Page 528 - A Little Life: A Novel

everything. He knew he would eventually have to leave this road, which
was narrow and mostly dirt, and move toward the highway, where he would
be more exposed but also more anonymous, and he moved quickly down

the hill that led toward the black dense woods that separated the road from
the interstate. Running on grass was more difficult, but he did so anyway,
keeping close to the edge of the forest so that if a car passed, he could duck
within it and hide behind a tree.
As an adult, as a crippled adult, and then as a crippled adult who was
truly crippled, as someone who could no longer even walk, as someone for
whom running was a magic trick, as impossible as flying, he would look

back on that night with awe: how fleet he had been, how fast, how tireless,
how lucky. He would wonder how long he had run that night—at least two
hours, he thought, maybe three—although at the time he hadn’t thought
about that at all, only that he needed to get as far as he could from the
home. The sun began to appear in the sky, and he ran into the woods, which
were the source of many of the younger boys’ fears, and which were so

crowded and lightless that even he was frightened, and he was not
frightened in general by nature, but he had gone as deep into them as he
could, both because he had to go through the woods to reach the interstate
and because he knew that the deeper he hid within them, the less likely he
was to be discovered, and finally he had chosen a large tree, one of the
largest, as if its size offered some promise of reassurance, as if it would
guard and protect him, and had tucked himself between its roots and slept.

When he woke it was dark again, although whether it was late afternoon
or late evening or early morning he wasn’t certain. He began moving his
way through the trees again, humming to comfort himself and to announce
himself to whatever might be waiting for him, to show them he was
unafraid, and by the time he had been spat out by the woods on the other
side, it was still dark, so he knew it was in fact nighttime, and he had slept

all day, and that knowledge made him feel stronger and more energetic.
Sleep is more important than food, he remonstrated himself, because he was
very hungry, and then to his legs: Move. And he did, running again uphill
toward the interstate.
He had realized at some point in the forest that there was only one way
he would be able to get to Boston, and so he stood by the side of the road,
and when the first truck stopped for him and he climbed aboard, he knew

what he would have to do when the truck stopped, and he did it. He did it