Page 72

“Kamden.”

My hand closes around the doorknob. She calls my name again as I push the door open. I offer no answer.

The door clicks shut behind me, and the cold night wraps around me like a promise.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I start walking anyway. Three blocks later, I realize I truly have no idea where to go. Do I try to find a homeless shelter? Do I spend my precious money on a motel room?

I have Dad’s tote clutched against my ribs and my stuffed rabbit tucked beneath my arm like I’m eight years old again.

Tears keep sliding down my face, but I don’t bother wiping them away anymore because nobody’s around to see.

The neighborhood feels different this late.

The houses loom as dark shapes, windows shuttered. Empty porches sag in the gloom. A dog barks behind a fence; a wind chime tinkles in the breeze.

I keep walking, one foot in front of the other.

For years, leaving existed as a plan.

A beautiful plan.

I would graduate, keep saving up as much as I could, find a small apartment with reasonable rent. I’d move my clothes first, then Dad’s things, then my sewing supplies and whatever else. I’d only tell Mom after everything important was already gone so she couldn’t stop me.

Maybe I’d cry, and maybe she would—though probably not.

I would leave with a key to somewhere else in my pocket. A bed waiting for me, a lease signed, an address to call mine.

A future.

Instead, I have $182, a stuffed rabbit, and a dead man’s memory.

A sob catches in my throat, and a wet, ugly laugh bursts out. “Huge improvement. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know where to go. I’m sorry,” I breathe, unsure who I’m apologizing to.

Dad, for not learning how to leave properly? Or to myself, for staying too long?

“I tried,” I choke out. The words break into another sob. I stop under a streetlight, its yellow glow warming my face, and fold forward, holding the box as if it could save me. My shoulders quake. “I really tried.”

All my life, I believed effort was the ticket to freedom. More shifts, more savings, more quiet compliance. I thought Mom couldn’t touch my plans, but she always finds the soft spot, always presses until something breaks.

I straighten and keep walking.

I pass the corner store—closed, of course. The metal security gate has been pulled over the windows.

Dad isn’t there tonight.

Not even in memory.

“Could really use you right now,” I whisper.

I continue walking, not waiting for the dead to answer my plea. I cross another street, then another.

The houses thin out as I drift toward a row of older businesses, most dark for the night. Streetlight pools on the wet pavement where a sprinkler ran too long. A dead moth lies wings-up under the bench by the bus stop.

An alley cuts between two brick buildings; I barely notice it.

I’m too busy staring at the pavement, at my own feet moving one and then the other. Cracks in the sidewalk. Gum wads gone gray.

My sneakers scuff through grit.