Everyone dreams of doing things. Impossible things. Things that you know you will probably never do or see in your life. Making you just so much more depressed when you are thinking about death, since thinking about death means taking inventory of the things you never got to do and will never get to do in your life.

I have a bucket list too. I guess everyone does, whether they call it a bucket list or not. Things they want to do. Places they want to see, before the inevitable happens. I’m no different. I dream just as hard as any other guy my age.

I take a good hard look at the piece of paper stuck to the wall with a thumb nail. I guess I shouldn’t have stuck it in that way. It ruins the wallpaper and there is no way that my foster dad will thank me for it once he realises I’m gone and left him a hole to repair. Not that it really matters. Not much matters at this stage in any case. All that matters is the list and the things I need to do before I die.

I read through the list once more. Trying to commit every item to memory. In order preferably. The list is short, and half of it is probably stupid, but those are the things I truly want to do before I die.

1. Love someone.

Weird one hey? This doesn’t mean love someone as in a relationship. I just want to actually feel like I love someone again. Someone that loves me back. Not some foster mother or father. Not some blonde cheerleader. I want something real. I don’t care if it’s just someone I can love like a brother or sister. I just want to feel the type of love again I had for my mother before she died.

2. Kiss in the rain.

Cliché right? Yeah… Maybe I am a bit of a romantic in my own way. I know I probably won’t really love the person. I might be in love, or at least be in hormones. But I’ve watched The Notebook a million times and that’s the one scene I would have loved to recreate. I want to kiss someone in the rain.

3. Sleep in a field.

So, who would rather sleep in a field, rather than a hotel? Me. Why? I want to fall asleep staring at the skies and making up my own constellations. Also this number adds on to my next point on the list.

4. Go on a road trip.

Which might be a little bit difficult. I have never driven a car in my life, and I don’t have any driving lessons scheduled in the foreseeable future.

5. Stand on the edge of the world, looking at everything all at once.

I have no idea how I will do this. I don’t even know what it means, but I’ve put it onto the list, hoping that when the moment is right I will know.

6. Have my fortune read and then tell the person they were dead wrong.

Because obviously they’d be. They can’t have an idea what I am really planning, and if someone can read your future, it means that you have a future. I don’t have one.

7. Adopt a dog.

An old one will be better. Maybe we will end up dying together. Maybe he or she will keep on living with a new family once I’m gone. But I need to at least save one animal on my way.

8. Eat caviar.

Yes! I got the memo… It’s fish eggs and the idea of that is totally disgusting, but I need to try it at least once. I mean, think about it. Jack ate it on the Titanic. Mary Antoinette probably inhaled buckets full. I need to taste what the fuss is all about.

9. Have sex.

This one is far down on the list, because I will probably have to pay for it. I know… Maybe I’m being negative. Maybe I am just being very realistic. Whichever the case, I will probably leave this for when I’m ready to kick the bucket list under the arse. No need to give enough time to actually find out I have picked up an STI before I die.

10. The end.

I don’t know when, where or how. But when it comes I’ll know. The moment has to be the right one.

When I can almost recite the whole list of by heart I take it off the wall and stuff it with the few belongings I am taking with me. I don’t need much. A duffle bag should do it. No point in having more than I can carry when my feet is probably the best transport I will have for a very long time.

“Goodbye Buster,” I whisper to the four year old sleeping in the bed next to mine.

He will probably be the only one that will wonder where I have disappeared off to. The rest… Well, the rest will probably just think that I ran away from home, just another foster kid on the streets, too troubled to be helped. I like that idea. And they probably won’t even come looking for me. I already turned eighteen. I’m legal. They won’t be looking after me much longer in any case. As soon as term ends I’ll probably be out on the street with the rest of the trash.

I pull on my windbreaker for some extra warmth. This might not be the best time of year for a road trip on foot, but it sure as hell is the only time I will have this opportunity. Who knows what might happen next week? I might wake up and the money my mom left me might be gone. I might have to stay here until they kick me out. And then? What happens next? The street? A shelter? I’d rather have it on my own terms than anyone else forcing me into it.

Almost silently I open up the bedroom window and climb out onto the ledge in front of my window. I drop the duffle bag into the bushes underneath me before I carefully close the window and lower myself down the wall of the house, as far as I can go. When I am certain I can’t lower myself any further and my fingers begin to cramp from holding my weight I let go and drop down to the ground, falling right next to my duffle bag in the bushes. Not exactly the soft landing I was hoping for, but far better than what it could have gone in the end. At least I didn’t break anything.

I open my duffle bag and rummage through the insides, searching for the phantom mask my foster dad gave me a few months ago.

“You’re scaring the little ones,” he said, putting it on my face for me, covering the half that looks like molten wax. I didn’t tell him that the three little ones were fine with my face. They asked their questions when I got here, and then never stared or pointed or asked anything again. They were fine with it. It was him staring and pulling faces at the dinner table as if he was going to vomit every time he looked at me.

“I don’t need a mask,” I answered, wanting to take it off, but he caught my hands.

“Please Brody. Meet us halfway here. Maybe it would make you feel a bit better as well to have something to hide behind. Something that can give you a sense of normality back.”

I wanted to yell. I didn’t want a mask. My face is like a battle scar. Sure, I get sad when I see it in the mirror. I still remember my face the way it used to be. Touching it feels creepy and wrong to say the least. But I went through hell for it. I didn’t need a mask to make me look like I am celebrating Halloween every day of the year. Normality would have been if nobody gave a damn what I looked like in the first place. But then… Somewhere in between the mask grows on you. The sudden head turn of a person on the street to make sure they saw right and that you really are wearing a mask becomes better than the open staring that some people prefer to do, or the little girl in the mall that once screamed at the top of her lungs as if I really was a character from some horror story. Sure, I look ghastly, but don’t people teach their kids manners anymore? Back when I was five and did something like that my mom would have probably smacked me and told me to grow some manners immediately or I will have to wait for her in the car. I guess the times have just changed.

Which is why I want to die.

My sneakers slamming on the gravel underneath my feet, making the only sound down the suburban road where everybody is still asleep, hoping to get enough rest before their rat race lives starts off again in just a few hours. On the one hand I should be thankful that I don’t have a full face anymore. Maybe that’s exactly what I needed otherwise I would have gotten trapped in the rat race as well. Living each and every day as a replica of the last. That to me is like committing suicide without dying. It’s how I imagine hell would be like. Repetitive and boring. Both of the things that I have fought against my whole life, but would have become had I not climbed out of my warm bed and out a window ten minutes ago.

I pull out my cell phone. I probably won’t have it for much longer, but for the next few hours I might need it. I punch the only contact in my phonebook that means anything to me and listen to the phone ring, hoping that he would still be up. That his insomnia would be really bad again and that he would answer the phone.

“Brody?” the voice says on the other side. He sounds sleepy and I almost feel guilty that I phoned. With his insomnia he doesn’t sleep much and he desperately needs some sleep. I saw him a week ago and the dark circles under his eyes made him look like Count Dracula.

“Did I wake you buddy?” I ask, slowing down my pace so that I would not sound too out of breath. It’s only when you are doing something dangerous that you shouldn’t be doing in the middle of the night that you find out how truly unfit you really are.

“Yeah…” I can hear him yawn. “What’s up? Can’t sleep?”

“Could probably,” I answer, picking up y pace slightly again when a dog barks next to me.

“Sounds like you’re outside?” E.J. asks.

“Something like that,” I reply and then stay quiet just long enough to make my final decision in telling him, but not long enough for him to interrupt. “I’m running away from home. I’m going to do everything I ever wanted to do. I want to live.”

“You’re doing what?” E.J. replies and I can hear the shock in his voice. Maybe it was bad timing to tell him something like this while he is still half asleep.

“I’m getting the hell out of this state. Away from everyone and everything. I need out E.J. I want to live again, not hide behind a mask the whole fucking time,” I answer as the dog behind me stops barking.

“I thought you said you like the mask…”

“I said I like the fact that people don’t gawk at me if I have the mask on,” I correct him. “But I want to be me again. Even if I only have half a bloody face.”

“So you just wanted to tell me that you’re running away? Where are you going?” E.J. asks.

“I don’t know yet. But E.J…” I think twice before I say the rest, but my second thought is the same as my first. “There’s a ticket for you as well. If you want to go with me.”

“You want me to run away with you?” E.J. ask and I can hear the worry in his voice.

“No. I want you to live with me,” I answer. I can feel E.J. thinking on the other side and a smile pulls at my lips.

“Money?” he asks.

“All sorted. All you’ll need is a bag of stuff and there we go,” I answer. “Pack all of your favourites and meet me down at the bus station in an hour if you can. I’d like to be the fuck out of here before the sun comes up.”

“Jesus Brody… Couldn’t you have given me a heads up that you were planning this shit?” E.J. asks. He sounds a bit more awake now.

“How could I have? I didn’t decide on a date until earlier tonight, and you only got to town like a week ago remember? How could I have predicted that tonight would be a perfect night to fuck our old lives over?” I ask. The smile widening on my face.

“You’re unbelievable you know…” E.J. answers and I can hear his smile through the phone.

“Unbelievable handsome yes,” I answer into the phone, picking up my pace again. For some reason the fear that I did have for this trip is starting to disappear and is being replaced by something different. Excitement maybe?

“With that face? Only your mother could love you,” E.J. answers making me laugh.

“Please. We all know you’ve been in love with this face since you saw it for the first time.”

“Which makes me as fuckt up as you,” he answers with a laugh before the line between us die and I start jogging to the bus station to meet my best friend in the world.