood bedroom had started to feel like a museum, and I was tired of being the only exhibit. Am Plecat De Acasa
I had no hotel booked, only the name of a town three hundred miles away and a feeling in my chest that finally felt like it had enough room to breathe. I wasn't running away from home; I was running toward the person I was supposed to be when no one was watching. By the time I hit the highway, the