Run on Red

by Noelle W. Ihli

His profile photo bore almost zero resemblance to the tall, painfully quiet, acne-covered senior who wrote things like “me likey” and “bomb diggity”

What the freak

I’d been bracing for something bad to happen for as long as I could remember.

Mood.

In a survival situation, everything is inconvenient. Stay focused on your top priority. Resist panic.

I’d always thought of myself as a true-crime junkie. But it turned out, that was only when it happened to other people.

Woah.

I’d always thought I could skip the bad parts of life if I tried hard enough. If I was smart enough. But sometimes the trouble came to you—for the simple fact that it could and it wanted to.

Also mood.