I walked until the houses slouched closer together and the roofs lost their snow to the warmth of the bodies hidden inside.
I wasn’t sure where I meant to go, just that it had to be somewhere past the limits of my own street, somewhere I wouldn’t have to turn around and see the glow of our living room TV pulsing against the curtains like a lighthouse for the damned.
My feet stopped tingling and started hurting, then stopped hurting at all, which was worse. I noticed how the world went pale and dreamy at the edges, how my arms looked thinner than ever, sticking out of my sleeves.
I thought maybe if I held my breath long enough, I could breathe the cold all the way through me, turn clear as glass, and nobody would ever find me.
The wind picked up, rattling the trees, and with each gust, I lost a little more of myself.
My legs were moving on their own, no plan, just the memory of forward.
I drifted down a side street I almost recognized, past a mailbox shaped like a barn, past a house with Christmas lights still up.
I followed the shriek of the wind until it drowned everything else, until even the memory of my own voice felt like someone else’s, far off.
That was when I saw him: Caiden, standing alone at the edge of his driveway, his breath curling in the air. He had a shovel and was hacking at a pile of icy slush that blocked the storm drain. His cheeks were blotched red from the wind, and his hair looked even more hacked.
He was wearing gloves. My hands were purple and raw, and I watched him spread salt onto the sidewalk with careful shakes, as if the powder was something valuable.
When he noticed me, he stopped, shovel angled like a sword. He squinted, face pinched up.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was sharp, like he’d been caught singing to himself.
I didn’t know what to say. My lips were so cold they could barely move. “Walking,” I said, or tried to, but it sounded more like wuking. My teeth started to chatter as soon as I tried to make words.
He looked at my feet, which was embarrassing, because the socks were completely soaked, crusted with ice.
A weird look crossed his face, almost like he was mad at me, but also like he was mad at the world for making me look so dumb and sad.
“Don’t you have shoes?” he asked.
I shook my head, because lying wouldn’t make any sense, and I was too cold to make something up.
He set down the shovel, hard, and stomped back up his driveway. I stayed where I was, hugging myself so hard my hands disappeared up my sleeves.
My breath hurt coming out. I wondered if he’d come back or if he’d just left me to freeze, and I decided I didn’t blame him either way.
The front door of his house banged open again, and he jogged out, not even wearing a coat, just flannel pajamas and a t-shirt with a dinosaur on it, and carrying something balled up under his arm.
“Here,” he said, shoving the bundle at my chest like he was returning the world’s worst library book. “Put these on.”
I looked down. It was a pair of his old snow boots (blue, with pterodactyl stickers stuck along the side) and a giant winter coat that smelled like dryer sheets and boy.
He didn’t even wait for me to say thanks or make fun of me. Just watched, arms crossed, as I wriggled my frozen feet into the boots.
The jacket swallowed me up, swallowing my arms and puffing out around my neck like a life vest. It was warm, though, and after two breaths the world started to thaw back into color.
Caiden hesitated on the porch, then glanced behind him, like there might be a trap ready to spring. “Why’da you come here?” he whispered, like it wasn’t allowed.
I shrugged and tried to think of a reason that didn’t sound stupid. “I just needed to walk. I didn’t mean to come to your house. I was just walking.” My voice was still all shivery, like it was coming from an underwater tunnel. “The guy in our house locked me out. He said I was bad.”
Caiden’s face went tight, and for a second I thought he might yell at me the way the man had, but he just nodded once and said, “He’s the bad one. Not you.”
It was quiet for a minute. The sky had just started to spit snow again, whispery flakes that camouflaged the old ones and erased everything behind us. I liked the feeling of being erased, of having all the bad stuff get covered up in white.
“Can I come in?” I asked. The words surprised me. I never asked to go in anywhere, not even to Larchmont’s. I don’t know what I expected. Probably a no, or a maybe, or a weird look.
Caiden shook his head, hard. “My dad’s inside. He’ll freak out if he sees you. In fact, you should probably go.”
