Having sown her seeds of secrecy, Sissy set about to reap, perhaps a bud of love by summer’s ripening breath. Her bedroom door locked, she changed quickly from the heavy, flannel pajamas to something more flattering. Perfume could wait until she was in the car, no point fanning an unwelcome fire.

Her iPod in its deck plained mournful, pouting songs to cover her elopement. And with what light tred she broke from the trailer window. Love, her goal, lay only a car ride away, to be seized for her own this night before it can fade away, too much like lightning which ceases to be before you can say it’s there.

True this may be just a dream, the child of an idle brain, but had she not won this prize? And who could stop her? A dozen friends all thought she was sneaking out to see a different friend. Who could unravel that mystery?

Her car, parked on the incline, only groaned quietly as she took off the break and let it roll away from her humble home, away from sorrow, for stony limits cannot hold love out.