Crabbe explains that he is having a hard time putting into words why he ran away from home because he has always been somewhat inarticulate, was always told what to think by his family, and no one at school was ever interested in his feelings. He claims running away from home was the one independent act of his life, so he is not sorry he ran away.

He recalls reading “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner,” a short story in which an athletically-talented but poor teenager sentenced to reform school intentionally loses an important race in order to demonstrate his refusal to go along with others’ plans for him. Crabbe says the story proves the point that “[s]ometimes words don’t count” (20). Crabbe says he wanted to do something like the runner to express his thoughts and feelings. What he terms his “escape” is that act.

Crabbe explains that it’s hard to runaway without being detected, but that in his case, he was able to pick a place his parents would never suspect as a hiding place: a campsite he stayed at with his father years ago. This was part of the only such trip his father ever took with him.