It was one of those nights when home wasn't where she wanted to be.
She needed to get out, to run, to see those dark old paths, visit those old haunts. There were those rusted blue garbage bins, there were those dying maples. There was that old cafe, the alleyway, the crumbling apartment.
All in her mind, all in memory. Where they belonged. There was no reason for her to go back, but if she left, she knew that was where she would go.

It was where he had gone, she remembered. He had gone back and she had needed to guide his wife there. It had been the first time she talked to her. She had warned her in a note, but never spoken with her. Then he had gone back, and the phone had rung. "Where is he? Do you know where he could have gone?"

He had gone back, as she was longing to do just then. Not for him, not for those old, abandoned times. Things had changed so much for her over the years, and it all felt so fast. She wanted to go back into her memory, run her fingers over those rough bricks, scuff her feet through that dust and cough when it rose to her face, and peer through the grimy windows at the dim, smoggy moonlight.

None of it was possible anymore. The building was gone. The bins and trees were gone. The smog was gone. The place was not built on yet, but it would be. It was an empty, weedy lot now. The memories there had been demolished. She knew it. She hadn't been there, but she had seen the pictures. She had felt a twinge then. It was only a building among buildings, a rotting, forsaken one that would have fallen on its own eventually. But it had been a home. It was no longer, and yet she wanted to leave home now to see that one again.

He shifted beside her in bed, snoring softly, as always. It had been strange the day she realized she couldn't sleep without that noise, once so irritating. She couldn't sleep away from home any longer. Yet she wanted to get away tonight, not to sleep. Just to run; to run, and see those old places, now lost.

She put a hand over her stomach, ever so slightly rounded now. It was destined to distend more over the next few months. She could remember when he would never have considered this. Even more, she could remember when she never would have. So many things had changed. Things were wonderful now, but just for a moment she wanted to go back. Life had come at her so fast, and its disruptive course was now being disrupted even more by this unrequited desire to leave.

It was drawing at her feet now, pulling them out from under the covers against her will. It had been an age since she had last been attacked by this urge, and back then she was able to give into it without a thought. He would worry about her now though. Perhaps her husband would go to her old friend, as his wife had once come to her. "Where is she? Can you help me find her?"

She would worry about herself, and him. She would worry about him worrying about her, a circuitous thought of a sort that had never before occurred to her. That was how things were now; it was always what his thoughts could be that were on her mind rather than what hers were. Perhaps she needed this break. She was sitting up now, although she wasn't quite sure when she had done so. He was still asleep, broad chest rising with each calm breath. Perhaps he wouldn't wake at all. Her feet were on the floor. Her fingers clenched the edge of the mattress, as though some parts of her were still wanting her to stay, while so many others weren't.

She'd be back.