When a neglected girl falls for a charismatic fugitive, she must choose between the fantasy of freedom and the hard math of life on the run, before the law and her own conscience close in.

Rabbit (C.J. Hayden’s alias) has spent her whole life trying to do everything right. Dutiful daughter, Girl Scout, churchgoer, a good little nobody who doesn’t make trouble. But when she runs away from her chaotic family to Canada at age fifteen, she lands among deserters, drifters, and one especially charming outlaw with a motorcycle jacket and a terrible idea of loyalty.

At first, the new life looks like liberation: hitchhiking, hostels, assumed names, and just enough romance to keep her going. Then the rules start changing. Rabbit steals to eat, lies to stay legal, and realizes the man she loves will never be hers alone. “Free love” sounds better in theory than it feels in a broken-down van full of strangers.

The law is on her tail. Her mother won’t protect her. And Rabbit is starting to grasp that the biggest danger might be the story she’s been telling herself about who she is.

Set in the Vietnam-era 1970s, Alias Rabbit is an unflinching memoir about what survival can cost a girl who only wants somewhere to belong.

If you’ve ever been judged for how you survived, Rabbit’s story offers validation. Your strategies kept you alive even though they came at a price, and healing trauma doesn’t mean being fixed.