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I hate it when he does that.
“You won’t allow me anything! Why don’t you trust me? You never even give me a chance to screw up.” I look away and whisper. “Who else do you have to trust but me?”
I can almost hear his mind turning behind his skull. But he refuses to answer my question, leaving us with nothing. Our chance is lost. No.Hischance is lost. I won’t let go of mine. I know that something has to change—for my sake.
“Fine, keep your secrets.” I jump up. “I’m going to bed.”
“Eden!” he calls after me, but I hurry past him, running up the stairs.
I slam the door shut, rattling the frame and letting the sound echo through the house. The silence that follows is deafening—both of us too stubborn to say anything else. As soon as I hear his footsteps pass by my door to his bedroom, my anger and frustration boil over, spilling out in hot, angry tears.
I scream into my pillow, battering it with my tight fists. My dad loves me, that much I know. But his past has a hold on him. I can’t believe my mother would have wanted this life for him, for us.
What can he possibly be scared of?
I pace around my room and my thoughts fuel my need to escape. And something catches my eye. My graduation congratulations card from my cousin Mercy, adorned in the art deco style of the Empire State Building.
But most importantly, there’s a return address on it.
New York …
I can disappear, live my own life in New York, and crash on Mercy’s couch for a few days as I figure life out. A fresh start, far away from Dad.
I reach for a small wooden box hidden beneath my bed—an old family heirloom that holds my secret stash of cash. Over the past year, I’ve been saving cash from my allowance. I thought one day I would just announce to my father that I was moving out.
I just never thought that day would be coming so soon.
Slowly, I count every dollar, and count again, just so I’m sure. Less than three hundred dollars … It’s not much, but even I know it’s more than enough to pay for a bus ticket out of Holtsville forever.
I can start a new life.
A better life.
One without someone like Dad keeping me on a tight leash, locked up in a tower that I can never escape from.
I start grabbing things to put into my backpack. A couple of shirts, a few pairs of socks and underwear, a toothbrush. My eyes settle on the massive book ofWhat Great Paintings Say—my sixteenth birthday present from Dad in happier times and one of my most treasured possessions. It’s huge and heavy, but I can’t bear leaving it behind, so I stuff it into my backpack.
I take one last look around my room—the hot pink walls, the neatly arranged art books, and the plush stuffed animals on my twin bed since childhood. It’s a cage, a pretty one, but a cage that I have to leave.
The moonlight casts a pale glow on my bedroom wall. I pull the covers up to my chin and nervously glance at the clock—almost midnight. My gaze is fixed on my bedroom door as I wait for a sound, any sound. The soft sound of the clock in my room seems to slow with eachtickuntil I’m sure that no one is awake but me.
Now or never.
I ignore the gnawing guilt in my stomach and open my bedroom window quietly. I hoist myself onto the ledge, gripping the ivy trellis for dear life. My ankle wiggles as I secure my balance, and I inhale sharply, not daring to look down.
I used to do this so effortlessly as a kid, but tonight, the ground seems farther away. Thick ivy presses hard against my face as I gradually climb down.
Finally, I make it to the ground, panting and slightly disheveled, but otherwise free.
Looking up at the second-floor windows, I’m relieved when no lights come on. Darkness shields me from view as I run from the driveway to the street. A few neighbors have their lights on, but I know no one will be interested in what I’m doing except my dad. When I reach the corner, I peek behind me to make sure no one is coming, and then I race down Hillview Road toward the last bus into New York.
I hope he won’t miss me too much, even though I know he will.
And it’s only after I step on the bus that I realize it’s the first night I never told him I love him.
3
EDEN
